Messerschmitt Me 163

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Messerschmitt Me 163
Messerschmitt Me 163B "Komet" missile fighter aircraft
Type: Object protection hunters
Design country:

German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era) German Empire

Manufacturer:

Messerschmitt

First flight:

August 8, 1941

Commissioning:

1944

Number of pieces:

> 350

The Messerschmitt Me 163 "Komet" ( nickname "Kraftei") was a German object protection - interceptor with rocket propulsion ( rocket aircraft ) from Messerschmitt AG . The aircraft was one of the Luftwaffe's top secret projects; development had already started in 1938. A propagandistic use of the project in the sense of miracle weapons did not take place.

For reasons of secrecy, the number 163 was untypically assigned for the second time by the Reich Ministry of Aviation (RLM). The original Bf 163 was a competitor development to the Fi 156 "Storch" . Three test samples (V1 – V3) were built. The first Me 163 was consequently given the name Me 163A V4.

The Me 163 was the first aircraft to exceed the 1000 km / h mark. The Me 163A V4, under the leadership of Heini Dittmar , reached a speed of 1003.67 km / h on October 2, 1941.

Dittmar achieved another unofficial record of 1130 km / h in the Me 163B V18. This was only exceeded in 1953 by a Hawker Hunter F.Mk.3 with 1171 km / h.

history

Origin and planning

The intellectual father of the Me 163 was the aerodynamicist and designer Alexander Lippisch , who was known for his rather unusual aircraft concepts. The DFS 39 and DFS 40 projects as well as the DFS 194 test glider (DFS = German Research Institute for Glider Flight ), which was used for the preliminary testing of the Me-163 design, originate from his drawing board . The development of an interceptor with superior properties was approved by the RLM (code name "Project X"), and in spring 1939 Lippisch and his staff as well as test pilot Heini Dittmar moved from DFS in Braunschweig to Messerschmitt AG in Augsburg, where they managed the "Department L ”formed.

On June 30, 1939, Erich Warsitz carried out the first launch with a liquid rocket motor with the Heinkel He 176 . Heinkel's efforts to develop his own interceptor on this basis were not supported by the RLM, however, as "Project X" was thought to have more potential and Heinkel was supposed to take care of the mass production of the He 111 in view of the approaching war . Nevertheless, three months later, the He 178 flew under Warsitz, the world's first jet turbine aircraft - another design that Heinkel had only "semi-officially" promoted.

Then came the 300 kgf (2943 N ) payable Walter - rocket engine HWK RI-203 , already the He had driven 176 for installation in the DFS 194. Lippisch test pilot Heini Dittmar - an experienced glider pilot, who has much to perfect the DFS 39 - carried out flight tests from the summer of 1940 at the Luftwaffe test center in Peenemünde , although the low-speed airframe of the DFS 194 only allowed speeds of up to 550 km / h. The results were encouraging and work on the first Me 163 continued.

Speed ​​record

Messerschmitt Me 163A V4 "Komet" rocket plane, 1941
Two-side view Me 163a V4

Due to these initial successes, the Reich Aviation Ministry allowed the completion of the first two V-type of the Me 163. Ernst Udet , who had observed a Dittmar overflight at over 800 km / h in Augsburg with the still unpowered Me 163A, supported the continuation of the Project. The first rocket flight of a Me 163 took place on August 8, 1941 in Peenemünde. The Walter RII-203 engine, which is considerably more powerful with a thrust of 750 kp, had previously been installed in the airframe, which was originally designed for speeds of up to around 850 km / h. The pilot was again Heini Dittmar.

As with the DFS 194, a two-wheeled chassis that was dropped immediately after take-off was used; a central runner was used for landing. Already on the fourth flight after a few days, Dittmar reached 840 km / h, in September even 920 km / h - although he lost part of the rudder due to rudder flutter, this had no consequences for the further course of this flight.

In order to fully utilize the possibilities of the machine, which were limited by the fuel consumption in the starting phase, the further starts were carried out in tow of a Messerschmitt Bf 110C . If the rocket engine was only ignited at an altitude of 4000 m, the range and speed could be increased. Despite the limitation of the fuel supply to 75 percent due to the poor performance of the Bf 110, an unofficial speed record was achieved in this way. The measured distance of three kilometers, by Askania - theodolites was determined precisely corresponded to the official rules of the FAI, but it was not flown in the prescribed limit of 100 meters and only in one direction. The time was 10.76 seconds.

On October 2, 1941, a speed of 1003.67 km / h was reached, which corresponds to a Mach number of 0.84. Due to compressibility effects, at this speed the transition to a steerless dive took place shortly after the measurement section. This led to an immediate shutdown of the engine, but Dittmar was able to intercept the aircraft and land safely. Alexander Lippisch and Heini Dittmar were awarded the Lilienthal Medal and Dittmar was appointed flight captain. This record was set almost six years later on June 19, 1947 by a Lockheed P-80 R "Shooting Star" with 1003.59 km / h and on August 20, 1947 by a Douglas D-558-I "Skystreak" 1030.82 km / h exceeded.

The Me 163B was then developed from the Me 163A. The Me 163B was temporarily called Li 163S (S for series version ).

Prototypes and series production

The project description of the Me 163B was submitted to the Reich Aviation Ministry on September 22, 1941, and construction of the fighter aircraft could begin only a few weeks later. The plan was to use a rocket engine from Hellmuth-Walter -Werke in Kiel (HWK); as an alternative, a BMW engine was included, the main fuel component of which was nitric acid. After the assembly of a model aircraft at the Messerschmitt parent plant in Augsburg in 1941, 68 more machines were to be manufactured for testing at Messerschmitt GmbH in Regensburg by August 1, 1943 . Willi Messerschmitt was skeptical of Lippisch's tailless concepts from the start, and so “Department L” received little support. In addition there was the complete failure of the Me 210 and the focus on the Me 309 and the later Me 262. However, under the direction of Messerschmitt's chief works pilot, Hermann Wurster, an alternative design to the Me 210 was created, which is closely based on the conception of the Me 163 and which received the RLM number Me 329 .

In the meantime, progress with the Me 163 was severely delayed by delivery problems at the engine manufacturer HWK. The BMW engine was therefore looked at more closely again, although the first test flights had to be carried out entirely without the engine in the tow plow .

Development of the Me 163

Heini Dittmar carried out the first test flight of the first prototype (Me 163B V1, serial number 163 10010, KE + SX) without an engine on June 26, 1942 . In order to have another test pilot available in the event of Dittmar's failure, Rudolf Opitz was called in . The second model (Me 163B V2, serial number 163 100111, VD + EL) was tested in the same way on the grounds of the Luftwaffe test site (Peenemünde-West). The third prototype went to HWK to install a test engine, and in November 1942 prototype No. 4 (Me 163B V4) was brought to Peenemünde. Significant deficiencies became apparent, the most obvious being the lack of a steerable tail wheel. This had to be retrofitted in order to be able to keep the machine in the direction during the first phase of the start. Due to changes to the trim and landing flaps, the originally planned installation of two additional gondola weapons under the wings, which still appears in some three-sided views, was also omitted.

HWK succeeded in delivering the first two " hot " R-II-211 engines (later designation HWK 109-509A-1 ) only on June 17, 1943, which resulted in the first test flight with its own propulsion under the direction of Rudolf Opitz to delayed to June 24, 1943. In the meantime, Dittmar had suffered severe spinal injuries in a landing accident with a Me 163A and was unable to take part in the flight test.

This first take-off took place in front of many Third Reich officials and almost turned into a disaster when the landing gear broke apart due to a bump. However, Opitz managed to take off the already damaged and meanwhile very fast aircraft from the skid. Lippisch was present on this flight, but had already separated from Messerschmitt and founded his own design office in Wiener Neustadt. Aerodynamically, the cell was perfect and the problems that still had to be solved now essentially lay with Test Command 16 and HWK.

After this first successful demonstration, the Me 163 was given a higher priority again and after a few more weaknesses could be discovered and the testers in Peenemünde-West were given five more test samples (Me 163B V7, V8, V15, V20 and V22), succeeded in increasing it to over 900 km / h (Me 163B V18). By December 1943, however, the original schedule was already well behind schedule.

Test command (EK) 16

For troop testing and preparation for use, the test command 16 was founded in Peenemünde-West in March 1943, to which the radio test center 216 was later attached under the direction of electronics expert Gustav Korff. Korff had to develop a radio guidance system for the extremely fast rising rocket fighter. In addition to his technical officer Joseph “Joschi” Pöhs, Wolfgang Späte was assigned 23 other Air Force pilots for retraining. Some civilians - mainly engineers and technicians from HWK, Messerschmitt and later Klemm - were assigned to EK 16. The test command 16 first moved to Augsburg to the Messerschmitt works. This was followed by a move to Lechfeld. The Bad Zwischenahn airfield was also expanded for further testing and retraining . Korff was assigned Freya and Würzburg radar devices for his tasks, and EK 16 also had its own hunter control center, which was staffed with specialists and radio assistants. Soon the workforce had grown to 800 people. After the JG 400 was set up, the test command 16 existed until February 14, 1945.

Senior officers of EK 16 were:

  • Major Wolfgang Späte from February 1943 to May 1944 until he was assigned to JG 54
  • Captain Toni Thaler from May 1944 to February 1945

Other well-known pilots of the test command were Franz Medicus (who later did pioneering work for the motor glider idea), Albert Falderbaum and the later editor-in-chief of the aviation magazine Flug Revue Mano Ziegler .

Later complained about the inadequate cooperation between Messerschmitt, "Department L" (Lippisch), Klemm, the RLM and Walter AG (HWK), which delayed the progress of the project considerably. On December 30, 1943, the right-hand man - the technical officer of the EK 16, Joschi Pöhs - had a fatal accident with an Me 163A after an engine failure during the take-off phase. The landing gear had jumped back from the ground at takeoff and destroyed the fuel lines.

On January 15, 1944, Späte initiated the actual troop testing of the Me 163B with a first mission flight; the mechanics had painted his machine (pre-production model V41, trunk identification PK + QL, later “white 04” for the EK 16) bright red: The aircraft was to take the first flight under operational conditions - with Manfred von Richthofen's color as a “lucky charm”. It was possible to bring the machine closer to the opposing formation using Korff's radar guidance, but on this flight the problems that had not been resolved since Dittmar's record flight emerged again, namely the three fundamental faults of the machine.

  1. The burning time of 12 minutes estimated by HWK was never achieved, in reality it was a maximum of 5 minutes.
  2. During the transition to level flight, negative g-forces occurred, whereupon the engine switched off unintentionally. Restarting was only possible after a cooling time of about 2 minutes.
  3. After restarting the engine, Späte managed to catch up with the enemy again, but, like Dittmar on his record flight, he exceeded the critical Mach number of the Me 163, which led to a sudden nod of the machine. Due to the negative g-forces that occurred, the engine switched off again and the enemy escaped.

Of the 40 aircraft that had been promised by the Luftwaffe, only two reached Test Command 16; at the beginning of February 1944 there were a total of six Me 163A (version with the cold Walter engine) and three Me 163B. The tests were delayed further due to the low temperatures, but the first squadron of Jagdgeschwader 400 was already set up. The training of the pilots was hindered by the lack of Me 163 as well as the testing, which is why the Air Force High Command had to postpone the squadron's combat mission, which was planned at short notice. An additional problem was the decreasing availability of the towing machines, which were supposed to bring the Me 163 back to the base. Ultimately, the JG 400 only had one Bf 110. If this failed, all flight operations came to a standstill. Despite all the difficulties, the Me 163 was the first mass-produced rocket fighter and the world's first rocket fighter squadron (the JG 400) to be integrated into the air force.

production

Production began at the end of 1941 with ten Me 163A, which was still very similar to the DFS 194. 70 pre-series machines followed in 1942/43. Of these, a total of 57 were converted - at Messerschmitt Augsburg (MttA) three machines to trainer aircraft without an engine and one with a BMW P3390 engine and 53 to emergency aircraft with the Walter R-II-211 (16 at MttA and 37 at Leichtflugzeugbau Klemm GmbH in Böblingen (see: Hanns Klemm )). By the end of 1943, a total of 26 of these aircraft had been delivered, the rest by July 1944.

Klemm and Junkers Flugzeug- und Motorenwerke (JFM) were involved in series production from May 1944 onwards , with Klemm remaining in charge. Accordingly, by November 30, 1944, Klemm 133 and Junkers had delivered 14 aircraft. From December 1944 to March 1945, 127 aircraft were built, making a total of 274 series aircraft. The BGA (presumably Baugesellschaft Oranienburg) is named as the construction company in the documents.

The first aircraft from the series were delivered to the JG 400 in July 1944, and the last aircraft were received in January 1945. The last 89 aircraft built were transferred directly to the reserve of the Air Force High Command (OKL) due to a lack of demand . The supplementary Jagdgeschwader 2 (EJG 2) were assigned a total of 23 operational aircraft in November and December 1944.

At the end of 1944, the Lufthansa Flugwerft at Berlin-Staaken airfield received the order to convert a total of 20 series aircraft into two-seater without an engine. For this, she was probably assigned twelve aircraft from the series in November and December 1944. The first aircraft were delivered in December 1944, two in January and three in February 1945. The EJG 2 received three of them, one was being tested and two were transferred directly to the OKL reserve in February 1945.

Lufthansa had already delivered the first conversion in September 1944. What this conversion was about is unknown. The aircraft was assigned to the JG 400.

commitment

Me 163 b at JG 400

The first fight took place on July 28, 1944 from the base of the I./JG 400 in Brandis , when six Komet started against a formation of 596 four-engine B-17 Flying Fortresses that were on their way to the refineries in Leuna-Merseburg . Two unconfirmed kills by USAAF B-17 Flying Fortress have been reported. On August 16, 1944, five comets hit 196 USAAF bombers. The first Me 163 approaching a B-17 was shot down by its rear gunner. Another comet struck a 305th Bombing Group B-17 , but was shot down by Lt. Col. John Murphy, pilot of a P-51 Mustang . On August 24, Sergeant Siegfried Schubert shot down two B-17s. In September further successes were recorded, on October 6th the first Me 163B was lost during a mission. On April 16, 1945, JG 400 with Me 163 shot down a total of twelve enemy aircraft. The fighting lasted from May 1944 to spring 1945. During this time there were 16 confirmed kills with 14 lost Me 163. Sergeant Siegfried Schubert was the most successful pilot with three bombers shot down. The JG 400 now had 30 Me 163Bs, but the production of the machines and the provision of the fuel did not meet expectations. In addition, the effectiveness of the Me 163 suffered from its very high speed and the operational concept: the pilot only had a few seconds to aim at his target and get the shot. If he did not get a hit, the mission was unsuccessful, because he could not approach a second time and had to return to the base in a glider flight after the fuel was used up.

Special weapons

This problem was to be alleviated by reducing the requirements for the pilot and the approach through an automatically functioning weapons system. According to Späte, the idea for this weapon went back to a suggestion by Gustav Korff - the EK 16 electronics specialist - and was initially referred to as the “Zossen” on-board weapon system. For this purpose, a row of four single-shot recoilless guns of caliber 50 mm, pointing upwards and slightly backwards, each containing a thin-walled mine grenade (the so-called SG 500 "Jägerfaust" ) was mounted in the wings in the rib field between trim tabs and elevons . The weapons were fired automatically by an upwardly directed modulated infrared transmitter and a photo cell tuned to this frequency . The pilot only had to fly under the bomber formation and activate the weapon. If an airplane flying overhead crossed the infrared beam, the reflected signal triggered the weapons. This device was successfully tested with a Fw 190 and by Leutnant Hachtel in the Me 163B by flying under a two-meter-wide ribbon of fabric stretched between two balloons. After this worked amazingly well, 32 installation kits for the conversion of the JG 400 were manufactured at HASAG in Leipzig . However, when the JG 400 moved to Brandis, the installation work was delayed; it was no longer in widespread use and the shooting rate of the Me 163 could not be increased. It was not until April 10, 1945 that the only operation (pilot Fritz Kelb) took place in which a Lancaster bomber (other sources call it a Halifax) was shot down and several others from the formation were damaged.

A Me 163B (1945)

By the end of 1944, 64 machines were available. By the beginning of 1945, however, the number of operational Me 163s fell drastically due to crash landings and failed missions. The Me 163 earned the reputation of a death trap among pilots, because it often hit so hard on landing that its landing skid broke and unburned fuel was ignited. One of the main problems remained the immediate failure of the drive with even the slightest negative g-forces, which Wolfgang Späte in his book “Der Streng Geheime Vogel” attributes to a safety mechanism in the Walter engine, which should prevent the engine from exploding if the fuel supply is uneven. There are also several reports of engine failures during the start-up process. One of them cost the squadron TO of the EK 16 Joschi Pöhs the life, another the most successful pilot of the JG 400, Sergeant Siegfried Schubert. At least two machines exploded with a full tank of fuel at their starting points, presumably because of leaks in the fuel system. Overall, more pilots were killed in accidents than in enemy action.

Further developments

Model of the Me 163C
Model of the Me 163D
Drawing of the Me 163D

The Me 163C should have a longer range, better all-round visibility and more powerful armament (four MK 108 ). The project work began in January 1942. The fuselage was again made of light metal and steel, the outer wings were made of wood in a shell construction. Construction of the first machine began in January 1943. A HWK-109-509-C engine with an additional combustion chamber of 300 kp thrust was planned for the cruise flight. It cannot be proven whether a Me 163C was ever completed. Although the Me 263 was a powerful alternative, work may have continued until February 1945.

In July 1944 Heini Dittmar reached a speed of 1130 km / h with the Me 163B V18 VA + SP. The Me 163B V18 was equipped with the surfaces of the Me 163B V32 after weather damage and then converted into a test vehicle for the Me 163D. In the Me 163D, the fuselage was lengthened by means of two approximately 1 m long spacers in front of and behind the wings, and this was provided with a rigid nose wheel landing gear. This measure gave the fuselage a somewhat erratic contour. In this form it served as a test vehicle for the Me 263 / Ju 248. In the excellently researched double volume by Ransom / Cammann it is referred to as "Me 163D V1 / Ju 284 V1". Some original photos can be found at Dressel / Griehl. For testing the HWK 109-509-C, the Me 163B V6 was converted, with the tail wheel being moved a little forward to the bevel of the keel fin to make room for the marching combustion chamber.

The Me 163C and Me 263 should address some of the B-Series' weaknesses. The worst of these were the insufficient mobility on the ground and the insufficient burning time. Messerschmitt AG had lost all interest in the rocket plane, so the Junkers factories in Dessau received the order to build the successor in late summer 1944. The cockpit was designed as a pressurized cabin, the wings were taken over from the Me 163B. The machine had a retractable and steerable landing gear. At the bow there was now a three-bladed generator propeller. The engine with a marching combustion chamber was also installed in the Me 263. Two prototypes have been completed. The project name was Ju 248 , the camouflage name "Flounder". Around December 1944, the machine was renamed Me 263. In some cases, however, the designation 8-248 was continued.

Model of the Me 163S in Soviet service

A school version of the Me 163S captured by the Soviet Union was tested in 1945/46 by Mark Gallai without a drive. For this purpose, the machine called “crucian carp” was lifted into the air by a Tu-2 in a tow plow and, after the tow rope was released, flown like a glider. In the US a B-29 served as a tow plane and in the UK a Supermarine Spitfire . Engine flights were no longer carried out after the end of the war.

Towards the end of the war, the Mitsubishi J8M, a license version of the Me 163, was built in Japan . When trying to bring the documents to Japan with two submarines, both boats were lost. Therefore, the Mitsubishi J8M was very similar to the Me 163B, but had some significant differences. There was only one test flight of this replica. In contrast to Germany, where the basic training of the Me-163 pilots took place on the DFS Kranich and DFS Habicht gliders , the Yokosuka MXY-8 (army designation Ku-13) was built in Japan, a light training glider that looks very similar to the emergency aircraft.

The Me 163 also served as the starting point for the development of the Enzian anti-aircraft missile .

Flying high and aviation medicine

The high achievable heights and the very high climbing performance of the Me 163B at the time , which exceeded that of the fan guns by about ten times, caused new problems that had not been taken into account so far. In addition to the stress caused by the forces involved in take-off, climb and landing, the pilots could now have problems with gas accumulations in their intestines. Due to the rapid decrease in air pressure during the climb, the gases expanded, which could lead to barotrauma of the digestive tract, in milder cases this led to colic-like pain. This was promoted by the fact that the Me 163B did not have a pressurized cabin . To prevent this, you had to do without flatulent foods - the so-called high altitude diet. The E department manager Wolfgang Späte had to abort his first sharp flight with the Me 163B at an altitude of 8000 meters due to unbearable pain from gas and fall to 3000 meters in a dive. Another danger was the barotrauma of the middle ear, frontal and sinuses.

Despite breathing pure oxygen from an altitude of 8,000 meters, altitude sickness could only be safely avoided up to an altitude of 12,000 meters. It was only with the introduction of pressurized cabins or height protection suits that the 12,000 m limit could be safely exceeded, as above this air pressure level, despite 100 percent oxygen breathing, a sufficiently high partial pressure can no longer be achieved. The Me 163B did not have a pressurized cabin, only the successor model Me 263 had one. If a person spends longer periods of time unprotected at high altitudes, there is a risk that nitrogen dissolved in the blood will bubble out. This results in what is known as decompression sickness . In 1942, human experiments were carried out with concentration camp inmates in a negative pressure chamber in the Dachau concentration camp . In doing so, they came to the conclusion that humans could not exist at altitudes greater than 12,000 meters, even when breathing pure oxygen. Reconnaissance aircraft like the Junkers Ju 86R-1 reached altitudes of over 14,000 meters at this time, but this was only possible with the help of a pressurized cabin. In the Dachau concentration camp, experiments were carried out to determine the height to which a pilot could jump in an emergency and survive this emergency exit. A height of 18,000 meters was determined, which could be survived undamaged by falling fast enough to 4000 meters. For this purpose, such emergency exits were simulated at great heights by means of pressure changes down to normal pressure. At an altitude of 4,000 meters, the test participants had to press a red button, which represented the simulated parachute deployment. 70 to 80 people were killed in these attempts. Heights of up to 21,000 meters were simulated, at heights above the so-called Armstrong limit (at around 19,000 meters) there is no chance of survival without a pressure suit. Nevertheless, heights of up to 14,000 meters were reached with the Me 163, whereby the pilot was already deep in the life-threatening area.

Range of use and defects

The Me 163 was intended as an interceptor for object protection of strategically important facilities. Due to its excellent climbing performance and speed, it should quickly reach and combat approaching enemy aircraft. According to pilots such as the British test pilot Eric Melrose Brown, the aircraft had excellent control and was a good weapon platform. However, the high approach speed to the target (the pilots only had a very short time to aim), the low rate of fire of the MK 108 and its low muzzle velocity, as well as the short duration of use (about 4.5 to 5 minutes under full load) hindered greater success. The fighter was only used late in comparatively small numbers, which is why the Me 163 could not have any significant influence on the outcome of the war. The Me 163 was the fastest aircraft of World War II. The ascent time to 10,000 m was only 3.2 minutes.

A typical missile fighter mission was as follows:

Scheuch tug with tow bar (above) and hydraulic lifting arms for transporting the Me 163 without rolling gear after landing (below)
  1. Transport to the starting position with the help of a three-wheeled Scheuch tractor with tow bar
  2. Commissioning of the steam starter that started the fuel pumps
  3. Start with the help of a two-wheeled roller mechanism that was dropped at a height of five to seven meters
  4. Rapid ascent to above the height of the target
  5. Combat the target while gliding or with greatly reduced engine power
  6. Glide to the landing site
  7. Landing on the central runner and the steerable tail wheel
  8. Return to refueling by means of another Scheuch tractor with hydraulic lifting arms
  9. Assembly of the starting chassis using a simple, manually operated hydraulic lift truck (Steinbock "Herkules II")
  10. Rinsing the drive system with clear water using the internal fuel feed pumps
  11. Refueling by two different tank vehicles for C-material and T-material and ammunition supplement .

The complex infrastructure of the deployment sites, coordinated with the Me 163, with plenty of water connections, fuel-resistant underground tanks, engine test benches, special vehicles, etc. made the aircraft ineffective. In addition, special tank cars had to be available for transporting the fuel by rail.

T-Stoff was needed for many other purposes in 1944, for example for the turbo pumps of the A4 large rockets and the Walter catapults of the Fi 103 . In addition, only Hoechst in Gersthofen produced the C-material and this location had been bombed out. Thus, all available fuel reserves had to be shipped from the prepared deployment sites to Leipzig-Brandis , the last deployment site of the JG 400. However, Brandis was not actually intended for the use of the Me 163, so that there were no storage tanks for the fuels there, for example.

Due to the mishaps and the failure of the intended purpose (the Me 163 scored only nine confirmed kills of American bombers ), the JG 400 received the order to disband in March 1945; The last detectable operational flights took place in April. According to Späte, the more experienced pilots of the JG 400 were deployed at JG 7 in Prague on the Messerschmitt Me 262  - the first operational jet turbine fighter in history. Over 350 Me 163 (with prototypes and test models) had been built.

construction

Me 163 with flaps extended in Gatow, 2005
Three-sided tear

The following technical information relates to the Me 163B series.

Wings

The Me 163B was designed as a cantilevered mid-decker in wood construction with 8 mm plywood paneling on the wings. Tanks were provided between ribs 2 and 7 (counting away from the hull). The two-spar wings were designed in two parts in a trapezoidal shape and connected to the fuselage by three bolts each. On the underside of the wing there were hydraulically operated landing flaps with additional aluminum planking. A fabric-covered trim tab was provided on each of the trailing edges of the inner wing . From the Me 163A V5 onwards, there were fixed slats on the outer wings (so-called C-slots according to the language of the time). The first Me 163A (V4-KE + SW) had automatic slats like the Bf 109. Tests for the use of R4M rockets were carried out with an Me 163A, but such an installation was not possible with the Me 163B emergency aircraft due to the significantly larger landing flaps on the underside of the wings. The inside of the wing was provided with a 14% thick S-flap profile with 1.8% curvature at the connection point , which merged to a 10% thick symmetrical profile on the outside. In addition, the wing was about 6.5 ° side set .

hull

The all-metal shell hull was made of light metal and was essentially divided into five sections:

  • armored bow
  • front assembly
  • top cover
  • rear assembly
  • Rear

The tail section including the rudder unit was completely removable to ensure better access to the engine. Otherwise, all covers in the middle section could be removed with quick-release fasteners. In principle, the fuselage consisted of a spindle-shaped body on which the wing-fuselage transitions, the back of the fuselage and the skid box were attached. The wing transitions were carefully designed aerodynamically and contributed significantly to the total lift of the flying wing. The on-board weapons were also housed in them. The cockpit was protected by front armor with a thickness of 15 mm and an armored glass pane with a thickness of 90 mm, as well as with head and shoulder armor of 13 mm and back armor of 8 mm.

Tail unit

The fabric-covered combined elevons on the rear edge of the outer wing only had so-called bow edges to compensate for structural inaccuracies. The rudder deflections were superimposed by a mechanical mixer in the hull. The control surfaces were designed as "wings behind the wing", balanced in mass and suspended in their aerodynamic neutral point. With this trick by Lippisch, in contrast to almost all other fighter aircraft of the Second World War, the machine could be controlled with bearable effort even at top speed. The trimming around the transverse axis was done by the inner wing flaps, which could be adjusted by means of a handwheel on the left side of the cockpit and the flying wings - typically changed the profile moment of the wing profile. For this reason, the landing flaps were mounted as torque-free expansion flaps on the underside of the wing at around 50% of the wing depth and ended shortly before the auxiliary spar, to which the elevons and trim tabs were attached. The central fin was built in timber construction, the fin was covered with plywood, the rudder integrated trimming edge was covered with fabric.

landing gear

The roll mechanism of the Me 163 with a track width of 1.50 m and tires of 700 mm × 175 mm could be dropped after take-off and had a weight of about 80 kg. A landing runner made of dural sheet metal with a sliding surface made of sheet steel was available for landing , and the machine was also equipped with a pneumatically-hydraulically extendable tail wheel (tires: 260 × 85 mm). In order to shorten the slipping distance on wet or snow-covered grass areas, steel strips were sometimes welded on under the runner like a herringbone (so-called corrugated runner). The aerodynamic fairing of the rear wheel also proved to be inexpedient in use and was therefore mostly left out.

Engine

Installation and function (schematic)

In the first variants of the Me 163, a Walter-HWK-109-509-A-1 engine with a thrust of 100 to 1600 kp adjustable in five stages ( off , idle , 1 , 2 , 3 ) was installed. In the variant Me 163B-1, an HWK-109-509-B engine with a thrust of 100 to 1600 kp was used. The T-material was carried in three tanks in the fuselage segment of the machine, the C-material was housed in four tanks in the wings. The machine thus had a total fuel capacity of 1660 liters.

Since the two fuels were self-igniting when they came into contact with each other, extreme care had to be taken with each refueling. However, both fuel components were water-soluble and relatively harmless when diluted. Before refueling, the engine compartment and the engine had to be thoroughly cleaned of fuel residues from the last use with steam and water. Only then could the carbon fuel tanker drive up and hand over fuel. Then all surfaces on the aircraft and on the ground had to be cleaned with plenty of water. Finally the T-Stoff-Tanker ( Opel “Blitz” type “S”) came and handed over its cargo.

Military equipment

Me 163B in the Deutsches Museum , Flugwerft Schleissheim

In addition to the mentioned in the attached table below the arming Me 163 was still with a Revi-16b-standard visor ( Re Flex V isier) as well as a transmitter and receiver unit FuG ( Fu NK G et up instrument) 16E with FuG- 16ZE- Installation kit and equipped with a friend-enemy-identification device FuG 25a . The electricity for this and for the feed pump of the steam starter was supplied by a generator in the tip of the fuselage, which was driven by a small ram air turbine (the so-called Seppler screw) as soon as the aircraft was in motion. An external battery or a generator car (Bosch “starter car”) was required on the ground for the power supply.

Technical specifications

Parameter DFS 194 Me 163A Me 163B Me 163C Me 263
crew 1
Length [m] 7.20 5.60 5.70 7.04 7.89
Height [m] 2.22 2.75 3.17
Span [m] 9.30 8.85 9.30 9.80 9.50
Arrow [°] 23.5
Wing area [m²] 17.5 19.6 20.5 17.8
Wing extension 4.9 4.5 4.4 4.7 5.1
Surface loading [kg / m²] 137 220 248.8 286.5
Empty weight [kg] 1450 1980 2200 2210
Takeoff weight [kg] 2100 2400 4310 5100
Engine HWK RI-203 HWK RII-203 HWK 109-509 A-1 HWK 109-509 A-2 HWK 109-509 C
Thrust [kp] 400 750 1600 1700 + 300 2000 + 400
Top speed [km / h] 550 920 900 950 1000
Landing speed [km / h] 120 160 145
Flight time (full performance) [min] 7.5 5 12 15th
Service ceiling [m] 10,000 12,000 16,000 16,000
Range [km] 80 120 200
Takeoff distance [m] 1200 800
Landing distance [m] 600
Armament - B-0: 2 × MG 151/20
B-1: 2 × MK 108 		2 × MK 108

Received aircraft

Drawing of the Me 163B flown by Eric Brown
Me 163B-1 (serial number 191 301)

At the end of the war, practically a whole squadron of Me 163B (including the Me 163B V1 KE + SX) was captured in Husum and 24 of them were shipped to England. The planes were followed intensively in Great Britain, the USA and the Soviet Union. During high-speed landing attempts, the last Me 163 was probably broken during flight operations in 1947; the pilot was Eric Melrose Brown . At least ten of the remaining machines have survived, five of them in Europe.

In Germany, one aircraft is exhibited in the Air Force Museum of the Bundeswehr at Gatow airfield in Berlin and in the Schleissheim aircraft yard of the Deutsches Museum near Munich. In March 2019, an XXL-CT scan was made from the copy of the Deutsches Museum in the Fraunhofer Development Center X-ray Technology EZRT in order to clarify the so far unexplained origin of the aircraft and its serial number. The results are to be presented in the exhibition that is currently under construction.

The Me 163B-1 (serial number 191 614) is on display in the Royal Air Force Museum , the Air Force Museum of the United Kingdom in north London, and another Me 163B in the National Museum of Flight in East Lothian near Edinburgh. One machine each is in the Science Museum in London, in the National Air and Space Museum (serial number 191 301) near Washington, in the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton and in the Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum in Everett. In Canada, another machine is on display in the Canada Aviation and Space Museum .

Airworthy replica

Driveless replica of the Me 163, 2009

1994–1996, the aircraft manufacturer Josef Kurz built a non-powered, flyable replica of the Me 163 in its original size, which could be seen with the aircraft registration D-1634 on numerous flight days. The aircraft now belongs to the Messerschmitt Foundation .

See also

literature

  • Jeffrey L. Ethell: Messerschmitt Comet - Development and use of the first rocket fighter. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-87943-726-2 .
  • Aviation Research Group V., Marius Emmerling / Joachim Dressel (eds.): Rocket hunter Messerschmitt Me 163 - Like a flea, but powerful! Podzun-Pallas Verlag, Friedberg 1988, ISBN 3-7909-0338-8 .
  • Wolfgang Späte: The top secret Vogel Me 163. Your pilots, your designers, your missions. Verlag für Wehrwissenschaften, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-89555-142-2 .
  • Mano Ziegler: Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet (Das Kraftei). Podzun-Pallas Verlag, Friedberg 1977, ISBN 3-7909-0061-3 .
  • Mano Ziegler: Me 163 rocket fighter, factual report from one of the survivors. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1978, ISBN 3-87943-372-0 .
  • Stephen Ransom, Hans-Hermann Cammann: Me 163 Rocket Interceptor Volume 1. ISBN 1-903223-13-X .
  • Stephen Ransom, Hans-Hermann Cammann: Me 163 Rocket Interceptor Volume 2. ISBN 978-1-903223-13-0 .
  • Eric Brown: Famous Air Force Aircraft 1939-1945. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1988, ISBN 3-87943-846-3 .

Movies

  • The power egg. Missile fighter Me 163 Komet. (D 2004), directed by Volker Schröder. Production: meeresblau-medien, Bad Zwischenahn. Length: 94 min. Premiere: 11th Oldenburg International Film Festival 2004. International premiere: German Documentary Film Week in Cairo 2005.

Web links

Commons : Messerschmitt Me 163  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Ferdinand C. W. Käsmann: World record aircraft . 2nd revised edition / special edition in one volume, Aviatic Verlag, Oberhaching 1999, ISBN 3-925505-48-2 .
  2. ↑ Ralf Schabel: The illusion of miracle weapons. Munich 1994, p. 153 ff.
  3. ^ Federal Archives / Military Archives Freiburg, holdings RL 3, production programs
  4. ^ Federal Archives / Military Archives Freiburg, inventory RL 2III, aircraft distributions
  5. ^ Federal Archives / Military Archives Freiburg, holdings RL 3, production programs
  6. ↑ Late 1989, p. XII.
  7. ^ Botho Stüwe: Peenemünde West. Pp. 260/260/268.
  8. ↑ a b The history of the Me 163 in a model. Retrieved September 19, 2010
  9. ^ A b Dressel, Griehl: The German rocket aircraft 1935-1945. Weltbild Verlag, Augsburg 1995.
  10. ↑ Climb rate +160 m / s at an altitude of 8000 meters according to Wolfgang Späte, page 228
  11. ↑ Interview with Rudy Opitz, the Mustang only achieved a tenth of the climb performance of a Me 163B, English ( Memento from December 21, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  12. ↑ Mano Ziegler: Raketenjäger Me 163. Motorbuch Verlag Stuttgart, ISBN 3-87943-372-0 , pp. 12, 31.
  13. ↑ Flame ride over the moor. SPON, flatulence-free "high altitude diet"
  14. ↑ Wolfgang Späte: The top secret bird Me 163. P. 210, flight aborted due to painful flatulence.
  15. ↑ High altitude flight rules D (air) T. 1205 Status 1941. P. 15. (PDF; 3.8 MB)
  16. ↑ a b Lecture by the head of the flight physiology department of the Air Force Institute of Aviation Medicine on aspects of flight physiology in the Eurofighter. (PDF; 4.1 MB) ( Memento of December 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) pp. 16–18.
  17. ↑ Lecture on aspects of flight physiology. P. 10 Middle ear, frontal sinuses and sinuses (PDF; 4.1 MB) ( Memento from December 24, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  18. ↑ Mano Ziegler: Raketenjäger Me 163. Motorbuch Verlag Stuttgart, ISBN 3-87943-372-0 , p. 31.
  19. ^ High altitude flight rules D (air) T. 1205 as of 1941. P. 10.
  20. ^ A Brief History of the Pressure Suit.
  21. ↑ Wolfgang Späte: The top secret Vogel Me 163. Verlag für Wehrwissenschaften, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-89555-142-2 , pp. 56–57.
  22. ↑ http://www.hdbg.de/dachau/pdfs/11/11_01/11_01_02.PDF
  23. ↑ Attempts at high altitude in Dachau. P. 13 pdf
  24. ↑ Emmerling / Dressel, p. 46
  25. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Hans-Peter Diedrich: The German rocket planes until 1945 . 1st edition. Aviatic Verlag, 2001, ISBN 3-925505-61-X , p. 40-72 .
  26. ↑ a b c d e f Manfred Griehl: German military aircraft, 1933–1945 (type compass) . 1st edition. Motorbuch Verlag, 2008, ISBN 978-3-613-02850-0 , p. 59 ff .
  27. ↑ Messerschmitt Me 163, technical data.
  28. ↑ William Green, Gordon Swanborough: Fighter aircraft of the world. Motorbuchverlag Stuttgart, 1996, ISBN 3-7276-7126-2 .
  29. ↑ Wolfgang Bredow: Messerschmitt Me 163 B Komet (Kraftei). April 12, 2008, accessed February 24, 2019 .
  30. ^ Deutsches Museum: Deutsches Museum: Me 163.Retrieved on February 10, 2020 .
  31. ↑ Messerschmitt Me 163B-1a comet. Retrieved February 24, 2019 .
  32. ↑ Messerschmitt Comet. Retrieved October 4, 2019 .
  33. ↑ Messerschmitt Me 163B-1a comet. March 19, 2016, accessed February 24, 2019 .
  34. ↑ Messerschmitt Me 163B Comet. Retrieved February 21, 2019 (American English).
  35. ↑ FHCAM - Messerschmitt Me 163 B Comet. Retrieved February 24, 2019 .
  36. ↑ Messerschmitt Me 163B-1a Komet - Canada Aviation and Space Museum. Retrieved February 24, 2019 (Canadian English).