Messerschmitt Me 163

The Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet was the only operational rocket fighter aircraft. It required a lengthy development process and entered the war in a very limited fashion only in 1944.

Development

Prior to the start of World War II, Hellmuth Walter had started experimenting with the use of hydrogen peroxide as a fuel for various engines. The fuel was particularly useful as a rocket fuel, as it would "ignite" (although it was actually just decomposing) simply by being passed through a metal catalyst. That meant that one could build an engine with nothing more than a pump and a tube with a wire mesh in it.

Related Topics:
World War II - Hellmuth Walter - Hydrogen peroxide - Catalyst

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The engine had problems being scaled up to useful power output. Although a number of missiles and RATO systems would eventually be built using this design, aircraft based on it would have to be very light weight. At the same time the fuel consumption was such that the plane would also require a large volume of the airframe to be devoted to tankage.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Alexander Lippisch had been working for a number of years on tail-less glider designs. Without a tail the gliders were smaller and lighter than their more conventional counterparts, although they required to the wing to be "bent back" in order to be stable. Although Lippisch had not invented the design with rocket power in mind, he argued that a tail-less aircraft could be built with much larger internal volume and still have the same drag as a smaller conventional design. Combining the Walter rocket with a larger Lippisch glider seemed to offer the potential to create a powerful short range rocket interceptor.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Works started under the aegis of the DFS (Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug—the German institute for sailplane flight). They produced a design using an early cold engine under the name DFS 194. When work had progressed to the point that it was likely to reach production, the effort was moved to Messerschmitt and became the Me 163. Secrecy was such that the number, 163, was actually that of an earlier project to produce a small two-passenger light plane, as it was thought that intelligence services would conclude any reference to the number would be for that earlier design.

Related Topics:
DFS - Sailplane - DFS 194 - Messerschmitt

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~