Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet

The Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet, designed by Alexander Martin Lippisch, was a German rocket-powered fighter aircraft. It was the only operational rocket-powered fighter aircraft during the Second World War and until today. Although revolutionary and capable of performance unrivaled at the time, it proved ineffective as a fighter and resulted in the destruction of very few Allied aircraft.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Messerschmitt
• Me
• 163
• Komet
• German
• rocket-powered
• fighter
• Nazi
• Germany

[regit76]

Nice, send more if You got. German jet fighters are very interesting. At least for me :) Thanks for this stuff.

[superreverb68]

The 20th century was such an incredible technical leap!

Hope the 21st century is a bit less painful, but equally productive in advancing mankind.

Cheers everyone.

[Eagle1Division2]

@regit76 What's really amazing about the komet though, is that it isn't a jet. It's totally different. It's a rocket. It needs no intake, no outside air ;)

[megatwingo]

@NJPurling

The Komet was converted to a guided ground-air missile and called "Enzian".

The V2 was converted to ground-air rocket and called "Wasserfall".

Other guided ground-air rockets:

Henschel Hs 117 "Schmetterling"

Rheinmetall "Feuerlilie"

Rheinmetall "Rheintochter"

A further developement against strafing attacks was the bazooka-like "Fliegerfaust-A" and Luftfaust (Fliegerfaust-B) with a bundle of small unguided rockets.

All those rockets and the SG500 came too late, but they were there.

[megatwingo]

@NJPurling

Sorry, but you are wrong on both things. In the latest version of the Komet were installed a SG500 Jägerfaust. Ten 50mm upward firing canons that were ignited by a photocell. When the shadow of the bomber fell on the photocell, the canons were shot from below through the belly of the bomber. This invention came too late and only one Lancaster was shot down with it.

[megatwingo]

@gaborbravo

The narrator explained it in the video:

The advantage of the Komet was that it was able to get quickly up to the height of the incoming bombers before they were doing their job.

If the Komet would have been dragged slowly up to the service height of the bombers by another aircraft....the bombers would have been long away and would have already done their job, when the dragged Komet would have slowly reached the needed height.

This dragging method would have made the Komet useless.

[NJPurling]

I am surprised the Germans never devised a suitable machine gun with a appropriately high rate of fire.

They were almost a piloted missile. Thankfully the Germans never had such weapons to detonate among the bomber streams.

[Sithlike]

@regit76 watashi wa like this too.

were one ofa kind. who likes german nazi jets.

[jarkanciofan]

if german won the war, now we are in mars XD

[asconese]

Ich hasse Krieg...aber wenn, dann hätte ich gern die Bomber runtergeholt...mit Überzeugung im Herzen...

[andrewr62]

The Komet was a very advanced but flawed aircraft. Very short flight time, 7 minutes and it's weapons were short muzzled had very limited range. Also the

rear wheel was not retractable and caused instability. After some time American pilots learned the Komet's weakness, it's slow glide back down after it's fuel ran it.

It was easily shot down on it's return.

[binaway]

The were two hydrogen peroxide bottle, one each side of the pilot, like the arms of an arm chair. German tests showed if they leaked or were damaged the pilots body would melt in 9 minutes, even when he was wearing a protection suit. If there was even a just a cup of fuel in the tanks they would explode on landing. This resulted in 40 losses.