Messerschmidt Me 163 rocket fighter
Posted by Flucloxacillin25pc@reddit | WeirdWings | View on Reddit | 49 comments

Posted by Flucloxacillin25pc@reddit | WeirdWings | View on Reddit | 49 comments
WhiskeyHotdog_2@reddit
Is this the plane with fuel that could melt people?
grad1939@reddit
Melt its pilot, randomly explode, fly faster than anything at the time, randomly explode, could fall apart due to poor construction build or sabotage, randomly explode, run out of fuel after like five minutes.
Did I mention it could randomly explode?
Luname@reddit
It could also non-randomly explode if it landed a little too hard.
grad1939@reddit
That or break the pilot's spine since it only had a ski skid for landing.
xrelaht@reddit
Those wheels aren’t attached?
Flucloxacillin25pc@reddit (OP)
It’s the take-off dolly which was jettisoned once it left the ground. There was a motorised recovery trolley, the Scheuchschlepper.
grad1939@reddit
Nope. They detach once it takes off. Plus the pilot has to be careful and release them at the right time, otherwise they'd bounce up and strike the aircraft.
psunavy03@reddit
Me 163: "Beecause if you fuck up zee flare, zere vill be CONSEQVENCES!!
acrewdog@reddit
And it didn't have landing gear so landing was an exciting proposition.
planesnmusic@reddit
I don't think you mentioned the fact that it could randomly explode
isaac32767@reddit
But it overcame these minor issues to destroy a Grand Total of 18 Allied aircraft!
Nazi Germany wasted a lot of lives and resources on Wonderwaffen. Which I'm fine with, probably shortened the war a little bit.
WhiskeyHotdog_2@reddit
I love this crazy little plane lol
im-ba@reddit
I like how the ram air turbine (RAT) is standard. It's also where a traditional propeller would stick out, but it's just tiny. So it looks like it's the fastest plane around and has a teeny tiny propeller 😂
Battery technology back then wasn't great so it was a great weight savings approach
therealSamtheCat@reddit
So the propeller is in the place of the ram? How does that work?
I remember seeing this airplane in person and thinking about how cute it looked.
im-ba@reddit
The tiny propeller is the ram air turbine. It just sticks out of the nose like a regular propeller would, but its job in life is to supply the rest of the aircraft with electrical power via the air movement past the aircraft. So like a reverse propeller
AskYourDoctor@reddit
I always wondered what that was! But was never curious enough to actually check lol
AskYourDoctor@reddit
Only operational rocket-powered fighter in history!
ocKyal@reddit
I think I saw once that on top of the design issues causing explosions you also had slave labor that figured out how to make them explode on take off by getting metal to shift under the G’s of launching to rupture the fuel tanks. But that could be aprocophyl.
Flucloxacillin25pc@reddit (OP)
Mostly the pilot and ground crew. It didn’t go hunting for people to melt.
GreenSubstantial@reddit
Yes it is. C-stoff was a nasty chemical but the germans were really desperte.
Rooilia@reddit
The nasty part in modern form is still used as main propellant in russian and chinese rocket - UDMH. If near a crashing rocket, watch out for the orange clouds and run as far as possible.
Dragonkingofthestars@reddit
Wait so if the Russians shoot a missile at you, can you plausibly make a claim if chemical weapon use?
planethood4pluto@reddit
Yep. Their complaint department will review your grievance.
isaac32767@reddit
The project was launched in 1937, before the war even started. Nazi Germany was just too in love with its own genius.
Hey, what contemporary figure does that remind you of?
PartyLikeAByzantine@reddit
The fuel was also carcinogenic at lower exposure levels.
Madeline_Basset@reddit
Oddly, despite all the explosions and pilot-meltings, Eric Brown said it was one of the safer tailless aircraft he flew.
Presumably it was safer compared to the others. Though he only flew one under rocket-power once.
psunavy03@reddit
Because Winkle was a badass who could fly a brick if you put an engine on it.
Madeline_Basset@reddit
I think it was more like his comment on the safety of tailless planes in general.
Though saying that, the 163 was aerodynamically pretty good. As long is you flew it as a glider and never used the engine.
Gramerdim@reddit
acid* fighter
Remcin@reddit
Did those have any thrust control at all or was it just “push on and go”?
HumpyPocock@reddit
TL;DR — throttleable indeed, quite deep throttling in fact
Thrust at Max / Nominal ⟶ 3750lb
Thrust at Throttled Minimum ⟶ 330lb
Nb numbers for the Minimum Thrust are a little squirrelly having also found mentions of 220lb thru 370lb, note ANY of those’d be quite impressive vis à vis deep throttling, but 330lb seems most common in more knowledgeable analyses, notes in the second link have more in that point
NASM ⟶ 330lb Min RE 509A
WalterWerke.co.uk ⟶ 330lb ALL Single Chamber 509x
Prof BAXTER has quite clearly had hands on with original hardware, torn it down, and analysed it quite closely, likely also gone over Luftwaffe docs etc, and c1947 that’d make sense. Also note BAXTER is focussed in the 509A2 variant. Further, the primary source referenced for the above was the first of the two below, and from which the diagram was YOINK’d.
Note throttle upper RHS, that controls the boxes upper RHS and centre which in the text are called the Turbine Speed Control Valve and Main Regulating Valve respectively, both of those are continuously variable ie pilot can smoothly increase and decrease thrust to anywhere between the MIN and MAX thrust numbers noted earlier.
F11 DIAGRAM of OPERATING SYSTEM for 509 A.2 MOTOR
AIRCRAFT ROCKET MOTORS with Special Reference to German Developments with Hydrogen Peroxide (10.1108/eb031538)
A D BAXTER ⸱ Aircraft Engineering ⸱ No 19 ⸱ Vol 8 ⸱ c1947
PROSPECTS and PROBLEMS of Rocket Propulsion for Aircraft
Aeronautical Journal ⸱ Vol 59 ⸱ No 533 ⸱ c1955 Prodessor A D BAXTER ⸱ 10.1017/S0368393100117560
Madeline_Basset@reddit
I think they had a couple of throttle settings - idle, cruise, full. But it was impressive the Germans managed even this. Liquid-fuel rockets are very hard to make throttle-able, and work best if the only options are off and full.
There was a plan to build a version of the engine with two combustion chambers - a 2000kg thrust one for take-off and climb. And a 400kg thrust one for cruise.
BMW_wulfi@reddit
Just a NOS button with the word “for family” written in German
Deep-Country1034@reddit
It's said to have killed more German pilots than those of the enemy but that could be apocryphal
Archididelphis@reddit
That is absolutely not apocryphal.
Deep-Country1034@reddit
I didn't want to state it as fact when I hadn't checked
Archididelphis@reddit
I put in my own comment, I have a book by a pilot who flew this. I wouldn't necessarily say it's confirmed the plane killed more of its own pilots than Allies, but the only reason for a gray area is that a fighter only carries one guy where a bomber can carry 5-10.
isaac32767@reddit
So that's a possible Allied death of 180 versus 10 German pilots, plus additional death from training accidents, exposure to that toxic fuel, etc. Call it 20 Germans. It seems likely that more Allied personnel died than Germans, but nobody can say for sure without tabulating all the survivors of the 10-18 aircraft the Me 163 shot down.
Archididelphis@reddit
Per Wikipedia, the number of Komets lost to accidents was 9, at a time when 6 had been lost in combat, so we can guesstimate 12-15 losses to spontaneous explosions and other mishaps. Per the account of the actual pilot, there were also dangerous if not fatal incidents among ground crews handling the fuels. Overall, it's most likely that the Allies lost more men but the Germans lost more planes, and given the development cost of the Komet and the number of elite pilots assigned to fly them, the latter suffered by far the greatest loss to their combat capability.
Raguleader@reddit
Estimates have it shooting down between 9 and 15 Allied planes. It was hindered by very limited range and the fuel that occasionally melted pilots. Fortunately, losses of Me-163 pilots were limited by severe fuel shortages.
Deep-Country1034@reddit
👍
Atholthedestroyer@reddit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cvyjm9v5WI
YumWoonSen@reddit
I saw one \~20 years ago at the Mighty 8th museum in Savannah. Unbelievably small, and I was able to reach over the ropes and touch it...and it rocked a little lol
Charming_Piano_4391@reddit
You just had to rocket didn't you
Busy-Leg8070@reddit
ye old pilot melter
Voodoo1970@reddit
Despite the terrifying reputation, it didn't kill as many of its own pilots as is frequently believed. Everyone knows it as "the one that melted its pilots" but that only happened once.
In terms of fatalities per aircraft in service, it wasn't any worse than most WW2 aircraft
RockstarQuaff@reddit
It must have been crazy to be a P-51 pilot or whatever towards the end stages of the war. You know what airplanes look like and can do, you got this. You've tangled with 190s and 109s and came home.
And it's all good until crazy stuff like the Me-163, the 262, and the Dornier 335, and other random oddities just pop in, do amazing things, and leave. 'Wait, did I just see that? WTF was that? The Major is gonna ground me for making things up, I know it."
Archididelphis@reddit
I have a book called Rocket Fighter by a guy who flew this plane. It's a terrifying read.
nazihater3000@reddit
It will not go very fast with a propeller that tiny! *
*I know