AHC: the Volksjaeger for 1943 and on

... or, a 1-engined, no-nonsense jet fighter for Luftwaffe for 1943. Does not need to look like the He 162, of course. Minimum armament of two cannons, with internal tankage sufficient for short-range air-defense job. It does not have to have swept wings, however a simple construction is a must. Usage of non-startegic Materials is encuraged, although not a requirement. Other German 'reactive' (Me 163 and 262, He 280) fighters can be delayed if it is required. Engine (un)reliability is a non-factor for initial use in 1943.
Task starts in September 1939.
 

Deleted member 1487

The problem is the reliability of the early jet engines. One Jumo 004B for propulsion in 1943-44 was a death sentence in case of flame out, which was a serious problem in that period, hence the twin engine early jet fighters.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The problem is the reliability of the early jet engines. One Jumo 004B for propulsion in 1943-44 was a death sentence is case of flame out, which was a serious problem in that period, hence the twin engine early jet fighters.

Why will the flame-out, or indeed a dead engine be a death sentence?
BTW - thread starts from Sept 1939. Perhaps more emphasis on HeS engines?
 

Deleted member 1487

Why will the flame-out, or indeed a dead engine be a death sentence?
BTW - thread starts from Sept 1939. Perhaps more emphasis on HeS engines?
Restarting it and landing in a single engine aircraft like the Volksjager would be...challenging.
As the HeS engine my understanding was that it was not mass produceable due to material shortages.
 
Restarting it and landing in a single engine aircraft like the Volksjager would be...challenging.

Perhaps it might be a good idea to have someting like the Me 163 powered by a jet engine? The Me 163 was supposed to glide to the base after the fuel is used up. Granted, this will not work after 1943 with Allied LR fighters above Germany.

As the HeS engine my understanding was that it was not mass produceable due to material shortages.

Maybe it was the reason, even though the HeS engines seem as an under-researched category, with a lot of unanswered questions.
 
Why will the flame-out, or indeed a dead engine be a death sentence?
While the early Jets lacked a good MTBF, they were easier to build than a high HP reciprocating engine.

So parachute out, and let some other team collect the debris for recycling. It's over friendly territory, after all.

The trained meat sack is more valuable than the airframe or engine.
 

Deleted member 1487

While the early Jets lacked a good MTBF, they were easier to build than a high HP reciprocating engine.

So parachute out, and let some other team collect the debris for recycling. It's over friendly territory, after all.

The trained meat sack is more valuable than the airframe or engine.
Part of the problem with that for the Volksjager was the engine was up and behind the pilot, so bailing out would require an ejection seat or a lot of luck to not hit it on the way out. Not sure what the state of the art was at the time for that technology.
 

SwampTiger

Banned
Perhaps it might be a good idea to have someting like the Me 163 powered by a jet engine? The Me 163 was supposed to glide to the base after the fuel is used up. Granted, this will not work after 1943 with Allied LR fighters above Germany.

Maybe it was the reason, even though the HeS engines seem as an under-researched category, with a lot of unanswered questions.

I have always thought the jet Me 163 was a missed opportunity. Heinkel had Ohain working on the HeS 3 and HeS 6 in 1938/39. He was assisting Lippisch with the DFS 194 in 1938/39. Lippisch moved to Messerschmidtt in 1939. What if Ohain and Lippisch combined talents at Heinkel? Perhaps if the undercarriage of the He 178 had retracted, allowing the aircraft to exceed 400 mph, Udet and Milch would have sent more funds to Heinkel.

Thus, without Willie M.'s starving the Me. 163 program, it gets early and enthusiastic support from Heinkel. An upgraded HeS 6 with 650 kg plus of thrust would help provide a fighter/trainer a speed over 450 mph and radius of action over 100 miles. Later engines could push it over 500 mph.
 
Part of the problem with that for the Volksjager was the engine was up and behind the pilot, so bailing out would require an ejection seat or a lot of luck to not hit it on the way out. Not sure what the state of the art was at the time for that technology.
Somethin like an earlier Ta-183, or its Argentinean derivative.
 
if Ohain and Lippisch combined talents at Heinkel? Perhaps if the undercarriage of the He 178 had retracted, allowing the aircraft to exceed 400 mph, Udet and Milch would have sent more funds .

Ernst wasn't as good a Nazi as Willy, and that's one reason many of the more promising designs were sidelined
 
Why will the flame-out, or indeed a dead engine be a death sentence?
————————————————————————-
Reliable ejection seats were not developed until the 1950s.

The fly fast, most jet fighters have tiny wings to minimize drag. Those wings are still bigger than needed for cruising. Fighter wings are the minimum size that can be landed in ideal conditions. They use flaps, slats, drooping leading edges (CF-18), etc. to improve lift coefficients at landing speeds. Some even blow extra air over the flaps (CF-104 and Buccaneer).
But they still need to carry substantial amounts of thrust until they cross the runway threshold. Without thrust, they develop lethal rates of descent.

The only reason the Me163 could glide back was its large almost-delta wing which reduced wing-loading and touchdown speed.
 
Reliable ejection seats were not developed until the 1950s.

Loosing an engine does not require immediate abandonment of an aircraft.

The fly fast, most jet fighters have tiny wings to minimize drag. Those wings are still bigger than needed for cruising. Fighter wings are the minimum size that can be landed in ideal conditions. They use flaps, slats, drooping leading edges (CF-18), etc. to improve lift coefficients at landing speeds. Some even blow extra air over the flaps (CF-104 and Buccaneer).
But they still need to carry substantial amounts of thrust until they cross the runway threshold. Without thrust, they develop lethal rates of descent.

The only reason the Me163 could glide back was its large almost-delta wing which reduced wing-loading and touchdown speed.

Slats and flaps were in use on fighters years before ww2 started. Me 163 used fixed slats, similar as the TBF Avenger. Fowler flaps were in use before ww2, too.
Wing of a jet-engined fighter does not need to be of a smaller area than on the Fw 190 or Bf 109 - that of the Me 163 was of area between Fw 190 and of Spitfire.
 

Deleted member 1487

Somethin like an earlier Ta-183, or its Argentinean derivative.
That ran on a Class II jet engine that never became operational. That and I think the aerodynamics of the design weren't ready until later in 1944. Now you might be able to adapt the He 178 to something like the Jumo, but you'd probably want to do the 004A version that used too many strategic materials to get heat resistance, which apparently also made them more reliable and of course ready 2 years earlier.
 

SwampTiger

Banned
You would have to enlarge the He 178 substantially. As a technology demonstrator, it was a pilot and engine enclosed in a tiny fuselage. The Me 109 had nearly twice the wing area, 178 square feet to 98 square feet. The tiny Me 163 had 211 square feet of wing.
 
Already in 1943 the Luftwaffe had problems on getting Pilots, fuel and material to build aircrafts
they used what they had what led directly to He 162 project: a jet-fighter made out glued wood, some metal pieces a jet-engine with reliability issue and hitler youth as Pilots.
they were some proposal like by Alexander Lippish to build modified Me 163 with single jet-engine, but the Luftwaffe and Willy Messerschmitt never wanted that

Even they had the Luftwaffe in 1942 took singe jet fighter design they would mostly stay on ground in 1944 like Me 262, do lack of fuel and pilots and no spare parts...
 

SwampTiger

Banned
The idea is to devise a fighter, not complain that it wasn't effective using hindsight. If the Luftwaffe decided it needed cheap, easy to fly and fast fighters in 1939 for issuance in 1943, they could not know the logistics of 1943 and later. In fact, if these are operational by early 1943, some of the logistics problems may be eased.

In the early HeS engines, Ohain used sheet stampings. He needed more powerplant and supercharger engineers to assist him in development. Also, Ohain had decided to move on to Axial designs. Heinkel and the RLM could have assigned a couple of production engineers to the project, speeding the entry of the centrifugal design into production by 1941.

Of course in a perfect world, Heinkel should have placed someone else in charge of the HeS 30 project with instructions to get the project moved in-house within 3-4 months, rather than Wagner's year long glacial move.
 

NoMommsen

Donor
... or, a 1-engined, no-nonsense jet fighter for Luftwaffe for 1943. Does not need to look like the He 162, of course. Minimum armament of two cannons, with internal tankage sufficient for short-range air-defense job. It does not have to have swept wings, however a simple construction is a must. Usage of non-startegic Materials is encuraged, although not a requirement. Other German 'reactive' (Me 163 and 262, He 280) fighters can be delayed if it is required. Engine (un)reliability is a non-factor for initial use in 1943.
Task starts in September 1939.
Tbh : rather 'simple' task :

Take the He 178, firt flown 27th August 1939.
Enlarge its fuselage a wee bit to take the Hs 8 turbine, follow-up of the HeS 3 of the He 178.
'Thicken' a wee bit the wing roots to take to whatever canon you choose in 1941/42.

With the somewhat improved HeS 3b engine you might be able to have something aslike already in 1940 operational.
 
Tbh : rather 'simple' task :

Take the He 178, firt flown 27th August 1939.
Enlarge its fuselage a wee bit to take the Hs 8 turbine, follow-up of the HeS 3 of the He 178.
'Thicken' a wee bit the wing roots to take to whatever canon you choose in 1941/42.

With the somewhat improved HeS 3b engine you might be able to have something aslike already in 1940 operational.

Have it to be size of the Gloster E.28/39 at least, if not a tad bigger? That one had a provision for 4 .303s, so sticking two cannons instead might not be that hard.
BTW - drop tanks should be mandatory for jet fighters, the fuel consumption was very high. Luckily, for Germans, they were to use more or less Diesel fuel, that German military was not much of an user.
 
A pdf, discussing HeS jet engines, available for download: here. Seems indeed that HeS-8 required a lot of nickel, not a good feature in ww2 Germany.

Focke Wulf jet Fw 190 proposal, with what it seems like the 'FW T1' engine, supposedly it will be doing 830 km/h max. As with all proposals, a grain of salt is needed. Note that expected fuel consumption is very high.

190jet.jpg
 
Top