WTF! Aircraft

Noticed the Aircraft appreciation thread is closed, I spotted something on telly the other day which induced a total WT Actual F! moment ant thought others might be interested, For my sins, (I was waiting for another programme to start) I was watching Antiques Roadtrip, and there were some model kits in the background, one of them of a peculiar jet I’d never heard of, so I googled it, turns out it was one of these:

Turned out it was a Lippisch P13a ramjet fighter, which, while it never got beyond a scale model, it’s engine had been tested successfully, and wind-tunnel tests in the States of a finished test model showed it was stable up to Mach 2.6! The damndest thing was the propulsion system… a coal-powered ramjet! 😳

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lippisch_P.13a

Powered by coal..!

Never made it passed the drawing board unfortunately

Well, there was a nearly complete test model, which the Americans got the engineers to finish before they shipped it back to the states for tests. If it had flown, at 1,260 mph, nothing the allies had would have touched it, and, unlike the Komet, it wouldn’t explode on landing or dissolve its unfortunate pilot in the process!

Bloody Thatcher….

Amazing!!! I love this kind of stuff!

Unfortunately for the Nazis, fewer but better eventually results in loss. Something NATO could do to remember when bugging up or alleged technical superiority over the Russians

It amazes me how advanced and how innovative some of these designs are. Especially as I work in engineering design and struggle to make basic “new” things.

There is a huge gulf between conceptualising something on paper and actually building it. And testing something in a wind tunnel and actually turning that into a viable and useful product. I’ve worked in Aerospace all my life and often in the ‘advanced projects’ departments and there is all sorts of weird and wonderful concepts that are technically and theoretically feasible being worked on all the time, almost all of them never see the light of day, but for many reasons are just very difficult if not impossible to bring to fruition.

Fewer but better was not the Nazi philosophy. That is why they had lots of very limited, but numerous twin engine bombers. Hitler’s view was why build one 4-engined bomber when you can build 2 twin engine bombers. These fast jet concepts were in response to the fact our fighters were shooting their bombers out of the sky, multiple bombers per fighter, so the bombers needed better protection…and its easier to get large numbers of fighters in the sky than bombers and crew and support them.

Fewer but better was not the Nazi philosophy

It usually was. Battleships (e.g. Tirpitz / Bismark vs more numerous but less capable RN ships), tanks (e.g. Tiger / King Tiger vs T34 / Sherman) and mostly aircraft (e.g. Bf-109E vs Hurricane, Me-262 vs Mustang). In each of those situations, the German machinery was often far more capable one-on-one, but was outdone or rendered ineffective because there weren’t enough of them.

Interesting concept, but even if it had flown it looks a country mile from being a serviceable fighter. Remember the US X-1 program wasn’t at that speed until around 1950 or thereabouts – and that was only at a ‘research’ type stage.

Germans had a lot of coal, all their liquid fuel was refined coal stuff. Burning a barrel of the stuff inside a ramjet is a novel idea, wonder how that would have played out, I suppose “no moving parts” means the freedom to use a really coarse solid fuel.

Didn’t they find that the HE163 was just too fast?

Another “mad one” was the Horten Ho 229

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horten_Ho_229

These fast jet concepts were in response to the fact our fighters were shooting their bombers out of the sky, multiple bombers per fighter, so the bombers needed better protection…

The Germans were not really using bombers in the West in ’44 and ’45.

The fast fighters, like the Komet were not to protect their bombers, they were to shoot down the American bombers that came over in daylight. Besides they had very limited range.

A lot of their technology was very flawed, the Panther was incredibly prone to breakdown and very underpowered. The engine and transmission was designed for a 25 tonne vehicle, while the final vehicle was around 40 tonnes.

The Allies had tanks at the end of the war which were easily a match for the Panzers, the British Centurion and the US Pershing, just came a long too late.

We have to have the Swallow in here, surely. A thing of (deadly as it turned out) beauty.

 the Panther was incredibly prone to breakdown and very underpowered

I hear that a lot.

Burning a barrel of the stuff inside a ramjet is a novel idea, wonder how that would have played out, I suppose “no moving parts” means the freedom to use a really coarse solid fuel.

The coal was granulated, and carried in a rotating drum inside the jet intake, which rotated at 60rpm. I guess the granules were very fine, and were ignited by a gas pilot jet as they were fed unto the ramjet.

Lolz at perchy!

A lot of their technology was very flawed, the Panther was incredibly prone to breakdown and very underpowered. The engine and transmission was designed for a 25 tonne vehicle, while the final vehicle was around 40 tonnes.

The Allies had tanks at the end of the war which were easily a match for the Panzers, the British Centurion and the US Pershing, just came a long too late.

One of the German tanks was designed by Ferdinand Porsche, and was a hybrid, with electric drive motors, but that was too heavy to function properly, IIRC. There was another aircraft with a swing-wing, the wings were straight for take-off and landing, but swivelled around so one pointed forwards, the other backwards. No idea if that got beyond the drawing board. The Horten flying wing was very stealthy, being a wooden structure like the Mosquito, and they had ideas for a huge version that could fly across the Atlantic to bomb New York!

Read Eric Brown’s autobiography. He headed up the unit that captured a lot of these prototype aircraft and flew them back to the UK immediately after the war. There was some proper mad stuff.

Have a look at the A5 Vigilant too, then imagine trying to land one on an aircraft carrier.

fewer but better eventually results in loss

“Numbers have a quality of their own” to paraphrase Stalin.