The "Aerospace History Files" series continues! There are a large number of exciting topics that are being prepared for publication. Some stories are completely unknown, some have already been presented, but from different perspectives, and now show new aspects. You can look forward to this publications:
What to expect next…
Messerschmitt Me 262 two seat night fighters and trainers The world’s first jet night fighter wasn‘t just a Messerschmitt Me 262 trainer aircraft with additional radar equipment. The history of the 262 two-seater is much more complex.
And much more. The publication does not necessarily take place in this order!
German spaceflight dreams 1923 - 1945 Germany was definitive the center of the early spaceflight movement. Here for the first time, pioneers combined the dream of a flight into space with technical designs. Numerous books about spaceflight and some great, lavishly produced movies fired the imagination of young people, many of whom later became real space engineers and built large space- going rockets.
Messerschmitt Me 328 low cost jet aircraft The Me 328 was originally planned as a small parasite fighter aircraft for long-range Luftwaffe bombers. It should protect the bomber over the target. When the Luftwaffe failed to create a long-range bomber, Messerschmitt tried to sell the aircraft as a manned anti-ship weapon, as a cheap jet fighter or as a suicide bomber. By the end of the war, various concepts for the Me 328 had been studied.
Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor - a beauty in peace and war times Kurt Tank developed the Condor to be the first trans-atlantic airliner for the German Lufthansa. But its civil career was short, Hitler started the Second World War before the Condor could prove its potential for passengers. It was pressed into the role as a bomber and became the Luftwaffe’s long range aircraft against alliied shipping.
Silverbird - the Nazi space bomber In the 1930s, the Austrian space pioneer Eugen Sänger suggested using rocket planes instead of rockets to fly into space. During the Second World War, he developed the plan to orbit the earth with such a spaceplane and bomb the USA. Only a few copies of his work were published and fell into the hands of the winners. The American military ignored it, but Stalin was enthusiastic. Years later, the design of the "silverbird" was the starting point for the development of the space shuttle.
Raketenflugplatz Berlin 1930 - 1934 Unknown to most spaceflight enthusiast, in 1930 in a suburb of Berlin, young, mostly unemployed space dreamers began experimenting with liquid-fueled rockets. With hundreds of burn tests and rocket launches, these dreamers outclassed all other rocket pioneers worldwide. The best known and most successful became a young student: Wernher von Braun (right), who had his first experience with rockets here.
V-1 missile: the function analyzed From 1942 the aviation company Fieseler designed an aircraft without a pilot, which could bring a bomb into a pre-selected target automatically. The Fieseler Fi 103 was able to cover around 250 kilometers. Shortly after the first missions in the summer of 1944, this first cruise-missile in the world was given the propaganda designation "Retaliation Weapon 1" (V-1). The author's collaboration in the restoration of a V-1 for a museum opened up new insights into the function of this missile.
Nazi-UFO - the story behind the myth The publications (on paper and the Internet) about flying saucers build by the Nazis can no longer be counted. New, faked evidence or photos are constantly being added. The aircraft called "Haunebu" is the most famous representative of the Nazi UFOs. With an anti-gravity engine and the ability to fly into space, it would have been the Nazis' ultimate secret weapon. It's time to rid this story of conspiracy theories and let a skilled aviation historian analyze the facts.
Natter - the Luftwaffe’s last rocket fighter Since the airfields of the Luftwaffe were constantly bombed from 1944 onwards, the aircraft designer Erich Bachem worked on a vertically launched rocket fighter. The small plane was made entirely of wood and was intended to attack Allied bombers with a salvo of missiles. Unmanned test flights were successful, but the pilot was killed on the first manned take-off. Then the SS took over the development.
German hypersonic research 1936 - 1945 The history of missiles with speeds faster than Mach 5 began in Germany in 1936. At Kummersdorf, the Wehrmacht test site near Berlin, trials began with grenades that had additional scramjet engines and finally reached speeds of up to Mach 6 and ranges of over 250 km. The inventor, Dr. Trommsdorff, in 1944 designed a hypersonic missile that was to reach the USA. The design impressed the USA and the Soviet Union and led them to develop such missiles themselves.