Was a solid fuel powered version of this plane ever tried. Solid fuel would
not have been so volatile, as the two fuels that were used. There were
solid fueled rockets, during WW2. The Ohka kamikaze attack plane, had a
solid fuel rocket motor. Maybe soild fuel would have limited the range too
much or something.

Solid fuels during the WW 2 period generally had lower energy to weight ratios than liquid fuels. That is, they were less energetic so could push less weight for their own weight and volume. This is why aircraft like the Me 163 ended up with a liquid fueled engine.
The other problem for the Germans was that they were limited by availability of resources to certain types of fuels. For example, the Germans couldn't have chosen RFNA (Red Fuming Nitric Acid) and gasoline as a storable liquid fuel. These had far higher specific heat content than their choice of stabilized hydrogen peroxide (T-stoff) and methanol hydrazine hydrate (C-Stoff). But, T-stoff and C-stoff didn't impact other programs like munitions (nitric acid) or vehicles (gasoline) that were already experiancing shortages of these materials.

The one deployed solid fueled "Ohka" was the model 11, all other faster versions were not solid fueled. The Type 11 was the only Ohka with a solid fuel engine set-up, and it was dismal in range and speed. About 217 mph (350 kph) level flight, and about 20 nautical miles. It could hit nearly 500 kph in a dive, but it had to be carried to its launch point to do so.

See:

Yokosuka MXY7 Ohka (Cherry Blossom)

It couldn't take off from the ground with the solid fuel option, it's wooden wings/construction were not strong enough to withstand catapult launching, and was really a dead-end (in more than one way) as a propulsion design.

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Happy Trails,
Clint.

The primary operational drawback to solid fueled rockets for aircraft is that once ignited, they cannot be throttled or shut down.

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Illegitimis non carborundum, "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell

The Komet wasn't designed to be throttled or shut down (if I recall correctly). It was designed to get up in the air as fast as possible (its rate and speed of ascent is still a record holder today I think, or close to it) at which point it would intercept the Bomber Formation and then glide back to earth where it would be 'crash landed' as it had no wheels.

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This is true. Not to mention pilot safety wasn't all that big of a thought when it came to the Comet's design...I've heard it was a very uncomfortable cockpit.

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Best Regards, Hufflepuff

I can only imagine the G-forces the pilots experienced. Look it up on YouTube and it looks like a rocket launch from Florida - the thing just shoots straight up into the air extremely fast. I think 90% of Komet Deaths occurred on landing or takeoff - I don't know how they convinced anyone to get into a plane whose wheels fall off on takeoff and are expected to crash-land the thing to get back down!

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Pilots didn't eat anything before a takeoff, because the sudden change in
altitude would cause all kinds of problems. A Komet could reach 30,000 ft
in just 3 mins. Pilots did some of their training in the Alps, help em get use
to high altitude.....or that was the claim.

The training was done in altitude chambers, not the Alps. Since it was an unpressurized cabin, and no pressure suits, it could only be at altitude as long as the pilot could stand it without his blood boiling, and simply an Oxygen mask for breathing. Like a couple of other Nazi era ideas this was a dead-end project (pun intended), which killed more pilots on its own than were lost to enemy action.

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Happy Trails,
Clint.

And, you'd sure like to land without any remaining fuel as well. Nasty things could happen on landings which might cause a leak!

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“The first lesson is that you can't lose a war if you have command of the air, and you can't win a war if you haven't.” - General Jimmy Doolittle

You mean the flesh eating hydrogen peroxide, or the spine crushing landing skid, or the possibiltiy of an explosion if either of the fuels remained in existance? All BAD and NASTY things to my mind.

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Happy Trails,
Clint.

Exactly...Halloween is over but the idea is still very scary!

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“The first lesson is that you can't lose a war if you have command of the air, and you can't win a war if you haven't.” - General Jimmy Doolittle

Me-163 Komet

Here's a nice video for some background on the Komet

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“The first lesson is that you can't lose a war if you have command of the air, and you can't win a war if you haven't.” - General Jimmy Doolittle

I had watched a documentary once (Name slips my mind) that showed all the ways that the Comet could fail. The most scary looking one was upon attempting to ignite the fuel, the two valves (or whatever, im no mechanic) that held the fuel had to be on a precise angle. If one of them were one degree in another direction one side would burn more then the other and cause a huge explosion.

All of it could happen within 2 seconds.

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-Dustin

"Zey send zer hounds! zey to vill find only death!"

Yup. This is why so many Comets exploded on takeoff or landing, or just randomly in the air due to air distrubance.

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Best Regards, Hufflepuff

Not so. One of the RLM's design requirements for the Me 163B was the capability to throttle the engine. That requirement made the engine much more complicated than the simple engine in the 163A trainer version. The 163B had a five-position throttle. The engine could also be shut down and the fuel jettisoned in an emergency.

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Illegitimis non carborundum, "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell

Alot of this had to do with the nature of the fuel in use. The initial use of Z-Stoff (aquious calcium permanganate... a dissolved solid) often resulted in clogging of the fuel lines with bits of goo as the this fuel often came out of solution to some degree was changed to C-stoff that was less likely to do this. However, the new mixture could easily explode if improperly mixed. This sometimes occured if the engine shut down unexpectedly for some reason in flight or if the supply of one or the other fuels was interrupted.

Another problem is that Messerschmitt dealt with the whole fuel issue in a very conventional aircraft fuel system way. The tanks were not positively pressurized. That is, unlike most post war rocket systems there was no attempt to pressurize the fuel cells using something like nitrogen, CO2 or, Argon to force the fuel to flow continiously. They also were not designed carefully to ensure that the flow of fuel from them was maintained in all flight regiemes. The fuel pump system was very much a conventional aircraft one.
These were all mistakes that became apparent during early testing and even operational flight.

Compounding this was frequent poor workmanship on components. It wasn't infrequent for small fuel leaks to occur. One consequence of this was the cockpit filling with fumes from the C-stoff tanks on occasion. This fuel component being corrosive to organic tissue made this a real danger to the pilot. Hence the need for the special clothing to try and mitigate this problem that seemingly was never fully corrected.

The Me 163 was also a dangerous aircraft for the groundcrew.
One groundcrew member put some C-stoff into a bucket which had once contained some Z-stoff..all they found of him was his boot

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if in doubt....Panic!!!!

Why it was simply natures way of recycling after the Darwin Award was presented.

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"I love deadlines. I love the 'Whooshing' noise they make when they go by." - Doug Adams

a brief note........... Rudi Opitz test pilot and active in JG 400 along with Späte and others told me they all new the inherent dangers of the mixing of certain elements and the causticity of their environment day in and day out, ease of which they could be shot down in the air once out of fuel(s), the crate was too plain fast to be effectively used in US bomber interception but in regards to the overall craft Rudi felt they were all journeying beyond the stars, no other nation had anything comparable to this little "Flea" during this stage of the war.

E ~

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Rip it up !

In that video you can really on see how fast it rises by its smoke trail...all nice and flat and then like a rocket - straight up! I can see how he would feel that way, especially given the next fastest plane at the time!

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There is growing evidence showing that the supposed faulty workmanship was actually the result of mass sabotage. By this time of the war, almost all of the new jet/rocket aircraft and the V1-V2 rockets in Germany were being made in hidden facilities where more than half of the assembly lines were staffed by slave and prisoner labor. About 5 years ago, a retired Col. spoke at Wright-Patterson AF Museum about his research and participation in restoration works on Me-163s in various museums around the world. He was amazed to discover the amount of sabotage which took place. On all examples he examined, at least 1 major component of the aircraft was sabotaged. Most common acts were "forgetting" to fix screws on vital engine parts so they would rattle violently and more often than not causing a part(s) to break and come apart, placing foreign objects in various mechanisms, over-polishing materials so they were worn so thin as to be too fragile, urinating in the glue vats which held the wings together making the glue weak, and etc.

The study revealed that despite the overly dangerous fuels being used, and the crude design of aircraft rocket engines, those alone could not have accounted for the high failure rate which befell the Me-163. He concluded that a very high percentage of the "accidents" were a result of sabotage.

As a matter of pure coincidence, at the same time the WPAFM was also restoring it's own Me-163, and after close examination, it too was found to have been sabotaged: screws which were to hold the fuel pumps in place were missing and more dangerously, a stone was found wedged and almost piercing one of the fuel tanks. A message of defiance written in French was also found, presumably by a French slave/prisoner laborer. The aircraft never did make a combat sortie before it was captured, and probably a good thing for it's planned pilot for it would have surely exploded during or shortly after take-off.