Just a question to the Aircraft experts here if the HE-162 made it to operational service how good would this plane had been in combat?
I saw a documentary on Hitler's wonder weapons and this was listed in there. Experts said it was actually a very good design and very inexpensive and simple to produce. In the hands of a good pilot or better, it would have been a very dangerous aircraft indeed.
my personal opinion : It was a dangerous bitch in the air, the overhead engine seperated in flight on at least two occassions. It was operational with a test unit as well as I./JG 1. The ejection seat unit misfired on two ops and killed the pilots and in fact the little turd caused the demise of 12 JG 1 pilots at least 3 of the pilots were notables amongst JG 1 personell. JG 1 should of had the newer Me 262A-1's in their flight line not this thing
I read that the top mounted engine made it difficult to fly. Top heavy. And late in the war experienced pilots were as rare as fuel in Germany. Also the engines on the Me-262 only had a few hours of flight time due to rare metal shortages, so I would assume the He-162 had the same problem. They were designed and put in production so fast, I would guess the He-162 had alot of problems to work out such as the ejection seat Erich mentioned.
I to read that the Heinkel He 162 proved to be a handful to fly nicked named the peoples fighter I can think of another name. Made with minimal materials, I just wonder what the pilots thought of it. Was the fire power lethal or not? And after the war I wonder if the Allies dare test fly it?
Hmm. Maybe it was another aircraft that I saw on the History Channel? Now was there a German jet fighter that was considered excellent.
In the hands of a skilled pilot the He 162 could have been a very dangerous opponet. In the hands of a marginally trained pilot which virtually every pilot using this aircraft would have been it was just short of a death trap. Structurally, the aircraft had a weak tail assembly. Fast rolling and aerobatics could easily cause its loss with fatal results. The poor construction would have led to numerous losses in service when the plane literally came unglued. While the BMW 003 was a more reliable engine than the Jumo 004, it was still subject to surging and flameouts unless very gently handled. Over use of the throttle could be done very easily. Instrumentation was minimal ensuring that flying in anything but clear weather would almost certainly result in loss of the aircraft; in part due to lack of those insturments, in part due to the short flying time which allowed for no mistakes in the flight plan. Even use of the 20mm was problematic. Two 30mm Mk 108's were tried but proved too much for the airframe. The two 20mm were almost too much as well. Firing could have caused minor and major structural problems through shock and vibration. So, even in the hands of someone who knew their business the Henkel would likely prove fatal sooner or later.
IMH-and-non-expert-O the old saying applies to this one : if it looks right, it is right and I've always thought the He162 looks rather horrid.
2 aces come to mind that were killed. Unteroffizier Friedrich Enderle of I./JG 1 Hauptman Paul Dähne of II./JG 1 whom was quite unimpressed with the little turd 3./JG 1 Staffelkapitän Oberleutnant Karl-Heinz Demuth flew the Volksjäger. The chap was an ace flying Fw 190A's previously
Thanks everyone I always thought it looked odd, and could have been dangerous to fly. Well I was thinking along the right lines, glad to hear I was right.
According to Osprey's 'German Jet Aces Of WW2' , in an eight-week period of operating the He-162 JG.1 lost one pilot to enemy action - plus nine killed and five injured due to accidents. One Typhoon was claimed but disputed by a flak battery. The He-162 seems to be an airborne version of the Volkspistole ie a cheap-and-cheerful last-ditch weapon with virtually no development. IMHO such aircraft as the Me-262, He-219 and Ta152 were at least serious combat designs whereas the He-162 really does seem to be an aeronautical dead-end. File under 'interesting oddity/freak'.
* In September 1944, with the Nazi empire under extreme pressure on all fronts, the German Air Ministry ("ReichsLuftsfahrtMinisterium" or "RLM") acknowledged Germany's desperate circumstances by issuing a requirement for a new jet fighter that would be simple, cheap, and easy to build in large quantity. The aircraft would be built in such quantities that little maintenance would be required, as a defective aircraft could simply be discarded and replaced with a new one. The Air Ministry called this aircraft the "Volksjaeger (People's Fighter)". Such a measure made some sense under the circumstances, but there were those in the Nazi leadership, including Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering, head of the Luftwaffe, who went further, believing that the new fighter would be piloted by Hitler Youth. These adolescents would be given elementary pilot training by flying gliders based on the Volksjaeger, and then would immediately be put behind the controls of the fighter itself, to sink or swim in flight operations and air combat. The idea of putting barely trained kids into the cockpit of a high performance fighter, particularly one designed in haste and manufactured as cheaply as possible, was of course lunacy, and Goering, a fighter ace himself, should have known better. Generalleutnant Adolf Galland, in command of the Luftwaffe's fighter force, bitterly opposed the Volksjaeger, since he felt it would divert resources from existing aircraft programs, particular the Messerschmitt 262 jet fighter, then going into production. He was supported in his objections by Willi Messerschmitt and Focke-Wulf's Kurt Tank. Since the Volksjaeger proposal was backed by Reichsmarshall Goering and Armaments Minister Albert Speer, the objections were overruled. The Air Ministry requirement specified a single-seat fighter, powered by a single "BMW-003" turbojet engine with 7.85 kN (800 kgp / 1,760 lbf) thrust. The aircraft was to weigh no more than two tonnes (4,400 pounds), making it a featherweight in the air combat arena. Maximum speed was specified as 750 KPH (466 MPH) at sea level; operational endurance was to be at least a half hour; and the takeoff run was to be no more than 500 meters (1,640 feet). Armament was specified as either two 20 millimeter cannon with 100 rounds per gun, or two 30 millimeter cannon with 50 rounds per gun. The Air Ministry issued the requirement on 10 September 1944, and specified that proposals were to be submitted no later than 20 September. The Volksjaeger was to be ready to go into full production by New Year's Day, 1945.
All major German aircraft manufacturers were sent the requirement and all were interested. However, Heinkel had been working on an appropriate concept for several months, and was able to respond quickly with a proposal with the company designation "P.1073". Blohm & Voss submitted a competing proposal, the "P.211". The initial concept was very forward-looking, clearly pointing the way to the next generation of swept-winged jet fighters, such as the F-86 Sabre and the MiG-15, but since the aircraft had to be put into service as quickly as possible a simplified straight-wing version, the "P.211.02", was submitted instead. The swept-wing version could be introduced later. Heinkel lobbied harder than Blohm & Voss and won the competition at the end of September. The company was awarded an order for 1,000 Volksjaegers, to be delivered by April 1945, with production ramping up to 2,000 fighters a month in May. The program was named "Salamander", though Heinkel gave the aircraft itself the name of "Spatz (Sparrow)". The Blohm und Voss proposal was filed away. The Heinkel design was developed by a team lead by Siegfried Guenther and Karl Schwaerzler. Their Volksjaeger concept was a neat, sporty-looking little aircraft, with a sleek streamlined fuselage; the BMW-003 engine carried in a nacelle on the back of the aircraft; twin tailfins, to clear the jet exhaust; a high-mounted straight wing with a shallow dihedral; and tricycle landing gear that retracted into the fuselage. Controls were hydraulically operated. The BMW-003 was electrically started, but featured a pull-started two-stroke piston engine in the intake bullet for auxiliary starting. Bailing out of an aircraft with a high wing and a jet engine directly behind the cockpit was clearly hazardous, so the aircraft was to be fitted with a simple ejection seat, fired by an explosive cartridge. The aircraft was to be built mostly of metal, but with wings and tailfins made mostly of wood. The new aircraft was originally assigned the designation "He-500", but in order to misdirect Allied intelligence the designation was changed to "He-162". The lower number hopefully would suggest that the type had been in development for a number of years. Two variants were to be produced, including the "He-162A-1" bomber destroyer with two MK-108 30 millimeter cannon and 50 rounds per gun, and the "He-162A-2" air superiority fighter with two MG-151 20 millimeter cannon and 120 rounds per gun. Work began immediately at the Heinkel factory in Vienna on a first batch of 31 aircraft. In the meantime, an enormous effort was begun to set up a network of suppliers of parts and subassemblies, dispersed all over the Reich. Final assembly was to be at the Heinkel plant in Marienhe, the Junkers plant at Bernberg, and in the infamous SS underground slave-labor factory near Nordhausen in the Harz Mountains, known as "Mittelwerk (Central Works)". In essence, the He-162 was being put into mass production even before the first example had flown. There wasn't any time to do anything else
* The first Luftwaffe unit to fly the He-162 was an evaluation unit named "Erprobungskommando 162", formed at the Luftwaffe test center at Rechlin under the command of Oberstleutnant Heinz Baer, a respected combat pilot who was credited with 200 kills. 46 He-162s were delivered to the Luftwaffe in February, allowing Baer's unit to acquire familiarity with the type. That month also saw deliveries of the He-162 to its first operational unit, the "Ist Gruppe / Jagdgeschwader 1 (I/JG-1)", which had previously flown the Focke-Wulf FW-190. I/JG-1 was pulled back to Parchim, not far from the Heinkel factory at Marienhe, where the Luftwaffe pilots could pick up their new jets. They began intensive training on the type in March, but by that time the Third Reich was obviously on the threshold of collapse and transportation and fuel supply was grinding to a halt under the pressure of Allied air attacks. On 7 April, the USAAF bombed the field at Parchim with 134 B-17 Flying Fortresses. Two days later, I/JG-1 left their demolished facilities to move to a nearby airfield at Ludwigslust. Less than a week later they moved again, flying north to an airfield at Leck, in Schleswig-Holstein, near the Danish border. In the meantime, II Gruppe of JG-1 had moved to the Heinkel airfield at Marienhe to begin trading their FW-190s for He-162s. * The He-162 finally began to see combat in mid-April. On 19 April, the pilot of a British Royal Air Force (RAF) fighter who had been captured by the Germans informed his interrogators that he had been shot down by a jet fighter whose description was clearly that of a He-162. The Heinkel and its pilot were lost as well, shot down by an RAF Tempest fighter while returning to base. On 20 April, a Luftwaffe pilot successfully ejected from a He-162, though the reason for the hasty exit from his aircraft was not recorded. One possibility is that he simply ran out of fuel. The He-162's half-hour endurance was simply not enough, and at least two of JG-1's pilots were killed making "dead-stick" landings after exhausting their fuel. Hitler put a bullet in his head on 30 April 1945. On 4 May, all of JG-1's surviving He-162s were formed into a special consolidated "Einsatzgruppen (Special Action Group)", but this action amounted to little more than "rearranging the deck chairs on the TITANIC". On 5 May, the Germans agreed to a cease-fire and the He-162s were all grounded. From mid-April, I/JG-1 had scored a number of kills, but had also lost thirteen He-162s and ten pilots. Most of the losses were from flying accidents, due to problems such as engine flame-outs and occasional structural failures. The difficulties with the type seem to have been due to the fact that it was rushed into production, not that it was an inherently bad design. One experienced Luftwaffe pilot who flew it called it a "first-class combat aircraft". The design had some clear weaknesses, of course, such as its short endurance and the fact that the position of the engine left the pilot almost completely blind to the vital rear "six" position. Some sources also state that the back-mounted engine made the aircraft logitudinally unstable, rendering any maneuvers that "threw the aircraft around" unsafe. However, in one sense the He-162 was remarkable: it was designed and flown in three months, and in the five months following several hundred were built under the most difficult conditions. It was fortunate for the Allies that the He-162 was much too late to be anything more than a footnote to the history of the air war over Europe, but a certain curiosity remains over what it might have been able to do had events been more favorable to it.
before ANYONE GOES ANY FURTHER with kills made up by JG 1's He 162's please refer to Eric Mombeeks JG 1 book as well as Dr. Jochen Priens JG 1 und JG 11 volume 3. The losses and kills subjective to further study as they have not been confirmed are there and stated thusly. All webistes are incorrect and any other book without reference in regarding to these two experten authors who inteviewed former JG 1 pilots personally ......... and Kingtiger ditch the hotlinks ads please ! geez v/r E
That's a cut'n'paste from Greg Goebel's vectorsite which doesn't allow hotlinking of images without modification.
