german mini suicide planes!

I do know of several un-manned vertical take-offs and several glide to earth from LW bombers but have heard of only one flight test by a pilot which ended in tragedy, guess as always it is the resource defined

a thought from a site covering the little monster:

First manned test flight

Construction of the production Ba 349A models had already started in October, and fifteen were launched over the next few months. Each launch resulted in some small modification to the design, and eventually these were collected into the definitive production version, the Ba 349B which started testing in January.
In February 1945 the SS funders decided that the program was not going fast enough, and demanded a manned launch later that month. The only time that the aircraft was tested in this way was on 1 March, when Lothar Sieber flew Ba 349A M23, which was launched from the Lager Heuberg military training area near Stetten am kalten Markt. Things went well at first, but one of the jettisonable Schmidding boosters failed to release and the Natter got out of control. At 500 m (1,600 ft) the cockpit canopy pulled off as Sieber intended to bail out. He was instructed by radio to keep trying to shake off the booster, but inside the clouds he lost orientation. Also, the parachute did not open due to the stuck booster. Eventually, the aircraft turned over and slammed into the ground, killing Sieber. It is suspected[chronology source needed] that Sieber may have broken the sound barrier on the way down.
The cause was explained as a failure of the canopy which may simply not have been properly latched before launch. Photos were altered to hide the fact that a FuG16 radio was in the cockpit, used to order Sieber not to bail out[citation needed]. Excavations in 1998 found remains of the booster[citation needed].
Of the 36[2][3] Natters that had been built, 18 were used in unmanned tests, and two crashed with pilots, one during a glide and one with Sieber. Of the remaining 16, 10 were burned at the end of the war while four were captured by Americans, one went to Britain and one ended up with the Soviets. Of the four American aircraft one is reported to have been fired aloft -pilotless- at Muroc Army Air Base in 1946. It would have crash landed somewhere near Las Vegas.[2]

 

Delicious. How you guys can whip out quality pieces of words in such a short time is amazing to me. I wonder about the level of education/ experience some of the peeps here have. I am not worthy.

 

I remember watching an episode of dogfights regarding the sonderkommando ELBE ..I did find the episode online for those interested.

Dogfights -Luftwafffe's deadliest mission April 7 1945

[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccIcTepn82M&feature=related[/YOUTUBE]

part 2 YouTube - DogFights-Luftwaffe's Deadliest Mission 2/5
part 3 YouTube - DogFights-Luftwaffe's Deadliest Mission 3/5
part 4 YouTube - DogFights-Luftwaffe's Deadliest Mission 4/5
part 5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDReB5Uif7k&feature=related

According to records...of the 180 elbe pilots in that battle, 22-24 luftwaffe pilots were known to have succeeded in ramming US bombers. About 47 sonderkommando planes were succesfully shot down by the allies..



quite an interesting battle.

 

Well done Sun. How does a WW2 Vet get to be computer savvy enough to post You Tube vid. ? I am ashamed to say I don't even know how to put a link up. I have to tell my 73 yr old father how to arm his security system. There are some smart grandpa's here.

 

must be an Alberta thing! lol



Well with having a thousnd posts on your belt... you learn a few tricks along the way.

by the way.. you can call me Suzie

 

Aw, there you go bashing us rednecks Just so as you know, we have never spent too much money on an indoor lake. That you can't swim in....Other than west Edmonton Mall. But at least we put a sub in there. And sharks .. The Yanks may not understand our friendly east / west rivalry. Go Eskimos.

 

hate to say this bu Herr Marktscheffel was in contact with me before this episode was aired, during and shortly afterward, he was not happy to say the least as to the production of the showing as there were significant errors throughout, when he did speak on the air the camera crew cut him off repeatedly even before he finished sentancing. I thought eh show pretty lame as it really should of covered the "whole" days events not just what happened to a few almost un-armed Bf 109 pilots. Me 262 JG 7 of all things was suppose to provide high cover for the 109's as they were heading towards the rear of several B-17 boxes by JG 7 decided to go the step beyond and throttled back and attacked a B-17 formation miles ahead while "Elbe" carried on and were jumped by P-51's before they really could do any significant damage. Personally I would term this mission a total waste of humanity for the LW

 

Whoops wrong thread. PLS delete

 

hmmm.. that's Interesting to know.

It was the last days of the war and the Luftwaffe was desperate for a victory at any cost.. it was like you said, a waste of German life

 

Suzie

Fritz and I go way back even before this site was created for the net. The LW was not desperate it was the powers to be with insane ideas thinking it could possibly stop the US bomber formations from penetrating even deeper into the Reich. the higher authorities seemed to think that they could boost their propaganda points by sacrificing more German youth. My own German Familie lost 2 LW pilots to stupidity from on high they didn't need any more personal losses