Emergency Fighter Program
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2009) |
The Emergency Fighter Program (German: Jägernotprogramm, literally "Fighter Emergency Program") was a decision in July 1944 by the Luftwaffe to halt all production of bombers and shift production to defensive fighters, focusing primarily on production of the Messerschmitt Me 262A fighter versions, and also on developing advanced piston-engined fighters such as the Dornier Do 335. The only bombers allowed to continue in production after the edict was issued were those powered by jets, such as the Arado Ar 234, and newer jet bomber designs such as the Junkers Ju 287 and Heinkel He 343 were worked on fitfully in the last months of the war.
A number of new programmes were launched to provide new jet fighters. In August 1944, a requirement for a Volksjäger (Peoples Fighter)intended for rapid mass-production while using minimal resources. The Volksjäger was intended to be essentially disposable, with damaged aircraft being discarded rather than repaired, while it was to be flown by pilots, including members of the Hitler Youth, hastily trained on gliders. After a hurried design competition involving almost all of Germany's aircraft companies, Heinkel's He 162 Statz (Sparrow) jet fighter proposal was selected as the Volksjäger.[1] The first prototype of the He 162 flew in December 1944.[2]
In November 1944, a programme for an even simpler fighter, the so-called Miniaturjagerprogramm (Miniature Fighter Program) was launched. The aim was to develop and mass-produce a very small interceptor for the absolute minimum cost. The primary stipulation for the Miniaturjager was that it be powered by a pulsejet, as this engine required far fewer construction man-hours than a turbojet.[3] Little interest was shown in this new enterprise by the OKL or the various German aircraft designers, owing largely to the fact that the He 162 program was already taking up most of what was left of the country's available production capacity. Furthermore, it was already well-known by the time the Miniaturjager competition was announced that pulsejets were unsuitable as engines for manned aircraft. The only Miniature Fighter aircraft that got beyond blueprint status was intended as a fighter bomber - the Junkers EF 126 'Elli'. Although unbuilt during the war, a prototype was built by the Soviet Union, being destroyed during unpowered testing during 1946.[4]
At the end of 1944 a further programme was launched, the "Emergency Fighter Competition". Unlike the Volksjäger and Miniaturjagerprogramm, this was intended to have superior performance to the twin-engined Messerschmitt Me 262, which had insufficient altitude performance to deal with high altitude threats such as the B-29 Superfortress. To meet this requirement, power was to be a single Heinkel HeS 011 turbojet. This more advanced fighter attracted more interest than the primitive Miniaturjager, particularly from Focke-Wulf and Messerschmitt.[5] One of Focke-Wulf's proposals , the Focke-Wulf Ta-183 was chosen as the winner of the competition, but construction of the prototypes had not started by the end of the war.[6] Messerschmitt continued devlopment of one of its designs, the Messerschmitt P.1101, with one prototype being 80% complete when captured at the end of the war, being taken to America and used as the basis of the Bell X-5 variable geometry research aircraft.[7]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Smith, J.R. and Kay, Antony L. German Aircraft of the Second World War. London:Putnam, 1972. ISBN 85177 836 4.
