WWII story - truth or fiction?

[Bater]

Hi

This is slightly OT but its still probably the best place to ask:
I vaguely recall a WWII story involving some very dangerous flight
experiments, as far as I recall, the Nazis were using disgraced German
pilots to fly some highly experimental aircraft (as the story goes –
the pilots were given the choice of flying these aircraft or stand
trial and be executed).
I have very few details about the particular tidbit I'm interested in
but maybe someone here can help fill in the (admittedly, large) gaps –
there was a story about one of those aircraft where, immediately after
takeoff, the pilot had to yank out the flight stick and throw it out
the window.
Is this just an imaginary tale or is there some truth to it?

Best regards,
Bater

A common mistake people make when trying to design something
completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete
fools - Douglas Adams

[Rusty Barton]

On 11 Aug 2003 07:24:44 -0700, (Bater) wrote:


>there was a story about one of those aircraft where, immediately after
>takeoff, the pilot had to yank out the flight stick and throw it out
>the window.


That must be the secret Nazi Space Shuttle invented by Werner von
Buran. ;-)



--
Rusty Barton - Antelope, California |"I'm moving to Mars next week,
E-mail - | so if you have any boxes...."
Visit my Titan I ICBM website at: | - Steven Wright
http://www.geocities.com/titan_1_missile |

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message >, Bater
> writes
>Hi
>
>This is slightly OT but its still probably the best place to ask:
>I vaguely recall a WWII story involving some very dangerous flight
>experiments, as far as I recall, the Nazis were using disgraced German
>pilots to fly some highly experimental aircraft (as the story goes –
>the pilots were given the choice of flying these aircraft or stand
>trial and be executed).
>I have very few details about the particular tidbit I'm interested in
>but maybe someone here can help fill in the (admittedly, large) gaps –
>there was a story about one of those aircraft where, immediately after
>takeoff, the pilot had to yank out the flight stick and throw it out
>the window.
>Is this just an imaginary tale or is there some truth to it?

The story came up on this newsgroup a few months ago, and it apparently
refers to the BA-349 Natter. According to Pat Flannery if he didn't do
this it would "tear his nuts off" - probably academic, in the
circumstances.
--
"Roads in space for rockets to travel....four-dimensional roads, curving with
relativity"
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia.fsnet.co.uk is welcome.
Or visit Jonathan's Space Site http://www.merseia.fsnet.co.uk

[Alan Erskine]

"Bater" > wrote in message
om...
> Hi
>
> This is slightly OT but its still probably the best place to ask:
> I vaguely recall a WWII story involving some very dangerous flight
> experiments, as far as I recall, the Nazis were using disgraced German
> pilots to fly some highly experimental aircraft (as the story goes -
> the pilots were given the choice of flying these aircraft or stand
> trial and be executed).
> I have very few details about the particular tidbit I'm interested in
> but maybe someone here can help fill in the (admittedly, large) gaps -
> there was a story about one of those aircraft where, immediately after
> takeoff, the pilot had to yank out the flight stick and throw it out
> the window.
> Is this just an imaginary tale or is there some truth to it?
>
> Best regards,
> Bater

There _was_ a program of tests of the V-1 "Buzz Bomb" (I think) with a
cockpit and pilot replacing the warhead. Don't know much about it.
--
Alan Erskine
alanerskine(at)optusnet.com.au
John Howard doesn't speak for this
Australian in the Amrosi death sentence -
Jail, not death.

[John Beaderstadt]

I was reading in the bathroom when I ran across an item written by
"Alan Erskine" > on Tue, 12 Aug 2003
02:21:26 +1000, which said:

>There _was_ a program of tests of the V-1 "Buzz Bomb" (I think) with a
>cockpit and pilot replacing the warhead. Don't know much about it.

Hanna Reitsch reportedly test-flew that variant.


---------------
Beady's Corollary to Occam's Razor: "The likeliest explanation of any phenomenon is almost always the most boring."

[Markus Baur]

John Beaderstadt wrote:

> I was reading in the bathroom when I ran across an item written by
> "Alan Erskine" > on Tue, 12 Aug 2003
> 02:21:26 +1000, which said:
>
>>There _was_ a program of tests of the V-1 "Buzz Bomb" (I think) with a
>>cockpit and pilot replacing the warhead. Don't know much about it.
>
> Hanna Reitsch reportedly test-flew that variant.

according to her autobiography she assuredly did - and it was not
neccessary to force her to do it ..

servus

markus

--
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schluesselgasse 3/5 tel: +43 - (0)1 - 50 40 662
a-1040 wien icq: 9894381
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"der Markus?? .... das ist der mit dem Buch..."

a nice portait of myself can be found at:
http://btr0xw.rz.uni-bayreuth.de/cjackson/a/p-arcimboldo3.htm

[Ami A. Silberman]

Jonathan Silverlight wrote:
> =

> In message >, Bater
> > writes
> >Hi
> >
> >This is slightly OT but its still probably the best place to ask:
> >I vaguely recall a WWII story involving some very dangerous flight
> >experiments, as far as I recall, the Nazis were using disgraced German=

> >pilots to fly some highly experimental aircraft (as the story goes =E2=
=80=93
> >the pilots were given the choice of flying these aircraft or stand
> >trial and be executed).
> >I have very few details about the particular tidbit I'm interested in
> >but maybe someone here can help fill in the (admittedly, large) gaps =E2=
=80=93
> >there was a story about one of those aircraft where, immediately after=

> >takeoff, the pilot had to yank out the flight stick and throw it out
> >the window.
> >Is this just an imaginary tale or is there some truth to it?
> =

> The story came up on this newsgroup a few months ago, and it apparently=

> refers to the BA-349 Natter. According to Pat Flannery if he didn't do
> this it would "tear his nuts off" - probably academic, in the
> circumstances.
> --
Exactly. The Natter was a very short-winged rocket plane which launched
vertically. Once it was at cruise height, the tip of the nose would be
jettisoned, allowing the pilot to make a single, high-speed pass through
a bomber formation and fire off his unguided air-to-air rockets. After
the pass was over, and the flight speed had bled off, the pilot would
remove the flight stick and jettison the aircraft nose (basically
everything forward of his seat), and then bail out.

There was a single (and fatal) powered test flight.

FWIW, the Me163 was hardly more effective. It killed more test and
operational pilots, and ground crew, than it did Allied bomber crews.

[Jonathan Silverlight]

In message >, Markus Baur
> writes
>John Beaderstadt wrote:
>
>> I was reading in the bathroom when I ran across an item written by
>> "Alan Erskine" > on Tue, 12 Aug 2003
>> 02:21:26 +1000, which said:
>>
>>>There _was_ a program of tests of the V-1 "Buzz Bomb" (I think) with
>>>
>>>cockpit and pilot replacing the warhead. Don't know much about it.
>> Hanna Reitsch reportedly test-flew that variant.
>
>according to her autobiography she assuredly did - and it was not
>neccessary to force her to do it ..
>
AFAIK she flew almost everything except the Natter, which is probably
how she lived to write it. The V-1 tests were featured in the film
"Operation Crossbow".
--
"Roads in space for rockets to travel....four-dimensional roads, curving with
relativity"
Mail to jsilverlight AT merseia.fsnet.co.uk is welcome.
Or visit Jonathan's Space Site http://www.merseia.fsnet.co.uk

[colors]

"Ami A. Silberman"

>Once [the Natter] was at cruise height, the tip of the nose would be
j>jettisoned, allowing the pilot to make a single, high-speed pass through
>a bomber formation and fire off his unguided air-to-air rockets

There was a German manned jet powered interceptor. Would have said it was the
same one but this one took off horizontally. Anyway it had a row of mortar
tubes on each wing root that pointed vertically. A photo sensor pointed upward
as well. The craft would fly under a formation of Allied bombers. When the
photo cell detected the underside of the bomber, it fired the mortars upward.
It was said to actually work. The automatic firing was necessary due to the
high speed of the rocket plane relative to its overhead target.

[Harald Kucharek]

http://www.germanvtol.com/bachemfolder/bachem.html

The pilot, Lothar Siebert, was not threatened with his life.
Due to some minor thing, he was degraded and had the prospect
of being promoted again after doing the flight.
The flight happened on February 28th 1945 and is the first manned
vertical rocket launch in history.
There is a pretty well German documentary
"Der vergessene Raketenflug" (The Forgotten Rocket Flight)
about this. Avery good book about it is
"Der erste bemannte Raketenstart der Welt"
(The world's first manned rocket launch).
http://www.amazon.de/exec/obidos/tg/stores/detail/-/books/3613018624/pictures/14/028-3197181-1215744#more-pictures

[Mark]

"colors" > wrote in message >...
> The craft would fly under a formation of Allied bombers. When the
> photo cell detected the underside of the bomber, it fired the mortars upward.
> It was said to actually work.

That was, I believe, the Me163, or a planned modification to it: years
ago I read a book by one of the surviving Me163 pilots which mentioned
such a system either being tested or used.

Ah, actually it's mentioned here:

http://www.nasm.si.edu/nasm/aero/aircraft/me163.htm

Mark

[mtm@sys.uea.ac.uk]

colors wrote:
>
> "Ami A. Silberman"
>
> >Once [the Natter] was at cruise height, the tip of the nose would be
> j>jettisoned, allowing the pilot to make a single, high-speed pass through
> >a bomber formation and fire off his unguided air-to-air rockets
>
> There was a German manned jet powered interceptor. Would have said it was the
> same one but this one took off horizontally. Anyway it had a row of mortar
> tubes on each wing root that pointed vertically. A photo sensor pointed upward
> as well. The craft would fly under a formation of Allied bombers. When the
> photo cell detected the underside of the bomber, it fired the mortars upward.
> It was said to actually work. The automatic firing was necessary due to the
> high speed of the rocket plane relative to its overhead target.


This was a modification to the Me163. It wasn't really a mortar,
but a sort of disposable recoilless gun.

One of the many problems with the 163 was that it was armed with
slow firing, 30 mm cannons and it flew so fast it'd overshoot the bomber
it was targeting before it could fire more than a handful of shells.

The automatic system to deal with this, replaced the 30 mm cannons with
a series of short, upward pointing gun barrels, each with a 50 mm shell.
When triggered, the shells fired upwards and the barrels where ejected
downwards, out of the aircraft. The mass of the ejected barrel countered
the recoil of the shell.

According to this site:

http://www.sml.lr.tudelft.nl/~home/rob/me163/weapon01.htm

One aircraft was destroyed with this before the war ended.

--
>================================================== ============<
Michael Morton | Need a job!
School of Information | (pretty please)
Systems, University | http://www.sys.uea.ac.uk/~mtm/work
of East Anglia, Norwich |
>================================================== ============<

[Parallax]

Jonathan Silverlight > wrote in message >...
> In message >, Markus Baur
> > writes
> >John Beaderstadt wrote:
> >
> >> I was reading in the bathroom when I ran across an item written by
> >> "Alan Erskine" > on Tue, 12 Aug 2003
> >> 02:21:26 +1000, which said:
> >>
> >>>There _was_ a program of tests of the V-1 "Buzz Bomb" (I think) with
> >>>
> >>>cockpit and pilot replacing the warhead. Don't know much about it.
> >> Hanna Reitsch reportedly test-flew that variant.
> >
> >according to her autobiography she assuredly did - and it was not
> >neccessary to force her to do it ..
> >
> AFAIK she flew almost everything except the Natter, which is probably
> how she lived to write it. The V-1 tests were featured in the film
> "Operation Crossbow".

In one of the Harry Turtledove books about an alien invasion during
WW2 (I think it was "Upsetting the Balance", he describes an attack on
an alien aircraft by such a German Natter.

[Marcin Szczepaniak]

At Wed, 13 Aug 2003 00:50:42 -0500 colors wrote:
> There was a German manned jet powered interceptor. Would have said it was the
> same one but this one took off horizontally. Anyway it had a row of mortar
> tubes on each wing root that pointed vertically. A photo sensor pointed upward
> as well. The craft would fly under a formation of Allied bombers. When the
> photo cell detected the underside of the bomber, it fired the mortars upward.
> It was said to actually work. The automatic firing was necessary due to the
> high speed of the rocket plane relative to its overhead target.

Similar installation was called "Schrage Music". Pack of cannons (20mm
MG151/20 or 30mm MK108)were mounted in plane's center fuselage at 60
degree angle. Pilot placed his plane under enemy bomber in its blind
point and then opens fire. It wans installed on Me110, Ju88 and even on
Fw190 prototype.