VTOL.

This is coolbert:

From a comment to the blog:

"Amazing. Never heard it before."

 

Speaking specifically of the Natter. German warplane described as a manned surface to air missile!

Natter only one of many unique German aircraft designs during World War Two [WW2]. Natter was not alone!

Vertical take off and landing [VTOL] aircraft the research into and the development thereof by the German during WW2 remarkable. BUT NOT helicopters as that term understood!

Thanks in all instances here to the web site Luft46!

Vertical take off combat warplanes, fighter or interceptor type aircraft able to combat the bomber streams of the allied strategic bombing offensive seen by the Luftwaffe as a highly desirable concept.

In large measure because of the American P-51 Mustang fighter plane using drop tanks on long-range combat missions. Those P-51 able to loiter over a German military air field for a prolonged period, shooting down German air craft as they took off or landed! Many German planes destroyed while on the ground as well!

About half of the 8,000 enemy combat aircraft "killed" by Mustangs during WW2 destroyed WHILE ON THE GROUND!

Combat warplanes with a vertical take off capability and operating autonomously and independently of conventional military airfields seen as a possible solution to the Mustang "problem".

Understand these VTOL in many cases artists conceptions, drawing board planes, research and development novelties, curiosities and oddities, etc. German engineers "pushing the envelope" way beyond normal in most cases.

1. "Focke-Wulf VTOL Project".

2. "The Heinkel 'Wespe' (Wasp)".

3. "The Heinkel 'Lerche' (Skylark) ".

 

 

One such flight plane for the German VTOL warplanes. Takes off vertically, performs the mission in a conventional flight manner, then lands also vertically.

 

4. "The Focke-Wulf VTOL (Vertical Take Off and Landing) fighter/interceptor".

 

This plane a vertical take off and landing, those wings rotating around the fuselage, pulse jets at the end of each wing providing propulsion causing the wings to rotate.

5. "The von Braun VTO Interceptor".

 

The von Braun interceptor rocket powered. Take off vertical, landing in a conventional manner, sans landing gear, a belly landing.

6. "The Heinkel 'Julia' was a rocket propelled fighter".

 

"Julia" a rocket plane. Vertical take off with a conventional belly landing?

 

These warplanes in all instances too hard to fly. Both take off and landing difficult if next to impossible, experts only, more casualties from operating the air plane than from enemy action?

coolbert.