During WW2 the Germans built many planes.
Some we are very familiar with, like the BF-109,
they only built about ….34,000 of them.
It’s one of most built planes of all time.
The germans also built rarer planes like the
Blohm & Voss BV-138 of which they built around
300. This video is going to be focused on
German prototypes which it if you pardon the
pun didn’t take off. These planes either
had a single prototype made or a limited production
run. Either due to other choices in design
direction or lack of resources to build more
planes. These are my “Top 5 Weird German
Prototypes that flew”
For this list there are only two rules. The
plane to had existe and that it had to have
completed a flight. So that means no paper
blueprint planes and no prefabricated models
or mockups. Without further ado let’s get
on with the list.
The list:
#5 Blohm & Voss Bv-40 (two 30 mm glier)
This little glider doesn’t look too aggressive.
It doesn’t look out of place as a recreation
glider, perhaps something that one would take
out the weekend on a nice warm summer's day.
What separates the Bv-40 from a standard glider
is a set of twin 30mm auto cannons, each one
equipped with 35 rounds. Bringing the Bv-40
maximum ammunition up to 70 rounds. I can’t
emphasise how odd it is to have guns on glider.
The bv-40 is the only glider fighter ever
made in history. This is further emphasised
by the fact that the guns are twin 30mm cannons.
Look at this comparison between a 30mm shell
and a browning 0.50 cal round. The reason
that the Bv-40 need this fire power was for
it’s role as Bomber interceptor. Germany
needed a plane which would be able to take
on bombers that were attacking deep within
the German heartland.
The Bv-40 was intended to be an alternative
direction of design for defensive planes that
were being designed at the time. During 1944
Germany was looking into all sorts of different
planes such as jet planes like the Me-262
and the Ho-229. It was alsolooking at rocket
powered planes such as Bachem Ba-349 and Me-163.
Rocket and jet planes, even the simpler designs,
are expensive and complicated to make. They
involve precision engineering and rare metals
both of which Germany of which running low
on.
Manufacturing works shops were under threat
of attack as day and night bombing raids destroyed
German industrial centers. This resulted in
very high competition for designers to secure
the the limited manufactures jet engines.
The BV-40 was a cheaper alternative to jets
and rocket planes. It was cheap due to three
main factors:
Its lack of complexity, so unskilled labour
could be used to assemble most of it.
Its tiny form, very few resource had to be
used to produce one
It’s wood design.The airframe was mostly
wood which could be sourced from within Germany.
The ideal combat mission was that the two
BV-40s could be towed by a Bf-109. The Bf-109
being a single engine German fighter. After
take off the BV-40 would jettison its takeoff
dolly. The 109 would tow the gliders to a
height above the attacking Allied bomber formation.
At height the BV-40 would detach the tow line
and glide freely to the Formation. The glider
could reach speeds as high as 900 km/h. It
was thought that a pilot should be able to
get two passes on the bomber formation before
running out of potential energy and ammunition
. The glider would then head back to a landstrip,
landing on it’s fixed skid.
Another odd thing about this glider is that
the pilot had to lie on his or her belly in
a prone position to operate the glider. This
photo is of a German prone pilot for a another
plane. It can’t have been nice to fly the
plane like that. Flights wouldn’t have been
too long so it shouldn’t have been too much
of a problem. The reason for the prone pilot
was to reduce the size of the glider.
As well as the advantages we talk about earlier
there are further advantages to make the glider
small.
1- Less drag due to the small surface area,
thus allowing for two gliders to be towed
by one single engine fighter.
2- The small form makes it a difficult plane
to hit. Defensive gunners would struggle to
hit such a tiny plane.
The first test flight was done in May of 1944.
Blohm & Voss received a order for 19 prototypes,
with a further order of 200 for production.
The program was later dropped with only 7
prototypes that were built. All the prototypes
built are currently not accounted for. No
one is quite sure what happened to them at
the end of the war.
#4 Heinkel He 111Z
This plane looks like some sort of bad photoshop.
The kind of plane you would see in a thumbnail
with some sort of click bait title. The He
111 Z is exactly what it looks like it’s
two He-111 bombers joined together. Well they
did add a fifth engine to the middle, to bring
the total engine count up to five. The (Z)
in the designation stands for Zwilling meaning
twin in German.
Each side of the He-111z was crewed. The main
pilot flew on the left side, along a mechanic,
a defensive guner and a radio/navigator. The
co pilot flew on the right side along with
another flight engineer and defensive guner.
12 Z variants were built.
The He-111z wasn’t the only experimental
twin fuselage aircraft was made by Germany.
There was a experimental twin Bf-109 called
the BF-109Z. Remember that Z is for Zwilling
which means Twin in german. The prototype
was destroyed by a allied attack and the project
abandoned. Other countries also had their
own experimental twin fuselage planes.
Russian made Belyayev DB-LK. Only 1 built
Italian made Savoia-Marchetti SM.92 Only 1
built
And the American made the F-82 Twin Mustang
Only….270 built.
The F-82 was built to be a bomber escort.
There was a two man crew, one in each hull
would. The pilots would take turns during
long flights controlling the plane to reduce
fatigue that sets it after flying for long
periods of time.
And finally after almost 60 years, in 2017
we have the newest Twin fuselage plane. The
Stratolaunch. A plane designed to launch rockets
into space from high altitudes . It’s Wingspan
broke the last world record and is a staggering
117m long. That's almost twice as big as a
747.
The He-111z plane was not designed to be a
fighter or to be a bomber. It was designed
to be a tug plane. Side note the He-111z did
see some use as a light transport used to
evacuate wounded troops. But the true purpose
of the He-111z was to be a tow plane for Me-321
also known as Gigant due to its size. The
Me-321 was a cargo glider. The world's biggest
cargo glider. The internal volume of the Giant
was similar to a standard German railway car.
Its lifting capacity was huge at 23 Tones.
The large internal space and lifting capacity
allowed for transport of heavy goods such
as oil, supplies, vehicles, light tanks and
Artillery pieces. It could even be be used
to carry 120 fully equipped troops.
There were several ways to get the Me321 into
the air. A Ju-90 could be used to tow Me321
into the air, the Ju-90 wasn’t up to the
task with . The second way was the He-111z.
The third was to use a trio of BF-110 with
tow ropes to tow the Me321.
Up to eight externally attached rocket boosters
could be used to assist with take off. The
rockets would be jettisoned after the fuel
in them was spent.
Around 200 Me-321 were built. None of the
methods for towing were really that good.
The ju-90 could barely climb. The He-111z
wasn’t to much more powerful. The three
towing Bf-110 was a extremely dangerous setup.
One wrong move by any of the pilots of the
tow aircraft and the glider could lead to
disaster. Which it did. There was case of
Me-321 crashing shortly after take off. To
make maters worse the flight was configured
for carrying troops. Between the four aircraft
there were 129 deaths.
Later the Me-321 was redesigned with six engines
and landing gear. The redesign was called
the Me-323. The He-111z was no longer needed
now that the cargo glider now cargo plane
could fly under it’s own power. There was
no longer a need to bother with completed
tow aircraft or rocket boosters to assist
with take off.
Only 4 of the 12 He-111z survived the war,
the other eight were destroyed. Seven from
strafing runs by allied aircraft and one was
shot down during a towing mission. Sadly the
surviving four have been scraped.
#3( Fieseler Fi 103R Reichenberg
This is a manned V1. The same V1 that was
being launched at England from launch sites
in Northern France. For those of you that
don’t know what the V1 was the world's first
cruise missile. The missile was powered by
a pulse jet which would propel the V1 at a
speed of 550km/h to it’s target. It had
a basic auto pilot which would move the control
surfaces in flight to stabilise the missile
in a straight line. Around 30,000 V-1s were
made during the war.
Desperate times call for desperate weapons
which is where the Fi 103R. It was intended
to be used a suicide weapon. Unlike the primitive
guidance system a manned missile would be
able to hit a target with very accurately.
The guidance system may make the missile land
around 10 miles around the designed target.
A human would be able to steer the missile
straight into an Allied Ship even if it was
at sea and moving. The Fi 103R would be carried
under the wing of a heavy German bomber to
a point very near the target before being
dropped. The pilot would do their best to
steer the 103R on to target. It was suggested
that pilots would be able to bail out before
impact but in practice it was near impossible.
The pilot's cockpit was very cramped, and
added to the difficulty is that even if the
pilot could wedge themselves out there is
a Pulse right behind them. So unless you could
somehow bail out without whacking yourself
on the jet engine you were right out of luck.
Oh and you're also flying at 650km/h in a
dive whilst all this is happening . It was
estimated that the chance of surviving a bail
out was 1%. Even so people volunteered to
pilot this plane knowing that flying would
lead to certain death . A training program
and testing of the plane had begun with 70
students on the program to learn how to fly
the plane. There were modified glider variants
of the 103R and also two seater variants for
training purposes. This was so students could
learn the flight characteristics of the plane.
The program did not get off to a good start
as there were several accidents causing injury
and death during testing of flight characteristics.
The program was shortly abandoned as it was
decided suicide missions were not part of
German warrior tradition. Interesting the
project was abandoned in favour the Mistel
project. Long story short, you piggy back
a smaller plane onto a bigger plane. You fill
the big plane full of explosives. The small
plane flies the big plane and steers the big
plane into a target. The small plane flys
back home.
Under 200 Reichenberg planes were built and
none were ever used against an enemy target.
Several Reichenberger have been preserved
in several museums around the world.
Before we move on to the next plane on the
list let's take a moment to have a look in
the Pacific theater of war. Over here we Japanese
Ohka Cherry Blossom another suicide plane,
but this one was actually
in combat.
The Ohka was appropriately nicknamed by Americans
as the Baka (meaning idiot in Japanese). The
Ohka would be carried by a heavy Japanese
bomber near to Allied Ships. When in range
the Ohka would detach from the bomber and
glide most of the way to the target ship.
Close to impact the pilot would activate rocket
boosters which would propel the Ohka to approximately
800km/h) At that speed it would be almost
impossible to shot down with standard Anti
Aircraft weapons. The payload was a 1,200kg
explosive. The main disadvantage of the Oka
was its limited range. It had a smaller operation
range then the V1. The delivery system of
the Ohka was it’s big disadvantage. American
warships expanded their defensive air screens
to account for the range that Ohka could travel.
With the skys over the Allied ships controlled,
the Japanese bombers couldn’t get close
enough to drop the Ohka in range of American
ships. 850 Ohka were built and many are on
display.
#2 Sack AS-6
The Sack As-6 while not a fighter plane is
remarkable enough to earn a place on this
list. It was developed as a proof of concept
for circular-winged aircraft. It resembles
a bad photoshop of a German UFO that the old
history channel was so fond of before it came
the logging and pawnshop channel.
The Sack AS-6 is named after it’s designer
Arthur Sack. His weird circular wing design
was first seen when he entered a contest of
competing remote control planes with combustion
engines. His first model with the circular
wing design was the AS-1 which was just over
1m long. Sadly the AS-1 was unable to take
off under it’s own power. It did however
achieve 100m of stable flight after been thrown
into the air by Arthur Sack. The current Air
minster for Germany who was attending the
competition was interested by the circular
shape wing and gave Sack funding to continue
research into his design. Sack went on to
make 4 more models each one larger than the
first. The Sack-6 was the first design by
Arthur intended to be piloted by a human rather
than radio controlled. The first test flight
began in early 1944. During which several
flaws were found in the design. One being
that the AS-6 was underpowered. A more powerful
engine would have given better flight performance.
The Sack-6 was using a Bf-108 engine, which
was a design and made in the early 1930s.
Due to wartime shortages more powerful engines
were not available for the prototype.
After several more tests the plane was proven
to be a failur, with it’s the ability to
barely get off the runway. There were proposed
plans to take the plane to the next stage
with the the Me-600.
The proposed Me-600 would have enlarged the
circular wing considerably. It would also
latest engine design. Complete with fuel injection
and a four-bladed propeller, repositioned
gear, improved control surfaces, redesigned
tail unit, and 30mm cannon Me-600 would have
been a able to 800kph fighter. This plan was
never followed through.
The AS-6 was destroyed so it wouldn’t not
fall into Allied hands. The wood was broken
up into pieces and the miscellaneous metal
parts were thrown into the aircraft salvage
area. When the Allies arrived at the airfield
the plane was already destroyed, and so was
not recorded on the inventory of seized items.
This wasn’t the first circle wing aircraft
invited nor the last. One of the first circle
wing aircraft was the the Nemeth Umbrella
Plane. From it’s design it’s easy to see
why they called it a umbrella with it’s
large wing located above the main body of
the plane. Another circular winged aircraft
was being produced near the end of WW2 by
America. The Vought XF5U or by it’s nickname
the flying flapjack. Unlike the AS-6 the flight
characteristics of the flapjack were very
good. It was capable of high speed flight
and was able to be armed with quad 20mm cannons
and could also carry bombs. The most attractive
quality of the plane was it’s very low stall
speed which made it easy to take off and land
on an aircraft carrier's deck. The navy was
considering mass producing the aircraft, but
chose not to as they saw the future of aviation
was in jet propulsion not old fashioned propellers.
#1 The Dornier Do 335, also called the Arrow
The Do-335 was one of the fastest piston Aircraft
of ww2. It’s top speed in level flight is
said to be 850 km/h. Although that speed was
achieved under perfect conditions. The normal
cruise speed was around 750km/h. Still though
very impressive for a single seater heavy
fighter plane. The key for achieving this
kind of speed was by having two engines in
one fuselage. One engine was pulling and the
other pushing. I’ll go over the more technical
side a bit later.
Do-335 was originally designed as a fast bomber
but was redesigned during the emergency fighter
program into become a fighter. The first prototype
took to the skies in late 1943. With production
models being manufactured in earily 1944.
The armament of the first production variant
was two 15mm Machine guns with 200 rounds
per gun. There was also single 30mm gun with
70 rounds that fired propeller hub. If need
a small internal bomb bay could carry up to
a 500kg bomb.
Surprisingly for such a large and heavy plane
it was said by the pilots that flew it, that
it had good handling, manoeuvrability, a tight
turning circle and good acceleration
It unusual for heavy planes to have those
characteristics. When i say this was heavy
plane, i do mean it was heavy. Each engine
alone weighed 1 ton producing 1,750hp. Total
weight was 7 and a half tones and that isn’t
with the addition of bombs. Put it like this
it weighed more than a BF-110 or a Beaufighter
but didn’t surfare from mobility issues
that those planes had.
The Do-335 hads a couple more interesting
features that made it unique from other fighters
at the time:
One of which was that it was the first planes
to have an ejector seat. It was more out of
necessary than a luxury due to the rear propeller.
Bailing out normally is not fun and is very
risky. Baling out when there is massive spinning
propeller probably means you're not going
to escape injury. To help further increase
the pilots chance of surviving a bailout,
explosive bolts were fitted on the rear propeller
and upper tail fin. Before ejecting the pilot
could detonate the bolts. This would remove
the tail fin and jettison the proper.
Another interesting feature is Tricycle landing
gear which was a new concept at the time.
Tricycle landing gear is somewhat take for
granted in modern aviation. The reason was
so that the rear propeller wouldn't strike
the ground during landing or take off. Most
planes around the period of 1943 were taildraggers
meaning the tail was resting on the ground.
Be kind of difficult to have a propeller at
the back of the plane if the tail is meant
to be resting on the ground. An added benefit
of the tri landing gear is that the pilot
can see forward when taxing. With a tail dragger
it’s lot more difficult to taxi as the engine
is blocking your forward view.
Okay now let's visit the technical bit of
why the plane was one of the fastest propeller
planes of ww2. It’s secret was by having
two engines in the main body of the plane.
By doing this it was possible to avoid problems
that face most classical twin engine planes
designs. Normal twin engine planes have increased
drag produced by the addition of engines in
the wings. The increase drag effects speed
and roll rate negatively. Another advantage
of two engines sharing the same thrust line
is that if one engine fails the plane wouldn't
be pulled to one side. The plane would be
flying relatively normal with the only change
being less speed.
Both the the propellers were set up to spin
opposite ways, standard practice on any twin
engine plane. This is done to counter engine
torque. Fighter planes at the time had very
powerful engines for how much they weighed.
If 100% power was applied at take off. An
inexperienced pilot may find the plane sharply
turning to one side (rolling on it’s axis)
. The result being the plane upside in a ditch
and the pilot becoming the laughing stock
of the airbase. This is due to propeller torque
effect. A skilled pilot would increase power
slowly while balancing out the pull to one
side by using his control surface on the plane.
Under high stress situation during aerial
combat a pilot may panic and increase power
to maxuim and forget to counter the pull.
Twin engines planes aren’t affected by engine
torque because both engine spin in opposite
direction making the pulling force neutral.
It wasn’t al rainbows and sunshine the,
Do-335 plane didn’t come without faults.
One teething problem was the landing gear
wasn’t to strong, meaning there was danger
of it collapsing during landing. Visibility
out of the cockpit was rather poor. The large
nose also blocked out a lot of the view a
head.
The Do-335 was also an expansive plane to
operate with it’s Two very fuel hungry engines
and lots of maintenance. All the extra upkeep
cost for a plane that was only a bit better
than the Focke-Wulf Ta-152. The Ta-152 was
a german late war fighter plane. It’s speed
and performance where only a bit worse than
the Do-335. It was a lot more simple to produce
compared to the Do-335
The Do-335 did see some use in the skies of
Germany, although it’s disputed if i ever
actually engaged enemy planes or ground targets.
One recollection from a French fighter ace
was of a Do-335 flying at low level. He and
his wingmen chose to engaged in their Hawker
Tempests. The Do-335 out ran the Hawker Tempests.
Production of the Do-335 was stop due to complications
in manufacturing late in the war. Only 38
produced. There was a mixture of different
variants of Do-335s. Some of which were two
seat trainer aircraft, the two seater had
the nickname Anteater. Another variant was
a night fighter, it had a second seat and
radar equipment. They only built one of those.
Remember those twin fuselage aircraft from
earlier, They wanted to give the Do-335 the
same treatment. There was a plan to build
a twin fuselage version “Dornier Do 635”.
The purpose of which was long range resonance
that variant was never built.
Only one Do.335 survives today: an A0 variant,
currently on display at the National Air and
Space Museum near Dulles Airport in the US.
Well there you have it, those my “Top 5
Weird German Prototypes that flew”. Feel
free to leave a comment on what you think
should have been on this list. There may be
a chance i have already talked about it in
another vid. So have a look at my other videos.
I’m going to recommend two vids. One of
which is my “Top 5 Weird Nazi Wonder Weapon
Planes That Actually Flew” That video is
focused on late War German Jet and rocket
planes all of which actually flew. The other
video is “Top 5 Weird Soviet Planes That
Actually Flew”. That video focusing on Weird
Russian planes which you will have most likely
never have heard about before. Anyway thank
you for watching. I hoped you enjoyed it.
