While it seems crazy to say, there has been only one rocket power fighter plane actually used in combat. It is even crazier to say that it was used in WWII by the Nazis and it was called the ME-163 Komet. Capable of flying more than 600 miles per hour at a time when a P-51 could go about 450mph, these things were literally otherworldly and a display of the level of engineering that the Germans were working on. Thankfully for the rest of the world, by the time machines like the ME-163 Komet were actually operational, the war was coming to a close and the Nazi regime was collapsing in on itself. Still, these planes did fly, they did score some knockouts, and they scared the daylights out of Allied pilots who had no idea what in the hell they were.
The airplanes were powered by a mixture of methanol and hydrazine. Hydrogen peroxide was used as the oxidizer and as you will see, the volatility of this combo is insane. A guy takes a little dish of the hydrazine/methanol mix and then with a dropper dumps hydrogen peroxide into the dish and the stuff goes nuts. Imagine being in a tiny wood and aluminum frame surrounded by hundreds of gallons of this junk. Yikes!
To keep the weight and aerodynamic profile where they wanted, the planes did not have permanent wheeled landing gear. Instead, they were placed on an axle with a couple of wheels and then as they launched off the ground, the pilot ditched the wheels. You’ll see the whole process unfold in the video. The airplane apparently had some skids on it that the pilots used to keep the belly of the plane off the ground when they landed.
The airplane had two 30mm cannons on it that were used to attack other airplanes. With flying time being extremely limited, you will see some illustrations of how the Germans used deployed this weapon. It could take off and slim very quickly, drop in on a group of planes, attack and disappear. From what we have read, total flying powered flying time was somewhere around 10 minutes. The plane could get to 40,000ft in about three minutes so there was plenty of time to make trouble before escaping. The wildest part of the video to us is the scene where the plane takes off and then climbs vertically like a rocket. We had to remind ourselves that this was an innovation of the 1940s.
Thankfully our boys landed on these jerks like a ton of bricks before they had the time to perfect designs like this.
It stands to reason that the Nazis would be the only ones to send a rocket-powered fighter plane into combat. They were the only ones with a big enough supply of desperation and insanity to try such a thing. The ME106 was impressive as a feat of engineering, but in combat, they’d shoot through a bomber formation like a bat out of Hell, but would run out of fuel before they could turn around and make a second pass. My understanding is those planes killed about as many of their own pilots as Allied airmen.
Sorry, not sure why I got the ME106 and ME163 confused there. Can’t edit the post.
they should have concentrated on the me 262 the Komet was a pilot killer .