Country of origin:

Germany

Description:

Single-seat fighter interceptor

Power Plant:

One 3,317 lbst Walter HWK 109-509 A bi fuel liquid rocket motor

Specifications:

Armament:

Two 30 mm Rheinmettal-Borsig Mk 108 cannons with 60 rounds per gun.

History:

The result of a lengthy development period, the Messerschmitt Me 163, designed by Professor Alexander Lippisch, entered service, as did a number of other German designs, too late to have any real effect on the outcome of World War II. The development of the series began with a number of glider designs. The prototype of the Me 163, the Me 163V1, was flown, engineless, for the first time early in 1941 as a glider. On a later flight in the hands of Heini Dittmar, it achieved 849.5 km/h (528 mph) in a dive after being released from the tug. In October 1941 Dittmar reached a maximum speed of 1,004 km/h (623.85 mph) during a flight.

Production got underway at the Messerschmitt facility at Regensburg, Germany but there were delays due to the clash of personalities between Prof Alexander Lippisch and Prof Willi Messerschmitt. There were also some delays in the production of the rocket engines. In 1941 the prototype Me 163V1 was conveyed to the test centre at Peenemunde-Karlshagen where the HWK R.II engine was installed. Ten Me 163As were completed in 1941 by the Wolf Hirth glider factory at Gottingen as conversion trainers without engines, these being towed into the air with ballast to represent the engine and fuel. Many production aircraft were completed and stored pending the availability of engines. Production was also undertaken by Klemm Flugzeugbau. Further delays were experienced due to problems associated with throttling the Walter engine, and in fact the HWK 509 engine for installation in the Me 163V3 was not available until 1943.

The main model used in combat was the Me 163B series, which was powered by a Walter HWK 109-509A-2 bi fuel liquid rocket motor with two types of fuel known as C-Stoff and T-Stoff.  Highly volatile fuels, it was found on a number of occasions they caused explosions in aircraft which had fatal results for the pilot. The Me 163B-O V41, a pre-production machine, was the first rocket fighter to be flown operationally when, on 13 May 1944, it was flown from Bad Swischenam by Major Wolfgang Spate. Only a small number of Komets were used in combat, mainly because of the extreme difficulty in flying the aircraft, and only very experienced pilots were attached to the combat unit, II/JG400, which used it operationally. Although the type was successful during its short career against allied bomber formations, it was also dangerous for its crews, with many accidents occurring when, on landing, the fuel remaining in the tanks was likely to explode.

Apart from the 70 Me 163B-O and 163B-1 aircraft built at Regensburg, less than 300 more were in fact completed before the end of hostilities. The operational career of the type only spanned the months from July 1944 to February 1945 and, after that date, the situation in Germany deteriorated due to the advance of the armies of the allies and, as Germany collapsed fuel, control systems, and trained pilots were not available. On 24 August 1944 1,300 American bombers flew over Brandis airfield to bomb Leipzig and the Leuna synthetic oil plant. On this occasion eight Komets took off to intercept and succeeded in shooting down four B-17s. However, the bombers and their escorts managed to shoot down three of the Komets. The last record of an Me 163 shot down is an Me 163B shot down by Fg Off Haslop, an Australian who was serving at the time with No 163 Squadron, RAF, on 10 April 1945.

A further development of the Me 163 was the C series, with a bubble canopy and modified engine, which had a Walter rocket motor of 3,750 lbst, with an auxiliary cruising chamber giving an additional 660 lbst. This engine was tested on the Me 163V6. However, only a few pre-production Me 163C-O aircraft had been completed at the end of the war.

The Me 163D was a variant with a HWK 509C engine and had 30% more fuel and a retractable tricycle undercarriage in place of the jettisonable take-off trolley and landing skid. It was subsequently re-designated Me 263, the prototype Me 263V1 flying at Dessau in August 1944 as a glider. Fuel carried was 1,600 litres (352 Imp gals) of C-Stoff and 841 litres (185 Imp gals) of T-Stoff and it was expected it would have a max speed of 949 km/h (590 mph), cruise at 797 km/h (495 mph) for fifteen minutes and climb to 9,997 m (32,800 ft) in three minutes. No production aircraft were completed.

It seems between 25 and 30 Komets were captured by British forces at Husum in Schleswig-Holstein, which was the base for II/JG 400, and 25 were crated and dispatched to the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough, UK for testing and evaluation. A further ten were obtained by the British from Luftpark 4/IX at Kiel/Holtenau. Production of the type also took place at the Messerschmitt facility in Augsburg, Germany.

Several Komets survive in museums and private collections around the world and one survives in Australia. This aircraft, an Me 163B (werke nr 191907), is complete and is believed to have been captured at Husum. In 2003 it was placed on display in the Anzac Annexe to the War Memorial. This aircraft was manufactured in December 1944, was shipped to Australia in 1946 and was stored for some years at RAAF Laverton, VIC. Later it was transported to the AWM’s storage facility at Maroubra in Sydney. In the 1970s the RAAF performed some restoration work due to corrosion in the fuselage, and wood rot in the wings. Investigation of the cannon and ammunition chutes revealed that, although they had been tested, it was probable they had never been fired in combat. Further, because of lack of wear on the landing skid and the fact that the aircraft’s tyres showed no wear, it was considered that the aircraft was never flown.

Records reveal the aircraft was, after capture, allocated British Air Ministry number 222. It spent some time at Nos 6, 76 and 7 Maintenance Units before being prepared for shipment to Australia. It is believed that this is the only surviving Me 163 still in its original factory-applied RLM 81/82/76 colour scheme. Owned by the Australian War Memorial, it was for a period in the 1970s on display at the RAAF Museum at Point Cook, VIC and later for a time placed on display at the War Memorial’s Treloar Centre.

In Germany a glider replica of an Me 163 was built by Jurg Kurz in the late 1990s, painted red all over, with the registration D-ESJK. It has occasionally been flown. Another replica, an Me 163BB glider, also painted red and registered D-1634, has been exhibited in Germany by the Oldtimer Segelflug Club Wasserkuppe. A replica has also been built in the workshops of the Shuttleworth Collection at Old Warden in Bedfordshire. In 2000 Xcor Aerospace of Mojave, California announced it proposed to build a replica powered by the Company’s liquid-oxygen-and-alcohol fuelled rocket motor to demonstrate it as a viable means of propulsion for future sub-orbital aircraft.