Most weird Luftwaffe 1946 Project

Perhaps the most effective weapon they could have made would have been guided anti-aircraft missiles. I gather that the Nazis did make some efforts in this area. Does anyone know what they came up with?

I do believe the Fw 226 flitzer could have flown. They did start building 1 of it before the war ended. I have seen several free flight models of it fly very well so that leads me to believe that iot could have flown.
Also i am now working on a design for a Gotha p60 for jetex/rapier power. That is a strange engine layout for a 2 jet flying wing.

I can’t help feeling that the flurry of design ‘creativity’ in the latter part of the Second World War in Germany was both a late and desperate reaction to the stagnation in design that had occurred hitherto, and a dangerous distraction from the real business of the steady development of new and existing aircraft. The Luftwaffe and the German aircraft industry was used to fighting and winning wars quickly, usually with weight of numbers and a degree of technological superiority. They were not practiced at winning an arms race – look at the two main fighters that Germany ended the war with, both designs that were around in 1939 (Bf109 and Fw190), while they never perfected a true heavy bomber for the whole duration of the war. I see what’s referred to as ‘Luftwaffe ’46’ as a desperate throw of the dice, trying to make up lost ground with a slew of radical concepts that would render the allied air forces obselete. If it worked the war could have gone a very different way. If it failed (which it did), valuable design time which should have been used developing the He177 into an effective tool, or genuine Fw190/Bf109 replacements was lost.

Some concepts might have worked – look at the Ta 183, which bears more than a passing resemblence to the MiG 15. Alternatively, as has been stated, flying wing types couldn’t be made to work by US and British designers, and types that were based on this technology ended up looking a lot more conventional than the concepts they were based on.

The idea of Luft ’46 is by its nature intriguing, but it is also a chimaera in my view. Very few or none of the designs would have made it off the drawing board, fewer still to service.

The irony is that the Luftwaffe had the two war-winning (or at least getting a draw) weapons that they needed: the V1 and the Me262 (maybe the Arado “flying blowtorch”, too). They were just employed incorrectly.

Just to show its been done:
http://www.jetex.org/scripts/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=mjpbuilding;action=display;num=1125795127
There is also a Flying dh108 and a thud on there.

Hehe, some ppl have tooo much time onn their hands.

I actualy saw a model of that Tribelflugel built for 3 rapier motors. I dont think it has been flown yet.

Has gotta be the FockeWulf TribelFlugel project, jets rotating around a fuselage (a VTOL project) looks crazy!

I have an unhealty liking for these experimental projects. I also build fre flight models of some of them.

The Daimler Benz Project B. Very very strange indeed. Produced a 1/72 scale kit of it some years ago and it was huge.

www.fantastic-plastic.com/DaimlerBenzProjectBPage.htm

Cheers
Phil

Reminds me of Spaceship One and White Knight for some reason 🙂

My favourite Luft ’46 design is the Junkers EF 132, looks quite viable to me.

I have been building up 3d images of some of these and feeding them into ms flight sim 2004 and had some interesting results.

THIS IS the wierdest

The Daimler Benz Project B. Very very strange indeed. Produced a 1/72 scale kit of it some years ago and it was huge.

www.fantastic-plastic.com/DaimlerBenzProjectBPage.htm

Cheers
Phil

I own and have read and enjoyed the “Luftwaffe Secret Projects” books and the similar TV programs…however:
The authors/producers seem to gloss over the fact that it’s easy to draw somthing on paper, it’s quite another to develop it into a successful aircraft or weapon. I’m not saying the designs were rubbish, but could they realistically have been developed?
True, planes back then were a lot less complex than today, but think of the development time it took to field the Lightning, F-106 Delta Dart…or in more recent times, the F-22 or Eurofighter….seems like the prototypes have been flying forever. 😀

German industry and the Luftwaffe would of had their hands full working the kinks out of these radical designs (if indeed they would have flown properly in the first place …as an example the Northrop YB-35/49 flying wings were reportedly very unstable). In those pre-computer/simulator days, I think we should question whether some of the more extreme designs would have been flyable…or at least effective warplanes.
Could the Germans develop them…especially in an environment where they were being bombed around the clock and relying on slave labour?
Not to mention fuel shortages and lack of trained pilots.
Even if they war lasted until 1950, the technological limitations..plus the war time industry limitations…would have meant a lot of these planes remained paper projects…

Some of their tailless designs where pretty oddball. How about this one from Blohm and voss:

I watched a tv programme with regards Luftwaffe 1946, the scarey thing is that they were so far ahead in aviation technology, just they could not implement it.

Some of the aircraft mentioned looked like they could be in Star Wars or some other Sci Fi film! 😮

…the Zwilling Do335…

You mean the Do635?

(From http://www.aircraftresourcecenter.com/Fea1/901-1000/Fea964_Do635_Cremers/fea964.htm)

Flood