The Heinkel He 162 was designed to be a simple, inexpensive fighter suitable for quantity production from readily-available materials by semi-skilled and unskilled labor. It was to have simple controls to allow new pilots to easily fly it. It was conceived, designed, built and flown within 90 days!
It had a metal fuselage with a plywood nose cap, its wing was primarily of wood with plywood skin and detachable metal tips. Tailplanes, elevators, and rudders were of metal construction, but the fins were made of wood. The MBW 003 turbojet was attached directly over the top of the fuselage. The cocpit was fitted in front of the jet inlet and was provided with a jettison able canopy as well as a simple ejector seat. The fighter was intended to have an active service life of some 5-10 hours of combat flying.
Armament consisted of two 20mm cannons provided with 120 rounds per gun. At maximum thrust the He 162 had a maximum speed of 562mph at 19,690ft. Range was limited to about 300 miles and the service ceiling was 39,400ft.
One its first test flight, an undercarriage door broke away. On its second flight, before a large gathering of Luftwaffe and Party officials, the starboard wing leading edge ripped away during a low level, high speed run, causing the plan to start rolling and crashing.
During its short service life, no Allied pilot ever engaged a He 162, although some 170 were officially delivered to the Luftwaffe, with a further 100 more waiting on flight testing and another 800 in advanced stages of assembly at various plants.
Flight tests by the RAF after the war confirmed that the He 162 was no plane for a novice pilot, being unstable around its longitudinal axis as a result of its top mounted engine. It was an unforgiving machine that required careful handling by its pilots., in the words of one test pilot “no sudden or erratic movements and no tight maneuvers!” If experienced test pilots had problems with controlling this fighter, attempts by 16-year old pilots with only cursory gliding experience, would have been little short of suicidal.
Source is “Warplanes of the Third Reich”
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The reason that the American Army does so well in wartime, is that war is chaos, and the American Army practices chaos on a daily basis.
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