A manned and suicide bomb (1 Viewer)

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pampa14

Airman 1st Class
126
55
May 14, 2013
War is a time of extreme measures and no doubt one of them took shape in Fieseler Fi103. The following website brings a special report containing an amazing collection of photos of this German design tested by the Luftwaffe in the final years of World War II. To access the photos, visit the link below:


Aviação em Floripa: Um bomba voadora tripulada e suicida


Best Regards!
 
Most of the pictures are from the wrong angle to say for sure, but it appears to have no ailerons.
So just how maneuverable could it have been?

Maybe useful against stationary targets, if you were willing to sacrifice pilots.

With such limited control it would be hopeless against moving targets.

It looks like Hanna Reitsch in one of those pictures, standing on the platform with the wingless V1
 
From what I've read, the Fi103R was maneuverable enough. It could have compensated for a warship's evasive actions but certainly not an AFV.

The Fi103R retained the original control surfaces from the Fi103 (V1), simply replacing the gyroscopic control system for a human. So the Rudder and Elevators remained unchanged as the means of control.

I honestly don't see how a human could have managed to fly that for any length of time, as that Argus Pulsejet sitting right behind them would have driven anyone mad.

And yes, that's Hanna Reitsch, she made quite a few tests in the Fi103R along with several other pilots.

Of the Fi103 series, there were 5 types:
Fi103 (aka V1) - pilotless
Fi103R-I - single seat, engineless trainer
Fi103R-II - dual seat, engineless trainer
Fi103R-III - dual seat, powered trainer
Fi103R-IV - single seat, production version
 
The proposed use of the 103 was that two of them would be carried near the target by a He 111. They would then be released, and fly the rest of the way under their own power. Thus the pilots would not have to endure that buzzing drone for long periods of time. The pilot would align the 103 to the target, jettison the canopy, and at the last moment bail out. While it looked good on paper in reality trying to get past the pulse-jet intake would have been almost impossible. At the time the pilot was given a 1% chance of survival
 
Just how agile could a aircraft with just 2 axis control be ?

And then the rudder doesn't look like much either, especially when you look at that big strut supporting the engine just a few feet forward, with a cockpit canopy in front of that streamlined about as well as Snoopy's doghouse.
 
Just how agile could a aircraft with just 2 axis control be ?

And then the rudder doesn't look like much either, especially when you look at that big strut supporting the engine just a few feet forward, with a cockpit canopy in front of that streamlined about as well as Snoopy's doghouse.
They had enough directional control to do basic manouvers, although not enough to evade an interceptor if they became operational.

The V1 was able to achieve it's operational altitude, level off and make neseeacary course corrections as they flew towards their target and, when the time came, cut off the engine and dove.

Also, if that is a flame coming out of the pulsejet, then everyone is very casual about the deafening roar. Not to mention it's my understanding that a pulsejet must be moving to ignite, or produce thrust.
They can be started and operated in a static position.
 
There's several videos that show V1s being launched from the ramps and portable launchers.
On the ones that show the whole sequence you can tell the engine is running before the launch begins.

The forum's GregP has posted several videos of a restored pulse jets running stationary, and moving slowly on a trailer.

My impression, and it's just my impression, is that the pulse jet didn't have a great ability to accelerate, it's thrust built slowly.

To get it up to takeoff speed in any reasonable length required outside help.
 
All of the above is essentially moot. As posted earlier, to quote meself:

Air flow problem solved
The ingition discussion was about the photo of the Argus running while on the test trolley and it being started while sitting still.

As far as launching the Fi103R was concerned, any existing launch platform being used for the V1 would work for the Fi103R, the primary platform being the He111 but the Do217, Fw200 and the He177 were capable of airlaunch as well.

Mobile ground launch was also available and the Allies captured several Fi103R aircraft assembled on these mobile launch systems. Here's one such photo:
image.jpg
 
Here's our pulsejet running on a trailer behind my pickup at the Planes of Fame Museum. That's me on the right in the black shirt. We scared the bejezus out of the poor woman in the Cessna 150, and the fire department came over to see what had exploded!


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-xlttsfWn4


Yes, we had to force compressed air into it, but once it was running at idle, we turned it up to full power, shut off the air and let the fuel regulator take over. It runs quite nicely at full power all by itself with no forced air. If you Google "Chino Pulsejet" you can see some runs including our only runs after dark ... quite spectacular if I do say so myself. I'm impressed and I was there participating in it.

We had a metal-spinning shop make the front curved part of the cowling for us and we made the rest. We then polished the leading edge and painted the rest. After a few runs standing still, the paint gets blistered and we have to touch it up or put up with the heat-discolored paint. The combustion part of the tube gets to 1,200°F in about a minute.
 
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Here's what it looked like up close from the front quarter.

The little red tank is our supply of gasoline. In this case, it is 87-octane unleaded gas. The brown stripe near the back of the green cowling is heat discoloration.


View: https://youtu.be/WCsKs2NhdWg


You can see a quick view of our "instrument panel," such as it is. Not much ... air on/off, ignition on/off, thrust reading, tube temperature from a thermocouple. The rest of the "controls" were on the fuel circuit. We had a bypass for starting at idle power, a needle valve for setting the mixture, and a compressed air on/off to be able to start and shut off the air when we got to full power. We also fabricated a way to hold the fuel regular at one position manually until we could get the compressed air shut off. After that, we released the manual setting gradually and let the regulator take over.

It took us a year or slightly longer to get the process down well since there were and are no instructions we could find. It was all trial by experiment. Fortunately we had enough beer to make us stubborn enough to figure it out before we milled the thing into metal scrap bits. We contemplated it more than once. Fortunately, we kept telling each other we weren't serious about that suggestion. Somewhat later, it came out that we were ALL serious about it, but didn't push the issue.

The first time we got it to run at idle power was a great victory and we had an impromptu pizza party to celebrate. After that, we found frequent occasions for celebration, particularly after we got it up to full power for the first time.

Eventually we didn't even need the pulsejet to celebrate.

Unfortunately, one of our team of three, Robin Scott - at the controls in the video above, and also the chief restorer, has since passed away and the fuel pump requires overhaul that nobody wants to pay for, so it is on display but we don't run it anymore. I could get it started, but the fuel pressure fluctuates and we get an erratic run, so we stopped before we caused any damage. Should the money for pump overhaul come available at some future time, I have all the run procedures on my PC ... but nobody seems to care.

I'm glad we got it running and managed to save some clips for posterity. I'd love to run it again sometime.
 
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