Pulse-jet powered Heinkel He 162

[Vahe Demirjian]

The Heinkel He 162 Salamander (aka Volksjaeger) is well known among aviation historians, but very few people seem to be aware that Heinkel proposed variants of the He 162 to be powered by the Argus pulsejet, namely the He 162B. Heinkel saw a pulsejet powered He 162 as imperative in case supplies of normal jet fuel became scarce.

 

[Crimea_River]

Good to know. Thanks for posting.

 

[Gnomey]

Interesting!

 

[GregP]

We actually restored one and got it running. Here it is pushing my pickup down the runway at Chino, CA.




Personally, I would not want to get anywhere NEAR the pulsejet He 162. The fuselage was made of wood and the engine gets red hot! Also, you can hear it for 10 miles when you run it on the ground! Imagine the cockpit noise! Last, the thrust is not very good for an aircraft of the size and weight of the He 162. The Planes of Fame museum HAS one, and I doubt it would take off in 2,500 feet, much less a grass runway. Interesting, but the vibration is not for the casual structure, either. This thing shakes!

All in all, it might be OK to drop one from an airborne carrier, but the performance would not be anything to write home about. It might have cruised in the V1 guise at a decent speed, but it surely wasn't going to climb well and even the V1 could be caught by Spitfires and Typhoons. "Not practical" comes to mind, having operated one for over a year.

One last thought, there are three spherical containers in the V1 holding compressed air and gasoline, with absolutely NO armor protection. It would not take any battle damage to speak of before exploding. Volunteer pilots for combat would likely be mental cases.

Below is a second link, and you can see the valves open and shut. We scared the crap out of the poor woman in the Cessna! That's me on the right side, running the starter box. We needed 90 psi to get it running and then had to disconnect the compressed air to get it to throttle up to full power.