Years of myth-making about ‘Hitler’s wonder weapons’ and Germany’s wacky ‘napkin-waffe’ WW2 aircraft designs are finally wiped away by a new book written by author and researcher Dan Sharp.
Using contemporary sources gathered from archives around the world, Sharp gives a full account of German jet and rocket aircraft development from the late 1930s right up until the end of the war – the arguments that went on behind the scenes, the technological challenges faced and the efforts made to overcome them.
Secret Projects of the Luftwaffe Volume 1: Jet Fighters 1939-1945 examines the requirements, specifications and design competitions which produced famous and notorious aircraft such as the Messerschmitt Me 262 and Me 163, Heinkel He 280 and He 162, and Arado Ar 234. It also looks in detail at the numerous aircraft projects which never left the drawing board.
Each of these ‘secret projects’ from companies including Focke-Wulf, Henschel and Blohm & Voss is set in context, competing designs are compared and the results of contemporary assessments are shown in order to provide the most complete picture of German WW2 jet and rocket aircraft development yet produced.
