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The Fieseler Fi 103R manned missile was one of the many desperate
projects conceived as the German situation became more hopeless.
Basically the Fi 103R was a piloted version of the
V-1 flying bomb powered by the same Argus pulsejet engine. By
mid-1944 preparations had been made for mass production, in time
for the operation to attack the Allied forces amassed in southern
England. The Fi 103R was to be carried by a parent aircraft and
released near the target. The pilot would then take over and guide
the bomb to a dive toward the target, and he was to detach the
canopy and bale out just before impact. The canopy, however, would
very likely block the pulsejet inlet and reduce the chance of pilot
survival to almost zero. Nevertheless the Germans went to great
lengths to distinguish their Selbstopfermänner (self-sacrifice
men) from the Japanese Kamikaze pilots, whose cockpits were sealed
close before take-off. The Fi 103R's operation was codenamed
Reichenberg and a total of about 175 Fi 103Rs (R for
Reichenberg) were made. The R-I, R-II and R-III were used for testing
and training, and R-IV was to be the production model. Two Rechlin
test-pilots crashed while flying the Fi 103R; afterwards trial
flights were transferred to DFR test-pilots Hanna Reitsch and Heinz
Kensche. Flying the Fi 103R was quite simple, since the Fi 103R's
unmanned version could fly without direct control. Landing on the
other hand was very difficult due to the primitive control system,
absence of landing gear and high landing speed. This should not have
mattered much because the Fi 103R was not designed to return anyway!
The project never took off, due to the German high command's apathy,
even though some 70 pilots volunteered for training. |
