He-162 Salamander

Velius · 02-21-2008, 01:43 PM

I think it was amazing that it was made mostly of plywood. The sleek design of it made it look like an aircraft from another era (and as many people have already said "it was ahead of it's time"). The things the Germans were doing with aircraft design at the end of the war never ceases to fascinate me- kinda makes me wonder how the war would've turned out if it lasted another year...

This may or may not be already on this site somewhere, but I'd like to put it into this thread for the sake of relevancy

He-162 Prototype number 6.

Arsenal VG-33 · 02-21-2008, 02:02 PM

I collect old photos of WW 2 French aircraft, and one thing i've noticed about the colors of French vs. Brit planes, is that B&W photos play illusions when it comes to colors and shades, especially blue and red. These two colors literally "reverse" themselves in shades on a B&W photo, so blue hues will appear as red hues, and vice versa. Hence the common confusion of identifying British or French operated aircraft.

Arsenal VG-33 · 02-21-2008, 02:05 PM

As for the He.162 aircraft itself, I think it would have been really neat to modify it for aircraft carrier use. It would really neat! small plane, short wingspan, powerful engine, easy to adapt an arrestor hook, and nose landing gear. Could it have been possible?

HoHun · 02-21-2008, 02:35 PM

Hi Arsenal,

>As for the He.162 aircraft itself, I think it would have been really neat to modify it for aircraft carrier use. It would really neat! small plane, short wingspan, powerful engine, easy to adapt an arrestor hook, and nose landing gear. Could it have been possible?

Funny that you should mention ... being a fan of the flight simulator X-Plane, I once built a model of the Heinkel He 162 for that simulator, added the arrestor hook and made some attempts to land on a carrier. It turned out to be very difficult, and I had to add a modern-style head-up display with velocity vector indication to be able to land it successfully.

The reason was not any deficit in the aerodynamic properties of the aircraft, but simply the very slow reaction of the engine to any throttle increase.

The long spool-up times had been mentioned in the French reports on the time, and in fact they were quite noticable when landing on land base, too. It was not a real problem there if you settled for a long, well-stabilized approach, but of course a large runway on terra firma is much easier to land on than a moving, pitching carrier deck.

(Note that it took quite a while before jet aircraft were considered suitable for carrier operations. The slow spool-up times seem to have been one of the main reasons for this delay.)

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

Marcel · 02-21-2008, 02:42 PM

I thought the structural failures mentioned were caused by the inferior glue, used on the aircraft. Hardly suprising IMO look at the time in which it was build, late in WWII.
Below a picture I took of a salamander at Hendon RAF museum. It really is a beautiful a/c

Evil_Merlin · 02-21-2008, 04:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marcel

I thought the structural failures mentioned were caused by the inferior glue, used on the aircraft. Hardly suprising IMO look at the time in which it was build, late in WWII.
Below a picture I took of a salamander at Hendon RAF museum. It really is a beautiful a/c

The landing gear door and alieron failure were caused by faulty glue. I think the rudder failures were due to overstressing the aircraft.

johnbr · 02-21-2008, 05:20 PM

I have all ways like the 162d and would have given it the He 006 with two mg 213c 20mm.

drgondog · 02-21-2008, 05:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evil_Merlin

The landing gear door and alieron failure were caused by faulty glue. I think the rudder failures were due to overstressing the aircraft.

Most everything I heard about this fighter was positive, particularly considering how fast it went from first pencil on drawing to flight test.

IIRC it didn't actually go into an Operational squadron until late March, early April? but was in production in December 1944. If my memory serves me, what were the key milestones that it needed to pass before deployment?

Was JG 1 or 2 the first operational unit?

Clave · 02-21-2008, 06:04 PM

Good topic and one which will be very useful to me soon...

Evil_Merlin · 02-21-2008, 08:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by drgondog

Most everything I heard about this fighter was positive, particularly considering how fast it went from first pencil on drawing to flight test.

IIRC it didn't actually go into an Operational squadron until late March, early April? but was in production in December 1944. If my memory serves me, what were the key milestones that it needed to pass before deployment?

Was JG 1 or 2 the first operational unit?

It was postitive if you were a decent pilot. It was not a bird for new pilots at all. Many of the pilots reported that if you abuse the rudder, you were in trouble and thats what killed the Brit pilot over Farnsborough

Anyways, the initial order was for 1000 planes to be delivered by the end of April 1945, and more production to be ordered and due by the end of May (2000).

Feburary of 1945 there were at least 6 162's flying, two of them were actually production aircraft. and un the same timeframe Erprobungskommando 162 was founded at Roggenthin to test the 162. Baer was awarded command of the squadron. A few weeks later production aircraft started showing up.

All in all about 46 production 162's were completed in Feb 1945, and of course, the Luftwaffe began outfitting the first 162 squadron, I./JG 1. who traded in their Fw 190's for the 162's. While I./JG 1 was supposed to be combat ready by March, due to the Allied bombing campaign no real supply of fuel was available. Then the worst happened in April, the 8th Air Force bombed the hell outta airfield I./JG 1 was stationed at forcing them to move to another field. By this time they had about 15 162's, but only 10 could be flown. Another bombing raid forced I./JG 1 to move again, and the need arose to start sending 162's to II/JG 1.

The first reported combat contact was in mid April against a Spitfire (even though the German pilots were under order to avoid combat if possible), and the 162 high tailed it for home. A couple days later the 162 got its first kill, flown by Feldwebel Kirchner. But on the way back to land, a Tempest bounced Kirchener and shot him down. For the rest of the month the 162 flew, and was shot down a number of times mostly due to lack of pilot experience in combat. The 162 did set a record near the end of April with the first successful use of a ejection seat, and the pilot did actually survive. It seems however before surrender in May, at least 6 pilots were killed by the plane (not due to enemy contact). Its estimated at least 3 He-162's were shot down in combat, but only 1 is officially confirmed.

PS: I'm not sure why the plane was called the Salamander, the Germans typically called it the Spatz or of course Volksjäger.

buzzard · 02-21-2008, 11:12 PM

"Eric Brown made it quite clear that it wasn't an a/c for rookies"

Given that the He-162 was expressly designed and built as a 'Volksjaeger', and was to be flown by novices with minimal training, I don't think it can be regarded as a success...

The French may have been "inexperienced" on the whole, but that doesn't mean that their test pilots (Most of whom were very experienced combat pilots) were. Also, if the design philosophy was of such excellence, why wasn't it widely emulated?

It is a pretty little thing, tho'...

PS: Which air force(s) used it as a trainer?

Soren · 02-22-2008, 12:47 AM

Buzard,

The French had no experienced Jet pilots, infact none had ever flown anything other than piston engined a/c.

The French were the ones who used the He-162 as a trainer for two years before recieving the Vampire, and it did beautifully in that role. You have to remember that rookiees were flying the bird, so a single crash over two years is pretty remarkable for any a/c.

But that having been said, while the He-162 was highly regarded by both German & British pilots for its maneuverability & speed, it was like nearly every other frontline fighter not very suitable as a first time solo trainer. Like both Brown and the German pilot who flew the bird point out, one had to get used to the unusually high responsiveness of the a/c, esp. at high speeds.

As to why the He-162's design wasn't copied, well technology moved forward and some more future worthy a/c & designs had been captured, the P.1101, Go229 and Ta-183 plans & windtunnel results etc etc.. The He-162 design did give influence though.

The Basket · 02-22-2008, 02:58 AM

There is a difference between a good design and a good aircraft.

The He 162 would have flown into combat well before any bugs were ironed out.

Eric Brown was a hugley experienced pilot and probably had the most jet time of any pilot. He flew the Me 262 and Ar 234 before the 162 so he wasn't exactly the type of pilot who was going to fly it.

It was designed with Hitler Youth pilots in mind and the aircraft was not for the inexperienced. And both the take off and landing were far too long. So the 162 did not meet its design brief. Galland himself was against the design and even if everything worked...it still had a limited range.

The 162 could have been a good aircraft but the 1945 version would fall apart and been flown by poor pilots having to use long runways that would have been under constant attack.

Structural failure is very much part of the 162 story. It was built knowing full well the rudders are going to fall off.

Soren · 02-22-2008, 03:13 AM

That's wrong Basket,

You can't base the quality of an a/c on which pilots are going to be flying it.

The structural failure of the rudder was only a problem if you were too aggressive with the rudders at high speed, as the airplane was as already explained overly responsive here.

Furthermore the He-162 A-2 didn't suffer from any structural issues, only some of the early prototypes had issues here, and most of these were caused because of using faulty glue. And besides from the rudders failing at max rudder input at high speed the He-162's airframe was very strong!

The He-162 A-2 was an excellent aircraft as explained by both the British & German pilots who flew it, but it wasn't suited for rookies, something which can be said about most fighter aircraft.

And despite this the He-162 A-2 was used by the French as a solo trainer for two years with just single accident, that's a better record than most fighter a/c of the era.

As for the Take Off distance, it was 500m which is pretty darn short for a Jet!

The Basket · 02-22-2008, 03:45 AM

The difference between the 162 and other combat aircraft was it was designed so it could be flown by HJ who had some time in gliders. Very low hour pilots indeed.

Eric Brown believed this bit was a joke as no novice was going to fly the 162 safely.

So the 162 did not meet its design brief.

The short range of the 162 meant it could only be used for point defence of its own airfield.

I do like the 162 but consider it a desperate design that would be considered unacceptable in any other circumstance. The fact that the aircraft worked at all says much of the capabilities of the Germans even at that late hour.