Here’s the explanation for the acid fuel: “The rocket motor was powered by two liquids, “T-Stoff” (80-90% hydrogen peroxide) and “C-stoff” (methanol, hydrazine, calcium permanganate, and water), which, when combined, qualified as a high explosive and instantly burst into flame. The compounds were so corrosive and volatile that the Komet’s tanks had to be specially constructed of aluminum (for T-stoff) or lined with enamel or glass (for C-stoff), and the fueling process completely separated using different crews and fuel trucks, and hosing down the plane and engine with water between fueling each liquid.”
The pilots were on low fibre diets but it wasn't to stop them farting. It was to stop them producing intestinal gas at all. The early model comets weren't pressurised and they were very fast. So fast that gas in the intestine would quickly expand as the pilot rapidly ascended to high altitude, causing intense pain and/or rupturing their intestines. This might put them off their flying. Also a bit distracting was the positioning of the fuel tanks down either side of and behind the cockpit which were filled with corrosive fuel. There were occasions where pilots had a minor and normally survivable crash landing, but were then subsequently dissolved.
When I was around 8 or 9 I met one of my dad's co workers at Eastern Airlines who as teenager had flown the Komet late in the war. He had some very interesting stories about it. Unfortunately he passed away with a heart attack a couple of years later before I had the chance to really go into details with him.
@Simon. I love the fact that you included pics of the Commemorative Air Force’s B-17G “Texas Raider” and the P-51D Mustang “Gunfighter”. Sadly TR was one of the aircraft that crashed in Dallas during an airshow in 2022
These were revolutionary planes, but had an additional fatal flaw. The rockets were used to have them gain altitude very quickly, but burned for only a few minutes, enough time to get them to bomber altitude where the ME would make a few passes and then glide back, without power to their airfields. They were defenseless as they made the long slow approach back to base and one of them was shot down on final approach by a P51 that had followed it.
10:39 A couple of mistakes here. First, the Shuusui was heavily based on the Me163, but it was not a 1:1 copy. Second, J8M was the Navy's designation for it, not the Army's (J is the Navy's designation for a land based fighter, something that the Army had no need to specify). The Army's designations was the Ki-200.
Just a small point here, but neither of the propellants used by the rocket engine on the ME-163 Komet are acids. The oxidiser is hydrogen peroxide at 80% or greater purity, the remainder being water. The fuel was a mixture of hydrazine and methanol (which are also not acids) in varying proportions, depending on the availability of hydrazine: Towards the end of the war, most of the factories which made it had been destroyed by bombing, so to stretch out the limited amount in stock, the proportion of hydrazine in the rocket fuel was reduced to only 15%. This still worked, but was less than ideal, since reliable ignition of the fuel/oxidiser mixture depended on the spontaneous reaction between hydrazine and hydrogen peroxide. This is known as a "hypergolic" combination, which will always ignite on its own when the fuel and oxidiser are mixed, and does not require any separate ignition method. Hydrazine and hydrogen peroxide is not the only hypergolic combination - there are many others: A combination used in some rockets on Russian nuclear missiles launched from some of their first ballistic missile submarines was known as the "devils venom" - with dimethylhydrazine as the fuel, and red fuming nitric acid as the oxidiser. This also has the advantage of 100% reliable ignition, but as you might imagine, needing a big tank of nitric acid makes this an inherently dangerous combination if anything leaks, because the acid is extremely corrosive and the "red fuming" type of nitric acid has about 20% nitrogen dioxide mixed with it, and you really don't want to breathe that stuff if there is a leak. This is bad enough if you have such a rocket sitting on a launch pad, but the danger is magnified enormously if you put these in submarines: The nitrogen dioxide off-gassing from an acid leak can poison the crew, and if the acid mixes with sea water, it gets extremely hot and decomposes into even more nitrogen dioxide, steam and chlorine, which adds even more poison gas to the mix. There was at least one incident in the 1980s where a leaking acid tank on a missile in a Russian submarine combined with a collision with an American attack submarine ultimately ended up with the total loss of the submarine. There is even a movie based on one of these real events, called "Hostile Waters".
You missed a perfect opportunity to mention the Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka, a rocket-powered kamikazi aircraft japan first flew in June 1945. I'm sure there was just a little influence from the Komet.
Expanding on 808bigisland's reply, there's really nothing on which to base that claim of Komet influence. The Me-163 was a sweptwing tailless design. That characteristic alone made the Komet a revolutionary aircraft with only a handful of peers during WWII, among them were the Northrop XP-56 and the XP-79, both non-operational prototypes. In aerodynamic terms, the Ohka was completely conventional for its time, with straight wings, ailerons, and conventional tail empennage. The Komet's rocket engine was selected for its high specific impulse and its ability to be throttled like a conventional gasoline piston engine, whereas the Ohka's solid fuel motors, there were three, could only be started by the pilot. Once ignited the cellulose nitrate fuel (chemically similar to cordite and other smokeless gunpowders) burned at a constant rate with no pilot control whatsoever, assuming the motor didn't just explode. The Ohka pilot did have the option to ignite all three motors at once for a short-range maximum speed attack or in sequence for a slower long-range flight. As Whistler points out, there were many attempts to use rocket power prior to WWII, so Ensign Mitsuo Ohta only needed to be literate to know about the Opel Rak 1 and the many other published rocketry experiments. There is no evidence he knew anything about the Komet when he first started work on his manned rocket-bomb proposal in 1943. The Germans kept the Komet a close secret until the first-ever Me 163B combat sortie on 13 May 1944, well after the Ohka was approved and in development.
A flying replica Me 163 was constructed between 1994 and 1996 by Joseph Kurtz, a former Luftwaffe pilot who trained to fly Me 163s, but who never flew in combat. He subsequently sold the aircrafts to EADS. The replica is an unpowered glider whose shape matches that of an Me 163, although its construction is completely different: the glider is built of wood with an empty weight of 285 kilograms (628 lb), a fraction of the weight of a wartime aircraft. Reportedly, it has excellent flying characteristics. The glider is painted red to represent the Me 163 flown by Wolfgang Spate.
I made it in KSP with the military weapons mod and its a really fun concept. Simply being way faster and more maneuverable than your enemies in the sky means your just killing enemies nonstop then you're outta gas and you have to balance having enough energy to return to base with not being shot down.
These kinds of videos always make me sad,because they remind me of All of those dreamers and inventors who were shown the door to their face.People hate or celebrate the ones who made it,but what about Everyone who didn't make it🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧
Have you done one on the Welland Canal in Canada? It's a heck of a thing. It's so important, it's been made 3 separate times. It's how big ass ships get around Niagara Falls.
Eric 'Winkle' Brown famous UK Test Pilot was sent to Germany at end of war and he was astonished how advanced Germans were, he discovered they had 7 Supersonic Wind Tunnels to test designs, UK and USA did not have one.
Yes, Simon will do several videos on one topic over multiple channels. It doesn't bother me because there are always new tidbits of info and its usually sourced differently or from another perspective. Man is clearly a workhorse and does a fantastic job (along with his team).
@@brendano4196 That, and Simon has a good speaking voice and presentation skills - I'd be happy to hear him read the phone book. OK, not the WHOLE phone book but several pages worth (do they even print phone books anymore?) It would be like one of those "ambient sounds" videos but with spoken words instead of forest sounds or waterfalls.
I once attended a lecture by test pilot Rudy Opitz, one of the Komet’s main test pilots. Even as an elderly man, he was wildly enthusiastic about the plane, and still loved it. He had some great stories, such as the time his Komet broke apart in midair, and he landed the front half without issue. One of the other Komet test-pilots - Hanna Reitsch - was injured in a bad landing. British pilot Eric Brown is the only non-German to pilot a Komet. Believe it or not, there is an airworthy Komet in operation today: ruclips.net/video/BNIpJcOZPlA/видео.htmlsi=sC590ZpddUQOpSlD
not quite. that's essentially just a fake that looks the same but has a completely different and much safer engine but obviously is also way slower. it's also much younger than the rocket jets it copies
Not really. That flying example is a glider. No engine at all. Nevertheless nice that someone went through the trouble of creating a flying replica of this great aircraft
It's totally not the only one. There also was a Bi-1 rocket fighter in USSR in the beginning if a ww2 and a british rocket+turbojet intercepter in 50s, unfortunately do not remember the name
Eric 'Winkle' Brown (RN Fleet air arm) who to this day holds the world record of different aircraft flown and aircraft carrier take offs and landings, was a chief test pilot and near WW2 end, flew a 163 much to the protests of the German ground crew at the airfield that had been captured by the allies. What a character.
If I remember didn't the German crew resist for fear of the plane killing him and it either took him leaving a letter or talking with another trusted pilot to tell him not to harm the crew if something went wrong.
Interestingly that you mentioned Eric Winkle Brown. He had met Hanna Reitsch in 1936 and in 1938 were they had become acquainted. Reitsch being the first woman to fly a rocket powered aircraft (ME163) and crashed on her fifth test flight.
@@jadeboswell-rz2ly Hanna Reitsch also set world records in Minimoa gliders pre war. The Germans got very good (and still are) at glider/sailplane technology, forced on them by the constraints on aircraft development post WW1. Reg Mitchell met Willie Messerschmitt in Berlin and came back to the air ministry to warn them of Germany's plans to build the Luftwaffe, naturally they told him not to worry...which prompted him to design the Spitfire.
I read somewhere a pretty compelling argument that the Allies generally did a better job at Science, and considerably better at turning Science into effective Technology. I don't recall the details, but one example given was the cavity magnetron. The German Siemens company invented the thing originally, but the Germans failed to develop and apply it. Instead the Allies developed it to produce centimetric radar. This was applied to the H2S radar system, which massively improved the effectiveness of the strategic bombing campaign (especially at night). It was applied to ASW warfare, making it possible to detect snorkels and attack the U-boats while snorkeling. It was applied to naval fire-control, improving accuracy of radar-directed gunfire. So while the Germans made some cool advanced weapons systems that didn't significantly affect the course of the war, the Allies developed systems that had profound impact. A lot of this the author chalked up to the structure of the respective R&D establishments, and a lot to the much greater resources of the Allies. He gave several more examples but I don't recall what they were. Most, I think, were of the not-so-5exy kind such as radar of various types, ASW weapons, etc. Not as cool as a rocket-fighter, but massively more useful on a general, day-to-day applied basis.
Not on team axis but i fair amount of their lack of patience was actually desperation as Japan and Germany both couldn’t sustain the war machines basic necessities. Oil/gas, rubber, steel etc
It reached speeds of 1.003 km/h in 41' and an unofficial record of 1.130 km/h. I read, that they used the engine to reach heights above the bomber formation and then glide through them. They also tried to burn all the fuel before a landing. There is footage of rebuilds which show how incredible good gliders they are.
Imagine if Japanese kamikaze pilots had the Komet available instead of Zeros. Also let's take a moment to recognise that the Komet walked do the X-15 and Space Shuttle could run... And run they did, at hypersonic speeds to be exact😅
They did have something similar called the MXY-7 Ohka. It was basically just a cruise missile with a cockpit, even complete with a warhead in the nose.
Man, the Nazi's really did just throw fucking everything at the wall just to see what stuck, didn't they? Didn't really matter how preposterously dangerous. This takes me back to the peroxide submarines and how wonderfully that project went.
7:20, I know the Germans ran out of a lot of things. This is the first I've heard of water.. Maybe for trapped soldiers but for an operational airbase? Hmm
Nope, they were on that diet to combat the rapid air pressure changes (due to rate of climb) in the unpressurised cockpit causing serious stomach issues due to gasses expanding inside the pilots digestive system iirc.
Not certain "pioneering" & "liquid fueled rockets in the 1930s" go together when the father of liquid-fueled rockets Robert H. Goddard was an American and did so in 1926. The fact that the Germans made more advances in rocketry over the same period that Goddard was working away (in near obscurity) here in the States is due to the fact that the Germans were unfettered by restrictions in the Versailles Treaty in that area, and so were more willing to devote more $upport to that research thereby. We owe much to Robt. Goddard, not least that he published his work in scientific journals which gave useful help to other researchers who were not as forthcoming ["official state secrets" & all the strings tied to funding being what they were...]
I had no idea the Japanese had license to build these things and am dumbfounded they actually built a couple. The thought of those as kamikaze weapons is horrifying.
Around that time, the Japanese had a rocket powered interceptor called the Mitsubishi J8M. It was based on the Me 163, but only a handful of the J8M were built.
Yeah .. I hate the constant "digital distortion" .. bzzzt effect too. Really visually annoying. (edit: sorry .. I think maybe we're talking about the same thing)
That's right. The fuel wasn't acid, but it was extremely corrosive. The pilots had to wear kinky black rubber suits as protection against fuel spills, but since they were sitting between two fuel tanks and in front of another, a crash, or even a hard landing, could indeed be ... unfortunate.
Aerodynamically, the Komet was a great little plane. Being married up with a propulsion system that was, put charitably, a man-killer, is where it failed.
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
Tiege Hanley: Get your first box 30% off (+ FREE gift), and 20% off for life, at tiege.com/megaprojectsskin
Here’s the explanation for the acid fuel: “The rocket motor was powered by two liquids, “T-Stoff” (80-90% hydrogen peroxide) and “C-stoff” (methanol, hydrazine, calcium permanganate, and water), which, when combined, qualified as a high explosive and instantly burst into flame. The compounds were so corrosive and volatile that the Komet’s tanks had to be specially constructed of aluminum (for T-stoff) or lined with enamel or glass (for C-stoff), and the fueling process completely separated using different crews and fuel trucks, and hosing down the plane and engine with water between fueling each liquid.”
None of those compounds are an acid except the peroxide which is only a very weak acid.
@@atomicskull6405 But together, they are corrosive, so that must count for something.
@@kevinlane1219that still doesn't make them acidic though 🤷
@@SentientDMT Perhaps, it was a metaphor.
Tell that to the guys that dissolved
The pilots were on low fibre diets but it wasn't to stop them farting. It was to stop them producing intestinal gas at all. The early model comets weren't pressurised and they were very fast. So fast that gas in the intestine would quickly expand as the pilot rapidly ascended to high altitude, causing intense pain and/or rupturing their intestines. This might put them off their flying.
Also a bit distracting was the positioning of the fuel tanks down either side of and behind the cockpit which were filled with corrosive fuel. There were occasions where pilots had a minor and normally survivable crash landing, but were then subsequently dissolved.
I can indeed imagine that your intestines gradually rupturing inside your abdomen might put you a little off your flying.
Dissolving sounds like a very bad ending to a flight
@@laststand6420 You might call it their... final solution 🕶
@@5ergei Bravo sir, this is a terrible joke on every level... Truly a masterpiece of dad jokes.
I got to see this aircraft at the Smithsonian this weekend. Such an amazing tiny aircraft!
When I was around 8 or 9 I met one of my dad's co workers at Eastern Airlines who as teenager had flown the Komet late in the war. He had some very interesting stories about it. Unfortunately he passed away with a heart attack a couple of years later before I had the chance to really go into details with him.
@Simon. I love the fact that you included pics of the Commemorative Air Force’s B-17G “Texas Raider” and the P-51D Mustang “Gunfighter”. Sadly TR was one of the aircraft that crashed in Dallas during an airshow in 2022
These were revolutionary planes, but had an additional fatal flaw. The rockets were used to have them gain altitude very quickly, but burned for only a few minutes, enough time to get them to bomber altitude where the ME would make a few passes and then glide back, without power to their airfields. They were defenseless as they made the long slow approach back to base and one of them was shot down on final approach by a P51 that had followed it.
Prequel to the SAM
10:39 A couple of mistakes here. First, the Shuusui was heavily based on the Me163, but it was not a 1:1 copy. Second, J8M was the Navy's designation for it, not the Army's (J is the Navy's designation for a land based fighter, something that the Army had no need to specify). The Army's designations was the Ki-200.
Poor Robert Goddard. Never appreciated in his time nor ours. Everyone still thinks the V2 was the first liquid fuel rocket.
Indeed, it was the German rocket scientists instead who gave credit to Robert Goddard for helping to lead the way to their creating the V-2.
Just a small point here, but neither of the propellants used by the rocket engine on the ME-163 Komet are acids. The oxidiser is hydrogen peroxide at 80% or greater purity, the remainder being water. The fuel was a mixture of hydrazine and methanol (which are also not acids) in varying proportions, depending on the availability of hydrazine: Towards the end of the war, most of the factories which made it had been destroyed by bombing, so to stretch out the limited amount in stock, the proportion of hydrazine in the rocket fuel was reduced to only 15%. This still worked, but was less than ideal, since reliable ignition of the fuel/oxidiser mixture depended on the spontaneous reaction between hydrazine and hydrogen peroxide. This is known as a "hypergolic" combination, which will always ignite on its own when the fuel and oxidiser are mixed, and does not require any separate ignition method.
Hydrazine and hydrogen peroxide is not the only hypergolic combination - there are many others: A combination used in some rockets on Russian nuclear missiles launched from some of their first ballistic missile submarines was known as the "devils venom" - with dimethylhydrazine as the fuel, and red fuming nitric acid as the oxidiser. This also has the advantage of 100% reliable ignition, but as you might imagine, needing a big tank of nitric acid makes this an inherently dangerous combination if anything leaks, because the acid is extremely corrosive and the "red fuming" type of nitric acid has about 20% nitrogen dioxide mixed with it, and you really don't want to breathe that stuff if there is a leak.
This is bad enough if you have such a rocket sitting on a launch pad, but the danger is magnified enormously if you put these in submarines: The nitrogen dioxide off-gassing from an acid leak can poison the crew, and if the acid mixes with sea water, it gets extremely hot and decomposes into even more nitrogen dioxide, steam and chlorine, which adds even more poison gas to the mix. There was at least one incident in the 1980s where a leaking acid tank on a missile in a Russian submarine combined with a collision with an American attack submarine ultimately ended up with the total loss of the submarine. There is even a movie based on one of these real events, called "Hostile Waters".
Cool.
You missed a perfect opportunity to mention the Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka, a rocket-powered kamikazi aircraft japan first flew in June 1945. I'm sure there was just a little influence from the Komet.
Different designer, entirely different engineering concepts
Expanding on 808bigisland's reply, there's really nothing on which to base that claim of Komet influence. The Me-163 was a sweptwing tailless design. That characteristic alone made the Komet a revolutionary aircraft with only a handful of peers during WWII, among them were the Northrop XP-56 and the XP-79, both non-operational prototypes. In aerodynamic terms, the Ohka was completely conventional for its time, with straight wings, ailerons, and conventional tail empennage. The
Komet's rocket engine was selected for its high specific impulse and its ability to be throttled like a conventional gasoline piston engine, whereas the Ohka's solid fuel motors, there were three, could only be started by the pilot. Once ignited the cellulose nitrate fuel (chemically similar to cordite and other smokeless gunpowders) burned at a constant rate with no pilot control whatsoever, assuming the motor didn't just explode. The Ohka pilot did have the option to ignite all three motors at once for a short-range maximum speed attack or in sequence for a slower long-range flight. As Whistler points out, there were many attempts to use rocket power prior to WWII, so Ensign Mitsuo Ohta only needed to be literate to know about the Opel Rak 1 and the many other published rocketry experiments. There is no evidence he knew anything about the Komet when he first started work on his manned rocket-bomb proposal in 1943. The Germans kept the Komet a close secret until the first-ever Me 163B combat sortie on 13 May 1944, well after the Ohka was approved and in development.
A flying replica Me 163 was constructed between 1994 and 1996 by Joseph Kurtz, a former Luftwaffe pilot who trained to fly Me 163s, but who never flew in combat. He subsequently sold the aircrafts to EADS. The replica is an unpowered glider whose shape matches that of an Me 163, although its construction is completely different: the glider is built of wood with an empty weight of 285 kilograms (628 lb), a fraction of the weight of a wartime aircraft. Reportedly, it has excellent flying characteristics. The glider is painted red to represent the Me 163 flown by Wolfgang Spate.
I made it in KSP with the military weapons mod and its a really fun concept. Simply being way faster and more maneuverable than your enemies in the sky means your just killing enemies nonstop then you're outta gas and you have to balance having enough energy to return to base with not being shot down.
The Komet video for Today I Found Out was one of my first Simon videos. Glad you’ve revisited it, Fact Boi!
This is one of my favourite channels on RUclips, I learn about so many interesting things
It's a shame that the writer (and anyone's hands the script passed tgrough) stated that one mile is 3.5km!.
@newman977 rest assured the writer, the presenter and the audience have at least a general understanding of conversion between miles and kilometers
These kinds of videos always make me sad,because they remind me of All of those dreamers and inventors who were shown the door to their face.People hate or celebrate the ones who made it,but what about Everyone who didn't make it🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀🌀💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧💧
Have you done one on the Welland Canal in Canada?
It's a heck of a thing. It's so important, it's been made 3 separate times.
It's how big ass ships get around Niagara Falls.
Eric 'Winkle' Brown famous UK Test Pilot was sent to Germany at end of war and he was astonished how advanced Germans were, he discovered they had 7 Supersonic Wind Tunnels to test designs, UK and USA did not have one.
Ive seen one of these in Hamilton Canada Warplane Heritage Museum. It was there temporarily
Looks at the video description: So Luftwaffe pilots were required to drop acid to fly this death machine… seems legit.
I'd like to point out that this is not the only rocket fighter ever made. The other one is the KI-200, which is the Japanese version of this plane.
Should have played the interview with Hanna Reich about her experience flying the komet
Not much gets talked about when it comes to the ME 163. Good to see a solid piece on it.
0:30 - Chapter 1 - Background & development
3:05 - Mid roll ads
4:20 - Chapter 2 - The move to messerschmitt
6:50 - Chapter 3 - The komet in combat
9:00 - Chapter 4 - Scheuch/schlepper & landing problems
10:35 - Chapter 5 - The pacific saga
12:05 - Chapter 6 - Competition
14:00 - Chapter 7 - War's end
The rocket of the Komet was the direct progenitor of the rockets powering the Black Arrow; so far, that nations only orbital rocket.
Desperate times require desperate measures I guess.
Great video, thanks
One note, I dislike the static strange transitions.
Wasn’t there a previous video on this rocket death plane?
Probably on another channel that features Simon
It was on today I found out channel.
Yes, Simon will do several videos on one topic over multiple channels. It doesn't bother me because there are always new tidbits of info and its usually sourced differently or from another perspective. Man is clearly a workhorse and does a fantastic job (along with his team).
@@brendano4196 That, and Simon has a good speaking voice and presentation skills - I'd be happy to hear him read the phone book. OK, not the WHOLE phone book but several pages worth (do they even print phone books anymore?) It would be like one of those "ambient sounds" videos but with spoken words instead of forest sounds or waterfalls.
I once attended a lecture by test pilot Rudy Opitz, one of the Komet’s main test pilots. Even as an elderly man, he was wildly enthusiastic about the plane, and still loved it. He had some great stories, such as the time his Komet broke apart in midair, and he landed the front half without issue.
One of the other Komet test-pilots - Hanna Reitsch - was injured in a bad landing.
British pilot Eric Brown is the only non-German to pilot a Komet.
Believe it or not, there is an airworthy Komet in operation today: ruclips.net/video/BNIpJcOZPlA/видео.htmlsi=sC590ZpddUQOpSlD
not quite. that's essentially just a fake that looks the same but has a completely different and much safer engine but obviously is also way slower. it's also much younger than the rocket jets it copies
Not really. That flying example is a glider. No engine at all. Nevertheless nice that someone went through the trouble of creating a flying replica of this great aircraft
Love everything you do Simon
The blended area rule type fuselage architecture is visionary.
It appears to be emulated to high degee in the Douglas F4 Skyray. IMHO.
It's totally not the only one. There also was a Bi-1 rocket fighter in USSR in the beginning if a ww2 and a british rocket+turbojet intercepter in 50s, unfortunately do not remember the name
The Germans probably wanted the allies to get this plane. "Give it to zem, itz more dangerouz to itz uzers zan enemiez."
Vaat iss diss man doingk here?
What About All Of The Possible Potential Inventors Who Never Made/Make It?
What About Them?
What About All The Inventors Who Are Ignored These Days?
1:09 3.5km is a hell of a lot longer than 1 mile - more than 2-1/8 in fact.
I had seen the Komet as a kid at the Ottawa war museum.Last i heard it ended up foolishly in the states.
There were at one time three ME 163 Komets in Canada. Appparently, one remains on display at the Canadian Aviation and Space Museum at Ottawa, ON.
Eric 'Winkle' Brown (RN Fleet air arm) who to this day holds the world record of different aircraft flown and aircraft carrier take offs and landings, was a chief test pilot and near WW2 end, flew a 163 much to the protests of the German ground crew at the airfield that had been captured by the allies. What a character.
If I remember didn't the German crew resist for fear of the plane killing him and it either took him leaving a letter or talking with another trusted pilot to tell him not to harm the crew if something went wrong.
@@16mopey Yes pretty much. They demanded he absolve them of any responsibility if he was hurt or died, which was a strong possibility.
Interestingly that you mentioned Eric Winkle Brown. He had met Hanna Reitsch in 1936 and in 1938 were they had become acquainted. Reitsch being the first woman to fly a rocket powered aircraft (ME163) and crashed on her fifth test flight.
@@jadeboswell-rz2ly Hanna Reitsch also set world records in Minimoa gliders pre war. The Germans got very good (and still are) at glider/sailplane technology, forced on them by the constraints on aircraft development post WW1. Reg Mitchell met Willie Messerschmitt in Berlin and came back to the air ministry to warn them of Germany's plans to build the Luftwaffe, naturally they told him not to worry...which prompted him to design the Spitfire.
Brilliant video as usual..the natter was another rocket plane .
my favorite WWII fighter plane
The only rocket fighter ever made? What about the soviet BI-1?
2:17 I'm sure I had a table called that in the 90s 😂😂
No way they were pulling 11 G's. (3:00) Did I mishear that? Was that unmanned .. somehow? Did pilots even have pressurized suits back then?
“1,615 feet per minute or 5,300 feet per minute” which is it? lol just kidding I know what you meant. Love you Simon!!!
If I remember correctly allied did try to do a simulat plane after the war, but had difficulties making it work so gave up on the idea.
The more I learn about WW2, the more I learn that the inpatients and greed of the Axis Powers ended up keeping them from world domination.
Ironically, the desire for world domination is what keeps one from achieving it
I read somewhere a pretty compelling argument that the Allies generally did a better job at Science, and considerably better at turning Science into effective Technology.
I don't recall the details, but one example given was the cavity magnetron.
The German Siemens company invented the thing originally, but the Germans failed to develop and apply it. Instead the Allies developed it to produce centimetric radar. This was applied to the H2S radar system, which massively improved the effectiveness of the strategic bombing campaign (especially at night). It was applied to ASW warfare, making it possible to detect snorkels and attack the U-boats while snorkeling. It was applied to naval fire-control, improving accuracy of radar-directed gunfire.
So while the Germans made some cool advanced weapons systems that didn't significantly affect the course of the war, the Allies developed systems that had profound impact.
A lot of this the author chalked up to the structure of the respective R&D establishments, and a lot to the much greater resources of the Allies.
He gave several more examples but I don't recall what they were. Most, I think, were of the not-so-5exy kind such as radar of various types, ASW weapons, etc. Not as cool as a rocket-fighter, but massively more useful on a general, day-to-day applied basis.
If you have to rely on wunder weapons to win the war, then you already lost
Not on team axis but i fair amount of their lack of patience was actually desperation as Japan and Germany both couldn’t sustain the war machines basic necessities. Oil/gas, rubber, steel etc
Not maybe you were talking about not starting the war for much longer but I don’t know if they could have hid their intentions that long
peace bro
☮
It reached speeds of 1.003 km/h in 41' and an unofficial record of 1.130 km/h. I read, that they used the engine to reach heights above the bomber formation and then glide through them. They also tried to burn all the fuel before a landing. There is footage of rebuilds which show how incredible good gliders they are.
Kal-Tec Engineer: *snorts all the coke after watching this video* FUCK! WOOOOOO!!! I GOT AN AWESOME FUCKING IDEA, GUYS!!!! WOOOOO!!!!
3.5 km is more than 2 miles. At 1:13 you are saying "more than 1 mile".
I could've sworn you guys did this one already
Still waiting for an "in-depth" on Operation: Paperclip". I want the W's. Who, What, When, Where, and Why, ... and How.
Excellent video 📹
Did you mention the dissolving pilots.
Imagine if Japanese kamikaze pilots had the Komet available instead of Zeros.
Also let's take a moment to recognise that the Komet walked do the X-15 and Space Shuttle could run... And run they did, at hypersonic speeds to be exact😅
They did have something similar called the MXY-7 Ohka. It was basically just a cruise missile with a cockpit, even complete with a warhead in the nose.
People that play GTA Online: Looks like a Starling
The prononciation of "Ente" is killing me 😭
Where does it say anything about acid for fuel? 'Caustic' fuel does not men 'acid'.
Man, the Nazi's really did just throw fucking everything at the wall just to see what stuck, didn't they? Didn't really matter how preposterously dangerous. This takes me back to the peroxide submarines and how wonderfully that project went.
Starfishes love going fast
7:20, I know the Germans ran out of a lot of things. This is the first I've heard of water.. Maybe for trapped soldiers but for an operational airbase? Hmm
I saw one at an air museum and it really is as small as it looks on screen. Really as big as a pick up truck.
Loved this plane in GTA 5
That picture of Lippisch looks like he's Renfield from an old Dracula movie.
Am I going to play GTAV Online again just to fly this around? Yes . . . Yes I am.
Shout out the the Barreleye! The freakiest fish ever!
👍AWESOME AWESOME VID👍
It was an incredible aircraft. If some what dangerous
There's one being built in Germany as we speak (hopefully!). It's going to have a jet, though
I’ve seen this thing at the Smithsonian. It’s an odd looking plane
Not the only aircraft with a rocket engine not even in the military
I couldn't remember the name of this aircraft so I searched "German plane that melted people" and it came right up.
"3.5 kilometres or nearly 1 mile". So which was it? Those are very very different distances.
Melty pilots.
Flying a glider in airspace filled with P-51 Mustangs ... what could go wrong?
One on the kettering bug next?
I noticed how you separated the allies and then Russians.... nice.😊
Without the 10 million dead Russian soldiers,you'd probably speak German today.
The best rocket interceptor :p
last time I was this early, that state still existed
Last time I was this early, I disappointed your wife/mother/significant other.
3.5km is more than 2 miles
It would have been an excellent drone, if it had radio control.
the US Airforce Museum has both a 163 B and a Japanese copy...
Wait .. are you saying that if they farted in the plane it might have blown up? (6:34) 🤯
Nope, they were on that diet to combat the rapid air pressure changes (due to rate of climb) in the unpressurised cockpit causing serious stomach issues due to gasses expanding inside the pilots digestive system iirc.
I WONDER IF THIS IS WHERE THEY GOT THE IDEA FOR ALIEN TO HAVE ACID BLOOD
LIKE, THE SIGOURNEY WEAVER FILM ALIEN?
I kept putting off this video thinking I've seen this...
It wasn't Megaprojects, it was Qxir...
Bereznyak-Isayev BI-1 was a Soviet rocket fighter
Not certain "pioneering" & "liquid fueled rockets in the 1930s" go together when the father of liquid-fueled rockets Robert H. Goddard was an American and did so in 1926. The fact that the Germans made more advances in rocketry over the same period that Goddard was working away (in near obscurity) here in the States is due to the fact that the Germans were unfettered by restrictions in the Versailles Treaty in that area, and so were more willing to devote more $upport to that research thereby.
We owe much to Robt. Goddard, not least that he published his work in scientific journals which gave useful help to other researchers who were not as forthcoming ["official state secrets" & all the strings tied to funding being what they were...]
did the red one see action?
I had no idea the Japanese had license to build these things and am dumbfounded they actually built a couple. The thought of those as kamikaze weapons is horrifying.
Around that time, the Japanese had a rocket powered interceptor called the Mitsubishi J8M. It was based on the Me 163, but only a handful of the J8M were built.
As featured in the video.
Yeah,watch the video now and shut up.
What could possibly go wrong.
Basically, if you fly this thing ONCE an come back alive, it means that you'll die during the next mission.
🇺🇸
Not a fan of the repetitive use of the transition noise. I think the video would be smoother without it.
Yeah .. I hate the constant "digital distortion" .. bzzzt effect too. Really visually annoying.
(edit: sorry .. I think maybe we're talking about the same thing)
@@THE-X-Forcemaybe with the transition to and from the ad, or to a inset video it would be fine. Used between cuts is a bit much.
@@dorsk84Agreed completely.
@@THE-X-Force Yeah I was talking about that exact "bzzzt "effect, really annoying as you said.
First world problems; the "bzzzt" effect.
I think Simon needs a vacation, he’s been on alot of video non-stop. Must be tired
@1.10 you said 3.5km or 1 mile? That ls not correct at all..
The only thing the Komet was good at was being insanely fast…which it was TOO good at.
Acid fueled is a weird title. Corrosive makes more sense. Sure hydrogen peroxide is an acid but it’s a very weak one
Were you being serious about the diet?
The sporting interceptor -- it was about as dangerous to its pilot as to its target.
"The Allies and the Russians" is an interesting phrase.
Is this the one with an unfortunate tendency to dissolve its pilots?
That's right. The fuel wasn't acid, but it was extremely corrosive. The pilots had to wear kinky black rubber suits as protection against fuel spills, but since they were sitting between two fuel tanks and in front of another, a crash, or even a hard landing, could indeed be ... unfortunate.
Aerodynamically, the Komet was a great little plane. Being married up with a propulsion system that was, put charitably, a man-killer, is where it failed.