The Luftwaffe's Secret Emergency Fighter Competition 1944-45

The Luftwaffe's Secret Emergency Fighter Competition 1944-45

This work covers the most advanced fighter and interceptor designs that were drafted on paper and abandoned<br />when the war came to an end. A whole array of second generation jet and rocket propelled combat aircraft, most<br />of which never took to the skies. Anyone who has ever looked at drawings or models of these “paper planes”<br />closely has to agree, most of them just don’t look like 1940’s aircraft, but more like combat aircraft from the late<br />50’s and early 60’s.<br />Only a few of the winning nations took advantage of the advances made by German aircraft designers in the<br />fields of aerodynamics and jet propulsion, but they did. Many of the aircraft seen in the victorious nations’ air<br />forces of the 50’s and 60’s were based on ideas that originated on the drawing boards of the German designers of<br />the Third Reich. Even the development of second generation American jets was directly influenced by German<br />aerodynamics. For example, the straight-winged North American FJ-1 Fury navy jet fighter, which was a jet<br />powered development of the P-51 Mustang (opposite page) was updated with the swept wings of the<br />Messerschmitt Me 262. (see page 11) This led to the highly successful F-86 Sabre of Korean War fame. On the<br />other side of the iron curtain, the Focke-Wulf Ta-183’s revolutionary shape served as the basis for the Soviet<br />Union’s MiG-15 fighter, which fought opposite the F-86 Sabre over Korea. Many revisionist historians may<br />challenge this, but one just needs to look and compare the two aircraft to see the obvious family resemblance.<br />As an artist who loves aircraft, it is my intention to share my renderings of these fascinating German, Japanese,<br />and Italian jet and bi-fuel rocket fighters with other aviation history enthusiasts who share a common interest in<br />the aborted jet aircraft designs of the Axis Powers. If I can inspire others to learn more about the subject I will<br />have achieved my objective.