Power to the people…

***image1***The He 162 Volksjäger (People’s Fighter) had its genesis in a request for a simple, inexpensive jet fighter made out of non-strategic materials, such as wood, and suitable for mass production by semi-skilled and unskilled labor. It was also to be simple to fly so boys could be taken from the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth), taught to fly on gliders and finish their training by flying the Volksjäger on operational missions.

Despite the objections of the Luftwaffe staff, the requirement was distributed to all the major aircraft companies on Sept. 8, 1944, with responses due by Sept. 20, 1944, so that mass production could commence Jan. 1, 1945.

Ernst Heinkel’s company had been working on a simple jet fighter since the early part of the summer in 1944, and its rapid conversion into the Volksjäger won Heinkel the contract.

The Heinkel aircraft, the He 162, was aesthetically pleasing and very small – a wingspan of under 24 feet and less than 30 feet long – with the engine mounted above the fuselage to minimize any difficulties with the inlet and exhaust ducting and a double tail with sharp dihedral in the horizontal stabilizers.

On Sept. 23, Heinkel showed a mock-up of the Volksjäger to German officials and they ordered immediate production. The prototype He 162 made its initial flight on
Dec. 6, 90 days from the receipt of the requirement, a record unparalleled for a modern combat aircraft.

The first flight was uneventful but four days later, on its second flight, during a high speed pass in front of Nazi Party officials, one of the wings shed an aileron and the prototype rolled into the ground and crashed.

An investigation determined that the wood glue was defective and that the wing needed to be redesigned for greater strength.

The second prototype flew on Dec. 22 and showed some stability problems, so a number of small “Band-Aid” cures were made to keep from slowing production, including slightly increasing the size of the tail surfaces and adding highly visible turned-down wing tip “droops.”

The changes had raised the weight more than the original 4,000 pound limit, but even then the He 162 was the fastest aircraft in the air, making 553 mph at sea level and 562 mph at 20,000 feet. The He 162 had a very high rate of roll, but the rudder could not handle the maximum stress the surface could generate; full rudder at high speed could lead to a tail failure, and this was a challenge to piston-engine pilot had to unlearn the habit of mashing on the rudders.

The BMW engine proved to be far less sensitive to throttle movements than other German jet engines, and this allowed the He 162 to be flown up to the limits of the pilot’s confidence in the aircraft. The He 162’s primary drawbacks were its endurance of 30 minutes, the fact the engine blocked visibility to the vital rear “six” position, and that the airframe was too lightly built to carry the planned two 30 millimeter cannon (production models carried two 20 millimeter cannon). Despite all these caveats, the He 162 was far superior to the best fighters fielded by the allies.

At the beginning of 1945, a gigantic production program for the Volksjäger got into stride. The production schedule called for the first thousand aircraft to be ready by the end of April 1945 and output to reach 2,000 per month the following month.
In January 1945, Erprobungskommando 162 (Test Unit 162) received the first 46
He 162s and in February the He 162 was delivered to an operational unit, I./JG 1, based near the Heinkel factory at Marienehe. By April, Erprobungskommando 162 had joined Adolf Galland’s elite jet unit, JV 44, at their base near München, but had little opportunity for combat.

He 162 pilots claimed three kills before the end of the war, and on April 20, a He-162 pilot made the world’s first successful combat ejection. From mid-April, I/JG-1 lost 13 He-162s and 10 pilots, but 11 of the losses were from engine flame-outs and structural failures. JG-1 turned their He-162s over to the allies, and examples of the fighter were then flown in the U.S., Britain, France and the USSR.

The famous British test pilot, Eric “Winkle” Brown, often flew the He 162 after the war. He considered it delightful to fly and thought it was an excellent combat aircraft, but knew about the rudder problem and warned the other allied pilots about it. Still, an RAF pilot flying a He 162 broke off one of the tailfins and crashed in November 1945 during the Farnborough Air Show.

A handful of Volksjägers still exist as static displays in museums around the world.