The Volksjäger concept was pushed by Party Leader Otto Saur, director of the Jägerstab and a protégé of Albert Speer, head of the Ministry of Armaments, over the vociferous objections of Adolf Galland, General der Jagdflieger (General of Day Fighters). Galland believed that all of Germany's remaining aircraft production facilities should be concentrated on proven aircraft such as the Me 262. He also didn't believe that pilots could be trained quickly enough to fly the aircraft in the numbers envisioned. Designers such as Kurt Tank and Willy Messerschmitt also objected to the project on the more technical grounds of a totally unrealistic specification and an absurdly short amount of time for design and preparations for production. Despite this opposition the submission date was actually advanced by 6 days to 14 September!
Proposals were received from Blohm und Voss, Arado, Focke-Wulf, and Heinkel when the first evaluations were made on 15 September, Messerschmitt having refused to submit a proposal. Focke-Wulf's proposal was deemed unrealistic, Arado's was completely rejected and Heinkel's was deemed unsuitable; while Blohm und Voss's was judged the best submitted. The Heinkel proposal unacceptable on 5 counts: a sea-level endurance of only 20 minutes; the unusual location of the engine on top of the fuselage would undoubtedly result in maintenance problems; it failed to meet the stipulated take-off requirement; it would take too long to dismantle for rail transport; and it was designed to carry 20mm cannon rather than the 30mm specified. Heinkel's representative protested that their proposal was being evaluated by standards other than those applied to the other proposals to the detriment of Heinkel's proposal. Another meeting was scheduled for 19 September to make a decision after all the proposals were reevaluated.
By this time new proposals had been received from Junkers, Focke-Wulf, Siebel and Fiesler, but the result was much the same. Blohm und Voss's Projekt 211 was judged the best with Heinkel's as second-best.
It may well have been second-best, but it possessed one major advantage over the Blohm und Voss proposal; it was much further along in the design process. Heinkel had been working on a simple and unsophisticated jet fighter, the Spatz (Sparrow), since the early part of the summer and had even test-flown the BMW 003 in July to obtain necessary performance data. The effort to convert the Spatz into the Volksjäger was not inconsiderable, but it was far easier and faster than working from a clean sheet of paper as the others had to do.
On 23 September Heinkel showed a mock-up of their Volksjäger to officials while the decision was made to proceed with the Volksjäger concept in a meeting at Göring's headquarters that same day. It was decided that pilots would be recruited from the ranks of the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth). The boys would be taught to fly on the Volksjäger if they didn't already know how to fly and would finish their training by flying operational missions! Party Leader Saur favored Heinkel's Projekt 1073 over the Blohm und Voss Projekt 211 and ordered construction of the first prototype the next day on his own authority.
Heinkel had nearly carried the day, but it wasn't until two aerodynamicists were consulted that the partisans of the P.211 were finally defeated. They ventured the opinion that there might be a problem with the airflow of the engine inlet and this was enough that the Heinkel proposal was ordered into production at an initial rate of a thousand aircraft per month. The aircraft was originally designated the He 500, but this was quickly changed to the He 162, a number previously used by Messerschmitt's contender for the Schnellbomber (fast bomber) competition that had been won by the Ju 88. The project was code-named 'Salamander', this being often confused for the name of the aircraft itself.
The final drawings were complete by 29 October, one day ahead of schedule and the first prototypes were in an advanced stage of construction. The He 162 was unique in the history of aviation as the only aircraft in which development, pre-production prototypes and main production lines were started almost simultaneously and proceeded in parallel.
The production arrangements were quite complex and are an excellent example of the effort Germany had to make to minimize the vulnerability of her aviation industry. Little was it realized that this decentralization plan would play right into the hands of the Allies as the 8th Air Force executed its plan to destroy all German means of transport from railcars to river barges.
Final assembly was to be at 3 plants, Heinkel-Nord at Rostock-Marienhe, Junkers at Bernburg and Mittelwerke at Nordhausen; the first two being expected to assemble a thousand machines a month and the latter, two thousand. All wooden components were to be produced by two groups of wood-working and furniture-manufacturing firms specially organized in the Erfurt and Stuttgart areas. Metal fuselages were to be built by Heinkel factories at Barth in Pomerania, Pütnitz in Mecklenburg, Stassfurt in Saxony and at Berlin-Oranienburg as well as the Junkers factories in Schönbeck, Ascherleben, Leopoldshall, Halberstadt and Bernburg. In addition fuselages were to be built in former salt mines at Eglen and Tarthun. The Heinkel factory at Wien-Schwechat was to handle construction of the prototypes and later to begin production in a converted chalk mine outside Vienna at Hinterbühl. Another salt mine near Urseurg housed the machinery from the Berlin-Spandau and Basdorf-Zülsdorf engine factories for the production of the BMW 003 engines. The production schedule called for the first thousand aircraft to be ready by the end of April 1945 and output to reach two thousand per month the following month. The He 162A was one of the most distinctive aircraft ever designed with its engine mounted above the fuselage and downward-drooping wing tips. The Heinkel design team had placed the engine in this unusual position to minimize any difficulties with the inlet and exhaust ducting, the aerodynamics of which were poorly understood.
In line with the semi-expendable nature of the Volksjäger, the He 162 was a rather spare design, but it did include a simple ejection seat as pilots were considered rather more valuable than the aircraft itself. It was essential as the chances of bailing out in the usual manner were considered less than optimal with the jet intake mounted right behind and above the cockpit!
The first prototype, the He 162 V1, made its initial flight on 6 December, 90 days from the receipt of the requirement! A record unparalleled for a modern combat aircraft. The flight was mostly uneventful except that a wooden landing-gear door was torn away during the high-speed portion of the flight. Four days later, the second flight ended in tragedy as the starboard wing leading edge separated from the aircraft which caused it to crash in front of large crowd of VIPs. The pilot did not survive. An investigation determined that the bonding agent for the wood was defective. It was a new adhesive that had to be used as the factory producing the usual bonding agent had been bombed out. The Ta 154 Moskito was canceled because of this type of problem, but the He 162 program had too much political weight behind it to suffer a similar fate.
The second prototype flew on 22 December and others rapidly followed. It was initially to be armed with two 30mm MK 108 cannon, but the airframe proved to be too lightly built for such a heavy armament. Flight test revealed problems with lateral instability, snaking at high speeds and severe instability during left-hand high G turns. It also proved to need much more runway for take-off and landing than allowed by the specification. The tail surfaces were enlarged and the wing tips extended and drooped on the V3 and V4 prototypes in a successful effort to resolve most of these problems. Had time permitted the wing would have undoubtedly been fully redesigned rather than the expedient wing tip drooping.
Very few He 162A-1 aircraft were built with the 30mm cannon before production switched to the A-2 model armed with two 20mm MG 151 cannon. The A-2 also incorporated a number of aerodynamic changes to increase stability, but these were not fully successful as it remained very unforgiving of abrupt movements of the controls. The 162 had a very high rate of roll, but much care had to be taken as full rudder induced a lot of shudder and buffeting. Only three-quarters rudder could be used if a smooth turn was desired, such as when trying to shoot at an enemy! Experienced piston-engine pilot had to unlearn their habit of throwing themselves around the sky if they wished to master the 162 as it demanded smooth, flowing motions from its pilot. In brief the He 162 was a bit of a handful for experienced pilots and would have been a deathtrap for the average Hitlerjugend pilot fresh from glider training.
The Luftwaffe formed Erprobungskommando (Evaluation Unit) 162 under Heinz Bär, the 8th leading ace of all time with 220 kills, in January '45 to evaluate the He 162 at the Rechlin test center. By April Erprobungskommando 162 had joined Adolf Galland's band of disgruntled fighter pilots, JV 44, with its Me 262s at their base near München, but had little opportunity for combat as the 162 wasn't yet considered ready for action.
On 8 February I./JG 1 was ordered to turn over its Fw 190s to II./JG 1 and proceed to Parchim to begin conversion to the He 162, but their first aircraft didn't arrive until the end of the month. Later joined by the Geschwaderstab they stayed there until bombed out by the British on 8 April. They moved to a number of different airfields in North Germany to avoid being overrun by the advancing Allies ending the war at Leck in Schleswig-Holstein. II./JG 1 left their Fw 190s behind on 8 April as they transferred to Rostock to begin the conversion to the He 162, but joined the first Gruppe at Leck on 2 May to escape the Soviet advance. The conversion of III./JG 1 was planned to begin in mid-April, but it was disbanded on 24 April and its personnel were distributed to other units. On 3 May JG 1 was reorganized into two Gruppen, I. (Einsatz [Combat]) and II. (Sammel [Replacement]). They totaled some 50 pilots and aircraft in 6 staffeln.
I./JG 1 was declared combat-ready on 23 April, after it had already claimed one British fighter on 19 April. Feldwebel Günther Kirchner was credited with shooting down a fighter when the captured pilot admitted he'd been shot down by a jet. Unfortunately Kirchner himself was shot down shortly thereafter by another British fighter. At least two other claims were made by He 162 pilots before the end of the war, although only one Tempest V can be confirmed from British records since a number of British aircraft were lost to unknown causes at times and places that match these other claims. At least one and possibly three He 162s were lost to enemy action.
The BMW engine proved to be far less sensitive to throttle movments than those of the Me 262, though still prone to flameouts. This allowed the He 162 to be flown up to the limits of the pilot's confidence in the aircraft, unlike the Me 262 whose engines restricted much in the way of maneuvers.
The He 162's primary drawback was its very short endurance of 30 minutes at sea-level. This forced the pilot to pay close attention to his fuel gauge and allowed little leeway for bad weather or enemy aircraft over the pilot's home airfield. In fact several of the operational losses can be attributed simply to running out of fuel.
Other problems were the lack of visibility above and to the rear and the inability of the tail to handle the maximum stress that the rudder could generate. The former would only really have been a problem if the jet was at a low enough speed that it could be bounced by piston-engined fighters since the area obscured by its engine is the most vulnerable of any aircraft. The weakness of the tail instilled a lack of confidence in its pilots that the 162 could withstand extreme maneuvers and they, therefore, were reluctant to do so lest it breakup in mid-air.
Despite all these caveats, the He 162 would have been a effective fighter in the hands of a trained pilot if the war had continued, easily superior to the best fighters fielded by the Allies, possibly even including the P-80A.
Suddenly specks are seen in the distance and the radios are filled with the chatter of excited gunners as they call out the bearings to the distant German fighters. As the formations draw closer at a rate of 10 miles per minute, the specks are soon identifiable as single and twin-engined fighters.
Bombers of the trail box aren't heavily engaged as of yet and have time to observe the usual German tactic of a head-on attack. The sky is filled with planes and the puffs of smoke from rockets launched from Me 110s. The American aircraft don't seem to be suffering too heavily yet, but a new formation of twin-engined fighters is observed rapidly closing with the leading box of B-17s. Suddenly bombers seem to be falling out of the sky as they dive through the formation. As they pass near the trail box, observant gunners can see a resemblance to the Me 110 and wonder if they're the new Me 410s that Intelligence had been warning them about lately. It isn't until these new fighters attack the trail box itself that it is realized that the new fighters don't have any propellers at all!
The preceding incident never happened, but it could have if the Reichsluftfahrtministerium [RLM] (Air Ministry) had given its full backing to Ernst Heinkel and his He 280 jet fighter. It is difficult to judge exactly what effect the introduction of jet fighters during the summer of 1943 would have had on the course of the Second World War, but some conclusions can be drawn. The daylight strategic bombing campaign would have impossible to conduct without long-range escorts and a massive superiority in numbers to counter the individual superiority of the jets. At least one authority on the Luftwaffe, Williamson Murray, feels that the daylight bombing campaign's only real justification before the summer of 1944 was to force the Luftwaffe to defend Germany under adverse conditions that increased the losses of the less-experienced German pilots. The entry into service of the He 280 would have negated this strategy as the more experienced pilots, flying the jets, would have been sufficient to defend Germany by themselves which would allow new pilots to be trained at leisure rather than prematurely committed to combat as actually happened.
This would-be wonder had its origin in Ernst Heinkel's interest in turbojet propulsion that dated back to the mid-thirties. He hired Hans von Ohain in 1936 who had been experimenting with a turbojet while working on his PhD at Göttingen University. A slightly more advanced version, the HeS 1, was running by March 1937 fueled by gaseous hydrogen. The success of this engine led Heinkel to initiate studies for a jet-powered aircraft that later received the designation He 178.
As usual for the early jet aircraft, the airframe was complete well ahead of the petroleum-fueled HeS 3 engine, but the first versions of the engine proved to have insufficient thrust to get the He 178 airborne. Despite these problems Heinkel was optimistic enough to begin development of a jet fighter at his own expense in June 1939.
In the meantime, after waiting for an uprated version of the HeS 3, the He 178 made the world's first jet-powered flight on 27 August 1939. The outbreak of was 3 days later prevented Heinkel from demonstrating it before the top leadership of the RLM and Luftwaffe until 1 November. They were less than totally enthusiastic and Heinkel was forced to continue development of the three prototype jets out of his own pocket despite receiving an official type number in October as the He 280. The RLM thought it inappropriate for an airframe company to work on engines and dragged its feet in consequence. That November Heinkel hired Max Mller and a number of engineers away from Junkers who brought with them a promising new design that promised some 800 kg of thrust that was designated the HeS 30 while von Ohain's group pursued the HeS 8 that was intended to power the He 280.
A shake-up in the RLM engine procurement office shortly after the demonstration of the He 178 yielded funding for both of Heinkel's engine projects and new designations. The HeS 8 became the 001 and the HeS 30, the 006. It was anticipated that the HeS 8 engine would be flight ready by the late summer of 1940 with a thrust of some 700 kg (1543 lbs), but this proved to be wildly over-optimistic.
The He 280 was roughly similar to the Me 262 in design as both aircraft were sleek, twin-engined, mid- or low-winged aircraft with the armament logically concentrated in the nose. The engines were slung underneath the wings to allow maximum flexibility if the engine characteristics changed unexpectedly and to minimize inlet and exhaust airflow problems. Unlike Messerschmitt's design, the He 280 had a tricycle undercarriage from the very beginning, probably because Heinkel's greater experience with jet engines made him realize the deleterious effects of the hot exhaust on grass and asphalt. It was fitted with an compressed-air ejection seat, arguably the world's first. The He 280 had an oval fuselage with a twin fin and rudder tail unlike the triangular fuselage and single fin tail of the Me 262. Its straight wings and twin tail didn't quite project the elegant lethality of the Me 262, but it did promise to cause the Allies a lot of heartache if it ever reached service.
As the first prototype was ready long before the engines, it was flown as a glider to test its aerodynamic properties. Dummy ballasted engine nacelles were fitted to simulate the weight and drag of the engines and gliding trials commenced 22 September 1940. They continued until the following spring when the first two flight-ready 001A engines were fitted to the V2 prototype despite only producing 500 kg (1100 lbs) of thrust. The second prototype made the world's first flight of a jet fighter on 30 March 1941. Flight testing was limited by a shortage of engines so that the V3 prototype didn't fly until July 1942 with engines rated at 600 kg (1323 lbs) of thrust. It reached a speed of 800 kph (497 mph) on one test flight. By this time it was clear that the 001 engine would not reach its designed thrust and its fuel consumption remained enormous.
The flight tests revealed only a few problems. Namely a tendency towards directional snaking and oscillations of the tail at certain speeds. Barring these caveats, the test pilots pronounced its handling characteristics excellent. The RLM authorized Heinkel in the summer of 1942 to build 13 airframes, careful not to specify the engine type. Of these only five were completed for a grand total of eight finished.
With the extra resources provided by the purchase of the Hirth Motoren Company shortly after the He 280's first flight, progress on the 006 looked very promising as it was already producing over 800 kg of thrust during bench tests in the summer of 1942, although the resignation of Mller earlier in the spring cast a dark cloud over the project. It already had a power-to-weight ratio in 1942 about twice what the Jumo 004 would have in 1944 but this wasn't enough to save it from the ax.
The autumn of 1942 saw the biggest blunder of the German turbojet development program as the RLM ordered Heinkel to cease work on the 006 in favor of the 011, a much more advanced engine intended to replace the first generation engines such as the BMW 003 and the Jumo 004, that had no hope of reaching production with a year or two. The reason was partly because the 006 lagged behind the 004 and 003 engines because Heinkel failed to concentrate his very limited engine research and development assets on a single project. This allowed BMW and Jumo to field engines before Heinkel despite his 3 year lead in development!
To backtrack a little, Heinkel was working on 4 new engine projects by late 1939, the 001, 006, and 2 ducted fan designs, one powered by a gasoline engine and the other by a Diesel that had to be developed from scratch. All with about 50 men! Had he dropped the engine projects, and decided to concentrate on the 006 rather than the 001, the He 280 might have been flying combat missions a year or more earlier than the Me 262 did historically. Had Heinkel opted for the 001 engine the combat value of the He 280 would have been greatly reduced as the 001 was a fuel hog and the He 280's design had sacrificed fuel capacity for lighter weight and less drag.
All speculation aside, Heinkel was forced to adapt the He 280 to the only available engines. Although he preferred to use the BMW 003, the earlier availability of the Jumo 004 engines dictated their adoption, at least for the early production aircraft. Major redesign work was necessary to adapt the He 280 to the larger and heavier Jumo engines, to include a stretch of the fuselage to increase fuel capacity, an enlarged wing and replacement of the twin tail with a single tail. The problems discovered during the previous flight tests were also be corrected. 15 prototypes of this He 280B were planned though not one was destined to take to the air.
Negotiations began between the RLM and Heinkel for some 300 He 280B-1 fighters began, although the actual production was to be subcontracted to Siebel Flugzeugwerke as Heinkel had little surplus capacity. But revised estimates of the availability of the Jumo 004 dictated that both the He 280 and the Me 262 could not be built. As the redesign work to adapt the He 280 to the Jumo engine had only just begun, the Me 262 was chosen as it was ready for production, merely waiting on its engines. The RLM ordered that all further development cease on 27 March 1943.
The V1, V7, and V8 prototypes were put to use as flying test beds for a variety of engine and aerodynamic design projects. The V1 was fitted with 4 Argus 014 pulse-jet engines (as fitted on the V-1 missile), but failed to complete a flight as the pilot was forced eject when the tow line from its tug failed to separate (the pulse-jets didn't develop enough thrust for an unassisted take-off). The V7 was completed as a glider and made a large number of flights investigating problems encountered in high-speed flight. The V8 was fitted with a pair of Jumo 004B engines and a V-tail for 10 flights, after which the engines were removed and it was flown as a glider to continue the investigation of the aerodynamic qualities of the V-tail.
A sad end for an aircraft that could have dominated the skies over Germany in 1943. If that was to happened, two decisions would have had to been changed. The 006 would have had to been chosen over the 001 to power the He 280 and the decision to cancel the 006 would have had to been reversed. The former decision was already under consideration as it became obvious that the 001 would not achieve its designed thrust.
| He 162A-2 | He 280A-1 | He 280B-1 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Engines | 1x BMW 003E | 2x Heinkel 001A | 2x Jumo 004B |
| Engine thrust | 920 kg (2028 lbs) | 750 kg (1653 lbs) | 900 kg (1984 lbs) |
| Empty Weight | 1663 kg (3666 lbs) | 3215 kg (7088 lbs) | ? |
| Maximum Weight | 2805 kg (6184 lbs) | 4300 kg (9480 lbs) | 5170 kg (11,376 lbs) |
| Max Speed at sea level | 890 kph (553 mph) | 870 kph (540mph) | 800 kph (498 mph) |
| Max Speed at 6000m (19,690 ft) | 905 kph (562 mph) | 900 kph (559 mph) | 880 kph (547 mph) |
| Max rate of climb | 23.45 m/sec (4615 fpm) | 19.1 m/sec (3760 fpm) | 24.65 m/sec (4355 fpm) |
| Range | 975 km (606 miles) | 970 km (603 miles) | 718 km (446 miles) |
| Armament | 2x 20mm | 3x 20mm | 6x 20mm |
| Bombload | None | None | 1100 lbs (500 kg) |