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The Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet, designed by Alexander Lippisch, was a German rocket-powered fighter aircraft. It is the only rocket-powered fighter aircraft ever to have been operational. Its design was revolutionary, and the Me 163 was capable of performance unrivaled at the time. German test pilot Heini Dittmar in early July 1944 reached , a flight airspeed record. Over 300 aircraft were built, but the Komet proved ineffective as a fighter and was responsible for the destruction of only about nine Allied aircraft.〔Boyne 1997, p. 349.〕 (16 air victories for 10 losses, according to other sources.)〔Thompson with Smith 2008, p. 233.〕 ==Development== Work on the design started under the aegis of the ''Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug'' (DFS)—the German Institute for the Study of sailplane flight. Their first design was a conversion of the earlier Lippisch Delta IV known as the DFS 39 and used purely as a glider testbed of the airframe. A larger follow-on version with a small propeller engine started as the DFS 194. This version used wingtip-mounted rudders, which Lippisch felt would cause problems at high speed. Lippisch changed the system of vertical stabilization for the DFS 194's airframe from the earlier DFS 39's wingtip rudders, to a conventional vertical stabilizer at the rear of the aircraft. The design included a number of features from its origins as a glider, notably a skid used for landings, which could be retracted into the aircraft's keel in flight. For takeoff, a pair of wheels, each mounted onto the ends of a specially designed cross-axle, were needed due to the weight of the fuel, but the wheels, forming a takeoff "dolly" under the landing skid, were released shortly after takeoff. The designers planned to use the forthcoming Walter R-1-203 ''cold engine'' of thrust, which used a monopropellant consisting of stabilized HTP known by the name ''T-Stoff''. Heinkel had also been working with Hellmuth Walter on his rocket engines, mounting them in the He 112's tail for testing, and later in the first purpose-designed, liquid-fueled rocket aircraft, the He 176. Heinkel had also been selected to produce the fuselage for the DFS 194 when it entered production, as it was felt that the highly volatile monopropellant "fuel's" reactivity with organic matter would be too dangerous in a wooden fuselage structure. Work continued under the code name ''Projekt X''.〔("Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet." ) ''World War 2 Planes''. Retrieved: 22 March 2009.〕 The division of work between DFS and Heinkel led to problems, notably that DFS seemed incapable of building even a prototype fuselage. Lippisch eventually asked to leave DFS and join Messerschmitt instead. On 2 January 1939, he moved with his team and the partly completed DFS 194 to the Messerschmitt works at Augsburg. The delays caused by this move allowed the engine development to "catch up". Once at Messerschmitt, the team decided to abandon the propeller-powered version and move directly to rocket-power. The airframe was completed in Augsburg and in early 1940 was shipped to receive its engine at Peenemünde-West, one of the quartet of ''Erprobungsstelle''-designated military aviation test facilities of the Reich. Although the engine proved to be extremely unreliable, the aircraft had excellent performance, reaching a speed of in one test. In the Me 163 an impeller drives an electric generator which powers the radio, the Revi16B, -C, or -D reflector gunsight, the direction finder, the compass, the firing circuits of the cannons, and some of the lighting in the cockpit instrumentation. There was an onboard lead/acid battery, but its capacity was limited, as was its endurance, no more than 10 minutes, hence the fitted generator. The airspeed indicator averaged readings from two sources: the pitot tube on the leading edge of the port wing, and a small pitot inlet in the nose, just above the top edge of the underskid channel. There was a further tapping-off of pressure-ducted air from the pitot tube which also provided the rate of climb indicator with its source. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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