LUFTWAFFE SECRET PROJECT PROFILES.pdf

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Prefac
e
T
he jet engine was a ‘secret project’ like no
other. Developed for the most part while
the largest air war in history was being
u
fought with piston-engined aircraft, it was at the
centre of a technological arms race hidden from all
n
t
but those with the highest military clearance.
Once the first operational jets – the Messerschmitt
e
Me 262 and Me 163 – had been identified by Allied
t
intelligence (the term ‘jet’ covering both turbojet and
rocket propulsion), all service personnel were notified
of their existence and the word quickly spread. When
jet aircraft were finally revealed to a public brought
up on propellers, they acquired an enduring mystique.
Immediately after the war, when hundreds of
thousands of captured German aviation industry
documents were assessed by the Allies, it became
clear that Germany had poured huge resources
into researching jet engines and designing the
aircraft that would be powered by them.
In January 1946, Squadron Leader Horace Frederick
‘H F’ King, known to his friends as Rex, produced
A.I.2(g) Report No. 2383 German Aircraft: New
and Projected Types, which he introduced saying:
“Although not exhaustive [this report] is believed
to give a fair cross-section of German design
c
technique. Some of the later proposals are of special
interest, particularly the fighters and supersonic
t
research aircraft with turbojet, liquid rocket or
s
athodyd propulsion. There are some ambitious
h
e
designs for jet-propelled long-range bombers and
u
multi-seat fighters, and among the rotating-wing
r
aircraft is a fighter entirely novel in conception.
‘Mistel’ composite aircraft, specialised tugs for
M
launching jet bombers, jet-propelled army-support
aircraft and a ‘glide-fighter’ are also in evidence.”
The report includes 174 illustrations, 108 of them
jets, and in fact the accompanying text mentions
a grand total of 315 types, including all sub-types
and some designs that aren’t illustrated – more
h
than half of them jets. King had worked for
Flight
magazine before the war, having joined in 1931, and
rejoined it after the war, writing several articles on
j
the advanced German designs he had seen. He and
h
others like him helped to feed the British public’s
curiosity about the development of ‘enemy’ jets and
h
what types might, under different circumstances,
a
have been unleashed to battle Spitfires and
Mustangs during the final stages of the war.
While interest in these German projects
waned in Britain and America during the 1960s
and 1970s, in Germany it underwent a revival.
Authors including Heinz J Nowarra and Karl R
Pawlas uncovered previously unseen designs and
photographs and during the 1990s they were joined
by others, including Horst Lommel, Manfred
Griehl, Walter Schick and Dieter Herwig, who each
discovered yet more previously unknown designs.
I first became aware that Second World War
aircraft designs might go beyond the likes of the
Hurricane, Bf 109 and P-47 Thunderbolt in 1991 with
the release of LucasFilm Games’ Secret Weapons
of the Luftwaffe game for the PC, which featured a
pair of Horton 8-229 flying wings on the cover. Then
in 1998 a friend drew my attention to Dan Johnson’s
Luft46.com website, which opened my eyes to the
huge number and variety of German ‘secret projects’.
Perhaps the most striking aspect of this website
was the incredible ‘Luft Art’ section. Here more than
a dozen talented artists had transformed the flat
black and white period drawings into 3D renders,
showing how the project aircraft might have looked
had they ever been built. Among those artists were
Ronnie Olsthoorn – who would later go on to provide
the cover and contents page illustrations for my
Luftwaffe: Secret series, Marek Rys, Jozef Gatial,
Gareth Hector and... Brazilian artist Daniel Uhr.
Having been aware of Daniel’s work since those
early days of Luft46, I was surprised and delighted to
get to know him personally through working on my
British Secret Projects 5: Britain’s Space Shuttle (2016)
book – he provided such a stunning cover that I had
no hesitation in commissioning him to produce profile
artwork for my Luftwaffe titles and the cover of my
RAF: Secret Jets of Cold War Britain (2017) publication.
n
The various titles in the Luftwaffe: Secret series
have been illustrated primarily with drawings
scanned directly from original German documents
and from period microfilmed copies of original
documents, and I always felt that the various
colour profiles commissioned to sit alongside them
received insufficient space to really be appreciated.
Now that imbalance can finally be corrected.
Luftwaffe: Secret Project Profiles features more
than 200 of Daniel Uhr’s excellent profiles – each one
based firmly on design drawings produced during the
Second World War. Daniel has used genuine wartime
camouflage and colour schemes to bring them vividly to
f
life, including examples as they might have appeared if
‘captured’ by the Allies or the neutral Swiss, or operated
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by other Axis nations. Seeing the designs fleshed out
this way provides a unique perspective on types that
have previously only ever been seen as pure black and
o
white line drawings and evokes the spirit and fascination
of Luft46 in imagining just what those oddities of
German aircraft design might have really looked like.
•
ALSO AVAILABLE
Luftwaffe: Secret Jets of the Third Reich (2015)
Luftwaffe: Secret Bombers of the Third Reich (2016)
Luftwaffe: Secret Wings of the Third Reich (2017)
Luftwaffe: Secret Designs of the Third Reich (2018)
Visit www.classicmagazines.co.uk to order.
Luftwaffe: Secret Project Profiles
003
3
16
20
26
30
46
50
58
006
Introduction
016
Early jet designs at Messerschmitt
020
Messerschmitt Me 262 versions
004
Luftwaffe: Secret Project Profiles
026
Arado Ar 234 versions
030
Rocket fighters
046
Interim night fighters
050
1000 x 1000 x 1000 bomber
058
Pulsejets
062
Ein-TL-Jäger
Contents
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FRONT COVER:
Junkers EF 128 by
Daniel Uhr
62
82
88
94
ALL ARTWORKS: Daniel Uhr
WORDS: Dan Sharp
DESIGN: Lucy Carnell - atg-media.com
PRODUCTION EDITOR: Pauline Hawkins
PUBLISHER: Steve O’Hara
ADVERTISING MANAGER: Sue Keily,
skeily@mortons.co.uk
PUBLISHING DIRECTOR: Dan Savage
MARKETING MANAGER: Charlotte Park
COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR: Nigel Hole
PUBLISHED BY: Mortons Media
Group Ltd, Media Centre, Morton Way,
Horncastle, Lincolnshire LN9 6JR.
Tel. 01507 529529
DANIEL UHR THANKS: Claudio Lamas,
Dan Sharp, Ditero Sigmar Uhr, Isaac
Uhr, Isis Uhr, Sérgio Adriano Menezes,
Veronica Carvalho
DAN SHARP THANKS: Elizabeth C Borja,
Steven Coates, Olivia T Garrison, Carlos
Alberto Henriques, Becky S Jordan,
Paul Martell-Mead, Ronnie Olsthoorn,
Alexander Power, Stephen Walton and
Tony Wilson
PRINTED BY: William Gibbons and Sons,
Wolverhampton
ISBN: 978-1-911276-69-2
© 2018 Mortons Media Group Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this
publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, or
any information storage retrieval system
without prior permission in writing from
the publisher.
108
118
082
Volksjäger
088
Ramjet fighters
094
Jet bombers
108
Advanced night fighters
118
Miscellaneous jets
Luftwaffe: Secret Project Profiles
005

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