Messerschmitt Me-163B Komet Testing at Zwischenahn Airfield WWII

Most of the Material was filmed at Airfield Zwischenahn in WWII.
Taken from the DVD "Wings of Fire-The Messerschmitt ME-163".

[@55chh]

Looks like the Germans can also claim the GoPro as one of their many inventions.

[@chapiit08]

@the Game, Review and Reallife Channel Check Maks Dampf knowledgeable post below.

[@ocm4r]

I'm from Bad Zwischenahn, it's a spa town nowadays. I did not know that such experimental aircraft were used at the former airfield. Thanks for clearing things up.

[@EnglishFamily]

The airfield is all grown over and a golf course now isn't it? It's a shame, it should have some kind of museum there I think. A bit like the V2 museum in Peenemuende

[@fragnichtwasfursaft2608]

Yes there is a golf course, but part of that land is now an airstrip for glide planes.

[@oneblueyedog]

Superb vid and narrator. Most of the footage is from early model series of the B. Later models did away with the rear tailwheel fairing as far as my research revealed. Wolfgang Spate wrote a great book about it as well as Mano Ziegler. I think Rudy passed on just a few years ago. He was an avid glider pilot instructor an taught many. He's honored in the soaring hall of fame.

[@fredblonder7850]

I once attended a lecture by Rudy Opitz, at the National Air & Space Museum in Washington DC. He described the camera, which was needed because the performance of the Komet was so outrageous that the old system of having the test pilot write notes, could not keep up. He was the pilot on the very first flight using the head-cam. Since it was to be a test-flight, they’d mounted additional instruments. To make room for the additional instruments, someone decided to remove the artificial horizon. You see where this is going. Of course, he flew into a cloud, got disoriented and overstressed the plane. He eventually recovered and made what he thought was a normal landing up until he noticed the ground-crew staring at the plane in horror. The tail, with the rocket-motor, had broken off. He'd landed the front half of the plane. Since the Komet had so many of its control surfaces on the wings (It was a"tailless" plane after all.) he was able to keep it under control. What impressed me most was the sheer joy he expressed when speaking, and his love for the plane.

[@EnglishFamily]

It was a truly awesome little plane

[@walterseaman2556]

@@EnglishFamily - ...and a real brave pilot, with steel nuts, I shall add !

[@shaun1293]

1944, Me-163B: 0 to 40,000ft in 3 minutes. Just ten years later... 1954, English Electric Lightning: 0 to 50,000ft in 1 minute. It's amazing how far things progressed in those times. I feel modern fighters have lost their touch.

[@EnglishFamily]

Amazing footage, I hadn't seen it before, great commentary too

[@TucsonDude]

Vids like this are why ordinary television is so boring and worthless...much less even entertaining. Kudos!

[@walterseaman2556]

Thank God for internet and especially KZbin...now we're able to see so much interesting footage that in past decades were rarely shown on network TV and could only see them briefly at a movie theater in some newsreel if we were lucky !

[@avitmadness]

Great commentary and video , something unusual to watch while having lunch, cool I loved the way Germany had so many what must have been futuristic advances.

[@gibbsm]

they had the first GoPro! loved the video, thanks.

[@ccalidor]

Good perception of a man. This is the Leica camera?

[@tintenpot]

@@ccalidor It is a ROBOT Camera., film advance with a spring motor, there was an electric motor also

[@MisterIvyMike]

Heini Dittmar was born in Bad Kissingen, a town not so far from my home town. He was the first person who reached a speed more than 1000 km/h in a Me-163A on Oktober 2, 1941! Nice GoPro... 👍

[@maksdampf]

The Narrator is wrong, that camera was probably the most advanced Action Camera during the 40ies and well into the 80ies. Probably the best data aquisition camera until digital. It is a Robot II square camera (yes, it shoots instagram format) with automatic winder, something that would be reintroduced in many cameras only in the 80ies. It was one of the smallest 35mm film cameras on the market, much smaller and lighter than the by then gold-standard of compact cameras: the Leica III. It had a rotary shutter, just like the later Olympus Pen-F, which is both bigger and heavier and shoots smaller images. The Robot could shoot 4 frames per second, with typically 54 frames on a roll. Mechanically it was very similar to cine cameras of that time, with some robots even having larger magazines and bigger spring motors. So look for the size an weight of a 35mm cine camera to get the same kind of quality footage as this thing did (8mm or 16mm is not comparable at all). Thus was truly the only Gopro of that time, but with high end image quality and pricing more like a RED Epic.

[@davidgifford8112]

Maks Dampf Saved me looking this up. I was sure it was a Robot but not sure of the model.

[@davecopp9356]

@maksdampf Well said.

[@ericlewis7328]

Eric Brown said this was by far the most dangerous aircraft he ever tested- a thimble of residual fuel was lethal

[@erasmusguy8289]

I love the way they surrounded the pilot with the deadly t-stoff tanks. Health and safety gone.

[@DataWaveTaGo]

Eric also stated that the other 4 tailess aircraft developed after WW2 by Allies were so inferior in handling he called them all "killers". One of them killed De Havilland's test pilot son. kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZpernIpmjbCboLs

[@trevorjermy7475]

Thanks for sharing this, just fantastic German engineering.

[@fasold2164]

The name of the special trator you don't dare to mention is of course Scheuch-Schlepper. The designer was Erich Scheuch (who died in 1972). The vehicle was built from 1943 onwards in about 500 copies (with a few ones after the war) by Fahrzeugbau Schumann GmbH at Werdau. The motor came from Volkswagen, replacing the DKW-motor, which was considered to be too weak. The mentioned fairing of the tailwheel on teh Me 163 B is not a feature of "late" production machines. This fairing was often removed to prevent collecting dirt, which might block the tailwheel. This was common practice within the Luftwaffe.

[@marknelson5929]

Just a minor correction to the film narration, showing Rudy Opitz getting into the cockpit. The narrater mentions the 'machine gun protruding from the leading edge of the wing', this in fact was a 30mm MK 108 cannon, not a machine gun. A formidable weapon and used on a variety of Luftwaffe fighters, including the Me 262 which had four grouped in the nose.

[@mjw1955]

+Mark Nelson Actually, the weapons seen in that footage were 20mm cannon Less punch but much more reliable that than the 30mm MK108.

[@cjpert5286]

true

[@WildBillCox13]

Check Yeager, flying the USAAF P39 Air Cobra, equipped with the "Oldsmobile" 37mm T9/M4 Cannon, which had similar characteristics to the MK108, likened it to "lobbing grapefruits", due to the extremely low muzzle velocity and quick "droop" or trajectory. USAAF pilots seldom used the cannon, as it required too close an approach to be useful. Red Army pilots used the cannon extensively, but not for antitank use, as might be expected, for the US supplied them no armor piercing rounds for it. An experimental armament package for the Me 262 used the 5cm/50mm BK for longer range, while keeping the high projectile weight for greater effect on target. I imagine the recoil for such a weapon was hard on the 8300lb airframe.

[@daangebraad]

The Me 163B-0 had two 20 mm MG 151/20 cannons and the Me 163B-1 had two 30 mm MK 108 cannons the reason the B-1 was produced less was because of the fact that the 30's on the B-1 had only 60 rounds per gun.

[@QuizmasterLaw]

these days we call those autocannon.

[@believethebook5198]

Interesting video with a great job of narration.

[@MegaEvoluzione]

Imagine the rush on take off and climbing towards the sky in what's basically a rocket, add to that the thrill of the rocket engine exploding at any second...

[@pooool2248]

They had GoPro in 1945 !!!!

[@TucsonDude]

Those dudes were so ahead of their time.

[@acmaster5959]

Way ... ahead of their time!

[@ccalidor]

Good perception of a man. This is the Leica camera?

[@walterseaman2556]

Only the Germans had it !

[@dr.wilfriedhitzler1885]

@@acmaster5959 Always, in the past and in the present.

[@markusp9569]

5:20 so they already experimented with thrust vector control?

[@jmjaxson]

Nice you noticed Markus. It appears it was only in it's yaw axis for trim but nevertheless it was applied.

[@captainoblivious_yt]

Yes of course. Look up the V2 rocket

[@me000654]

They were the first Warriors to ride into the battle field on a tongue of flames !R-E-S-P-E-C-T !

[@thewiseowl3672]

Well done, educational and in my language. Thank you.

[@darielmacduev1856]

As you wish! You´re welcome!

[@asmith9216]

A few corrections here, but a very interesting combination of clips. Someone commented that this was the fastest fighter of WW2 - it wasn't, but it did have the highest climb rate. Also, the commentary mentions the ME-110 several times - I think they meant the BF-110.

[@WildBillCox13]

BF designation refers to the original name of the company, Bayerische Flugzeugwerke (Acronym: BFW). When the BF 109 and BF 110 were designed and test flown in the mid to late 1930s, BF was the designation for the company's aircraft. The company was later renamed Messerschmitt (in 1938) after lead designer Willie Messerschmitt and aircraft designed afterward were designated Me as a result. The two designations, BF and Me, were often used in press releases describing 109 and 110 aircraft and both terms entered the common lexicon as a result. Reporters, after all, often changed the narrative, reflecting their ignorance of topic. Not like today . . .

[@asmith9216]

Thank you :)

[@asmith9216]

Sorry I should have said. It was from a book at my squadron. I'll see if I can dig it out because I can't remember. A quick check now on wikipedia for other aircraft of the period states the Gloster Meteor at 965 km/h, so maybe that was it....

[@WildBillCox13]

From the Wikipedia: P-80 Shooting Star Performance: Maximum speed: 600 mph, Mach .76 (P-80A 558 mph at sea level and 492 mph at 40,000 ft)[8] (965 km/h) Cruise speed: 410 mph (660 km/h) Range: 1,200 mi (1,930 km) Me262 Performance: Maximum speed: 900 km/h (559 mph) Range: 1,050 km (652 mi) Gloster Meteor Performance: Maximum speed: 600 mph (522 knots, 965 km/h, Mach 0.82) at 10,000 ft (3,050 m) Range: 600 mi (522 nmi, 965 km) Mitsubishi J8M/Ki200 Max speed: 900 km/h (559 mph) at 10,000 m (32,808 ft) MXY7 (not a fighter) Performance: Maximum speed: 804 km/h (576 mph) in dive Dive speed (3 Rocket motors at Full-Boost): 1,040 km/h (650 mph) So the MXY-7 Suicide Plane was fractionally faster than the Komet . . . .

[@xXAlmdudlerXx]

The german wikipedia says that the Me 262B V18 held the speed record till 1953 with 1130 KM/H. Then it was surpassed by a Hawker plane.

[@pedrolopezangel8740]

Excellent video.

[@Klassiker-]

I live near Venlo in Germany though Venlo is in Holland. Jagdgeschwader 400 was stationed at Venlo for a few weeks in the summer of 1944. Incredible that the exhaust-plume of these fighters taking off might have have been visible from where I live back in 1944.

[@daffyduk77]

great footage & informative narration thanks

[@bubiruski8067]

Opitz has a very friendly face. Beside, klopi thanks for preparing this documentary !

[@taktycznaherbatka682]

This video... it’s just gold!

[@Jeffrey314159]

4:20 It is not that the hydraulics actuating the landing skid was unreliable but if the pilot did not operate the lever properly the skid was left too rigid and instead of bouncing it delivered a very hard landing. Some pilots were left with severe back injuries!

[@CarlosFuentes-fk8md]

La mayor parte de las imágenes no las había visto. Una novedad.

[@markusdaxamouli5196]

Great work..thanks for the detail as in all your docs.

[@allgood6760]

Thanks for this 👍✈️

[@shitmagnet5136]

Thanks Mr Hanks.

[@arschflugkoerper007]

Theres a small glider-airstrip nowadays and a golf court :P Its a quiet lovely place. I never imagined that the legendary Me 163 was soaring the skies where I lived in my childhood

[@walterseaman2556]

Things change dramatically when wars are over and peace is back on earth...Everything looks so quiet and harmless, that it's hard to imagine as a battle field in the past.

[@harrison00xXx]

the landing skit not failed, the landing skid was meant like a shock absorber, and the absorbing depends on the hydraulic pressure, wich was set too high by some pilots.

[@flyinhawaiian5848]

Great video, brave pilots!

[@EnglishFamily]

Must have been a hell of a ride for a person of the 1930s and 40s

[@66rotbart]

you definately need to read "Rocket Fighter" by Mano Ziegler

[@balazsbelavari7556]

Mach diamonds are an indiccation of the engine plume being overexpanded. This may have been done to increase efficency higher up in the atmosphere, where it has to work in a smaller atmospheric pressure, though I'd think that it would need the most performance from sea level to around 6 km up, not higher than that.

[@williamchamberlain2263]

Good point; does the priority depend on trading time to intercept against the ability to make multiple passes against the same bomber formation?

[@MWcrazyhorse]

That thing looks deadly to encounter in a dogfight by any propeller aircraft. 2:25 LOOK AT THAT TURN!!!! That's almost 90°!!!!

[@apxpandy4965]

Fascinating - thanks!

[@LaLaLand.Germany]

Von dem Mut der Piloten die sich trauten diese Raketenbombe zu fliegen können wir uns heute eine Scheibe abschneiden! Niemand würde sich heute trauen da überhaupt einzusteigen!

[@WildBillCox13]

Great work and thanks for posting!

[@mausermann7918]

I have a book by Heinrich Dittman covering his experidnces with "Das Kraftei". Their nickname for the comet. Hanna Reitsch flew the plane as well, and like many others, she crashed too, smashing her face.

[@Snuffelton]

That is the cutest propeller I have ever seen :)

[@EnglishFamily]

I first saw this this aircraft at Duxford museum when I was 10 and I was stuck on how a plane could possibly fly with such a tiny propeller. My grandad told me at the time that it was rocket powered, but I didn't know what that meant, I thought it just made the prop go around faster lol

[@rSDGermany]

English Family the tiny propeller ist for the instruments (electric power).

[@DAM-bl1qv]

"Dude, you forgot the wheeeels!!!" :v

[@clauspetersen5467]

Abenteuerlich.....wußten die Ingenieure , dass die Bomber Harris aus GB kommen werden , und die taten das Notwendige in einem Akt der Verzweiflung , um ihr Land vor der Zerbombung zu schützen ? Denn die Komet hatte nur eine begrenzte Reichweite ( 90 km )

[@tzsteve33]

Amazing video,thx for sharing it

[@RevolterMJD1981]

Ahhh the LF-22 Starling.

[@Hellenic_Empire]

Ah I see you are a man of gta culture as well

[@Eibenort]

Very well done, thanks a lot!

[@Tryinglittleleg]

Imagine that detachable gear hurtling down the runway toward you!

[@WildBillCox13]

Sometimes the dropped gear took too hard a bounce and struck the 163 as it struggled for speed and altitude, causing fatalities.

[@Mrswedish10]

9:04 Gopro is that you?

[@Eigil_Skovgaard]

Very good - thank you.

[@hispano4048]

больше бы таких видео

[@FA-fo4qh]

Real Me-163: fights B-17s and P-51s War Thunder Me-163: fights Mig-15, Mig-17, G91, F-84, F-86...

[@hb9145]

That climb was ridiculous.

[@johncoates9991]

Excellent narrative.

[@canadenhacksmith3441]

holy shit thats fast

[@25FIREBALL]

my good buddy George Artelt was a test piolet ---- he founded buffalo ( imports)tools in st.louis with a jewish man-----he gave a interview to my kid in the late 90s -only one he ever gave.....

[@tsmgguy]

Fuels consisted of hydrazine hydrate in methanol (C-Stoff) and an oxidizer of 80% concentrated hydrogen peroxide (T-Stoff).

[@Ruckweiler73]

tsmgguy: Read somewhere that the fuel for this aircraft was so dangerous that there were supposedly pilots who were dissolved when fuel lines ruptured near the cockpit.

[@WildBillCox13]

The glass peroxide tanks (and the Nitric acid oxidizer tanks on the Soviet BI-1) could break inside their metal webbing on a hard landing, deceleration doing the rest, as highly corrosive fluid shot forward and literally "ate the pilot out of his protective suit".

[@smokeless7774]

And boy does this stuff clear blocked drains!

[@richardfancher7524]

And now days dragracers say "if the ground shaking and the flames are green, he must be running hydrazine".

[@walterseaman2556]

Wow...! What a beautiful and charming little wonder...! It sure looks like a toy...but it was capable of shooting down a B-17 ! Honestly, I wish I could take one home with me !

[@mybluebelly]

Great video man! The Me-163 is such an iconic weapon of war and i`ve even seen one up close at Berlin/Gatow. What is that steam thing coming from under the rear belly?

[@bubiruski8067]

Thanks kloppi1973 !

[@1cyberrider]

Great commentary!

[@Draxindustries1]

Fastest fighter of ww2, the germans were way ahead every time..

[@hartmutwrith3134]

fighting for a bad cause and being outnumbered 10:1 and outnumbered in industral power.

[@bkjeong4302]

The Komet was TOO ahead of its time in terms of speed-The thing flew so fast the pilots couldn’t aim their guns! Not really a good weapon then.

[@walterseaman2556]

@rc847394 - But if the Germans put up a fight so fierce and ferocious for 6 years against the whole world, being on the brink of winning on a couple of occasions, makes me wonder and think that if they had only fought against JUST HALF of the world, they would have won...!! Some guys, indeed !

[@neiltitmus9744]

None of these were a threat in the war as they were so difficult to use and unreliable. Britain could have made them but chose not too .the reliable jet was produced by the uk in the late war

[@BasementEngineer]

@@hartmutwrith3134 Why was keeping the communists out of Germany and Europe a bad cause??? The most courageous lion fights a losing battle against a horde of jackals.

[@DaveBegotka]

Great vid!

[@benpotter614]

Many thanks. My pronunciation of German is pretty suspect, but I suspect that Hanna's surname would have rhymed with Mach - a softened 'k' sound and that Herr Dr Walther would have sounded more like 'Valter'. Minor quibbles - good stuff to watch!

[@sebastiand6220]

Die Flug Bahn wird heute für Segel Flug genutzt

[@YummehPyroFlakes]

I live 300m from that airfield.. Sadly it got destroyed.

[@davidlundmark9359]

That's a shame..

[@richardalvarado3759]

Tecnología alemana siempre a la punta.

[@andyw248]

This is awesome footage and commentary! Is this your original work? If not, could you point us at that?

[@Preyhawk81]

I think with landing gear and and hybrid nox engine it would be interesting for the comercial market.

[@rescue270]

This thing was not a rocket powered airplane, as we would think. It is, in essence, a rocket propelled glider!

[@mw9297]

All airplanes can be that given enough time

[@1915sanderson]

great vid! very informative.

[@AndreiTupolev]

I'm not sure I'd want to be that cameraman standing that close to it with smoke issuing from it after landing. I think I'd prefer to keep to some distance.

[@n9oqu]

it looks like the begiining of the MIG-15 in its areodynamic structure. the russians took a lot of WWII technologies from the Germans after the war.

[@KB4QAA]

Well, no.

[@hartmutwrith3134]

Operation Paper Clip from the US intelligence took all the prototypes, the blue prints and the engineers to the USA. The Russians and the Brits got only the left overs.

[@pawepluta4883]

@@hartmutwrith3134 they got enough. Didn't they have Willi Messerschmitt himself?

[@user6008]

Brilliant idea far ahead of it's time, although a complete tactical failure in combat. But still, those Germans put a rocket powered, delta winged jet interceptor into combat in 1994. Which is astonishing, and the Nazi's were crazy.

[@walterseaman2556]

Not '94...a typing error...it was '44.

[@AchimReinhardt1]

Danke!

[@carloseduardopires6531]

ALEMANHA TINHA UM PODERIO DE ARMAMENTOS FANTÁSTICO !.... MARAVILHOSO AVIÃO-FOGUETE , ASSIM COMO TODOS OS AVIÕES DA " LUFTWAFFE - WAR II " ! ... ( PELA TECNOLOGIA À ÉPOCA, DEVERIAM TER GANHO A GUERRA??? )

[@williamchamberlain2263]

No; they had lots of high tech projects that took too long to develop and had high unit cost of production, so they lost because - among many reasons - they dispersed their design, development, and tooling efforts, and even in production couldn't produce enough units.

[@theenergystat7572]

I think the komet looks cute :)

[@m4gn3tic82]

The one in the British science museum had like ski-landing gears

[@markmitchell450]

That's an earlier smaller A model Later b had the tail wheel later on they even had a airo cover

[@m4gn3tic82]

@@markmitchell450 wow didn’t know thanks

[@NOISYdog-jo2fq]

What's that small ass prop used for????

[@AndreiTupolev]

driving a dynamo to provide the electrics, I believe

[@inztazeta1928]

Im here because i was investigating the LF-22 Starling from gta:O, really interesting video tbh

[@parteitagkonstantinthernen5191]

heute im wald am flugplatz bad zwischenahn die besten fotos im urwalt mit jede menge bomben löchern gemacht.im wald schlummern noch geheimnisse von 1945

[@sk31370n]

wow how did they make it go so fast with such a little propeller?!

[@HayaBub]

The small Propeller is in fact a Generator for the Instruments!

[@redtobertshateshandles]

Other planes went the wrong way using large propellers. They just thought, " bigger was better." Crazy fools. 😂

[@goldfing5898]

Look at the pilot's "GoPro" head camera at 9:00. It is incredible what was technically possible and done already at that time.

[@masterolof138]

Landing it straight must be a fucking nightmare

[@ConfusedAdmiral]

That's one cute propeller...

[@gscranage4594]

Great stuff, where do you get this info?

[@monsieurbop3469]

Wie ein Floh, aber oho!

[@redtobertshateshandles]

Imagine other aircraft's performance if they had used the correct size propellers???

[@ericferguson9989]

The pilot at 9:07 sports a 1940s Gopro.

[@windshearahead7012]

9:07 forbidden gopro

[@starhunterterra9849]

THE FIRST TIE FIGHTER?.

[@michaeltalbot8242]

I'm sure it was T&C stoff not stuff?

[@walterseaman2556]

It was Stoff pronounced the American way...

[@cheesechaser9113]

Where is the boost ?

[@charliecharliecharliecharl8554]

I thought the commit had 2 30mm cannons

[@louislungbubble]

Kevin Costner is the narrator??

[@romanhrj433]

*_Mini Space shuttle_*

[@deathman1037]

very interesting i know a bit about this craft but not much information thats accurate out there

[@MetrakitProRaceII]

Imagine to be the test pilot......

[@rogerhudson9732]

Did any non-Germans other than Captain Brown fly the plane under rocket power ??