A History of Violence
104That mixture of sadness and nausea…
…that accompanies the realization that a Neo-Nazi has re-blogged something you posted.
The Messerschmitt Me 264 Amerika was a long range, four engined bomber designed for striking targets in the United States. The Me 264 carried four BMW 801G engines and had a number of amenities, including an on board galley and bunk beds. Still, despite these luxuries, the Luftwaffe preferred the Ju 390 and the Ta 400 for the Amerika program. The Me 264 project was eventually cancelled in late September of 1944.
If I were an antiquarian, my eyes would be after antiquated things only. I am historian, however, and for this reason I take delight in life.
Henri Pirenne in Marc Bloch, The Historian’s Craft, 43. (via javiercha)
(via indiohistorian)
The Heinkel 277 was the Heinkel Flugzeugwerke entry in the R.L.M. Amerika-Bomber design competition. It was to be a relatively run-of-the-mill four engined strategic bomber, powered by BMW 801E 14-cylinder radial engines and carrying, on paper, up to 6,612lbs worth of bombs on its trans-Atlantic voyage.
The He277 was held back from production due to a smattering of minor design issues. First and foremost was the fact that it’s drawing board claims in regards to range were based on the tried and true method of utter fabrication. There was simply no way that the 277 would be able to make it across the Atlantic, especially when weighed down by a payload of bombs.
This issue stems largely from the fact that the He277 was never originally meant as an Amerika-Bomber. In fact, the 277 had started life as a mere test-concept for a Heinkel heavy bomber for continental use, and had been hurriedly re-titled after the announcement of the Amerika-Bomber design competition by the R.L.M.
The good people at Arado produced a number of the most interesting, and useful, aircraft to serve in theLuftwaffeduring the Second World War. Had the E.555 ever been built, it doubtless would have continued the tradition.
The goal of the E.555 project was to produce a jet-powered flying wing capable of carrying a large bomb payload to the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.
The E.555 went through ten separate design phases, mainly differing in the number and model of the engines.
Amerika Bomber
The topic for my next crowd of posts will be the Reichsluftfahrtministerium’s Amerika Bomber project. The R.L.M. made a priority of creating aircraft capable of bringing the war to the doorstep of the United States starting in 1942 and continued working on the problem through the end of the war. Necessity being the mother of invention, this project produced some of the most revolutionary aircraft concepts in the entire period. The following posts will provide the highlights.
Alexander Lippisch, while working for Gerhard Fieseler Werke, designed a series of delta winged test-bed aircraft. The Delta IV was the summation of these tests. While the original Delta IV proved to be unstable, so unstable that Fieseler himself crashed the prototype and declared the project an utter failure. Lippisch, undeterred, continue improving the craft until the Delta IVc. The C model included an extended fuselage and had worked out the kinks of its predecessors. It so impressed the R.L.M., in fact that it became the basis for their Project X: The Me 163.
What ho, Gentle Readers!
I, the Historian of Violence, will be traveling to London from late June to early July. Is there anything that you kind folks think I ought to see? Anywhere I simply must go? Any of you people in the the vicinity want to have just the Most Awkward Cup of Coffee in All of Time and Space?!
As a sequel to my last post, I offer you the Kettering Aerial Torpedo, a WWI cruise missile, of sorts. Also called the Kettering Bug, it too never saw combat. That being said, it had entered limited production by the end of the war, with a total of 45 being produced before the end of the war.
