The ''Fliegende Panzerfaust'', meaning 'Flying

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' (literally 'Flying Armor Fist') in the

German language German ( ) is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol. It is als ...

, was a project for a Third Reich very-short-range

interceptor Interceptor may refer to: Vehicles * Interceptor aircraft (or simply "interceptor"), a type of point defense fighter aircraft designed specifically to intercept and destroy enemy aircraft * Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor, a police car * ...

Luftschiffbau Zeppelin Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH is a German aircraft manufacturing company. It is perhaps best known for its leading role in the design and manufacture of rigid airships, commonly referred to as ''Zeppelins'' due to the company's prominence. The name ...

. The ''Fliegende Panzerfaust'' project was part of the

Nazi propaganda The propaganda used by the German Nazi Party in the years leading up to and during Adolf Hitler's dictatorship of Germany from 1933 to 1945 was a crucial instrument for acquiring and maintaining power, and for the implementation of Nazi polici ...

-based ''

Wunderwaffe ''Wunderwaffe'' () is German word meaning "wonder-weapon" and was a term assigned during World War II by Nazi Germany's propaganda ministry to some revolutionary "superweapons". Most of these weapons however remained prototypes, which either n ...

'' ('wonder weapon') concept. It was proposed to the

Emergency Fighter Program The Emergency Fighter Program () was the program that resulted from a decision taken on July 3, 1944 by the Luftwaffe regarding the German aircraft manufacturing companies during the last year of the Third Reich. This project was one of the ...

against the allied bombing raids over

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

in the last years of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

Description

The ''Fliegende Panzerfaust'' was a rocket-powered design meeting the demand for a low-cost aircraft in a very-short-range interceptor role. It was a

parasite aircraft A parasite aircraft is a component of a composite aircraft which is carried aloft and air launched by a larger carrier aircraft or mother ship to support the primary mission of the carrier. The carrier craft may or may not be able to later reco ...

meant to be towed behind a

Messerschmitt Bf 109 The Messerschmitt Bf 109 is a German World War II fighter aircraft that was, along with the Focke-Wulf Fw 190, the backbone of the Luftwaffe's fighter force. The Bf 109 first saw operational service in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War an ...

G for which it had a special long, "up-turned" nose for towing. Powered by six

Schmidding Wilhelm Schmidding from Bodenbach, Germany, was a World War II constructor of rocket engines used for RATO. Factories were in Schmiedeberg, and from summer 1943, in Buschvorwerk (Riesengebirge, Niederschlesien, today Krzaczyna). Engines * Sch ...

SG 34

solid-fuel rocket A solid-propellant rocket or solid rocket is a rocket with a rocket engine that uses solid propellants (fuel/ oxidizer). The earliest rockets were solid-fuel rockets powered by gunpowder; they were used in warfare by the Arabs, Chinese, Persi ...

engines, three on each side on the rear half of the fuselage, the ''Fliegende Panzerfaust'' was a small plane with an armored nose, a

v-tail The V-tail or ''Vee-tail'' (sometimes called a butterfly tail or Rudlicki's V-tailGudmundsson S. (2013). "General Aviation Aircraft Design: Applied Methods and Procedures" (Reprint). Butterworth-Heinemann. p. 489. , 9780123973290) of an aircraft ...

, a wingspan of 4.5 m and a length of 6.0 m. This Zeppelin-built aircraft would have been released upon reaching combat altitude above the enemy bomber fleet. Shortly before contact with the

combat box The combat box was a tactical formation used by heavy (strategic) bombers of the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II. The combat box was also referred to as a "staggered formation". Its defensive purpose was in massing the firepower of the b ...

below it would ignite its six solid-fuel rocket engines, attacking the target bomber by firing two 73 mm

RZ 65 Rz or RZ can stand for: People: * Friederike Schwarz, Czech composer and journalist who used rz as a pseudonym) * Robin Zander, American rock singer with Cheap Trick * Richard Zednik, Slovak professional hockey player * Roger Zelazny, American scie ...

air-to-air missile The newest and the oldest member of Rafael's Python family of AAM for comparisons, Python-5 (displayed lower-front) and Shafrir-1 (upper-back) An air-to-air missile (AAM) is a missile fired from an aircraft for the purpose of destroying ...

s at an extremely close range. Since after spending the rocket fuel the

center of gravity In physics, the center of mass of a distribution of mass in space (sometimes referred to as the balance point) is the unique point where the weighted relative position of the distributed mass sums to zero. This is the point to which a force may ...

would shift substantially making the aircraft too difficult to handle, the front half of the ''Fliegende Panzerfaust'' —which had the pilot lying in a prone position in the cockpit— would then split from the other half. Both parts would land separately with parachutes, being later retrieved and reused. Owing to the extreme risks for the pilot inherent in its operation this aircraft is sometimes referred to as a

suicide weapon A suicide weapon is a weapon designed to be used in a suicide attack, typically based on explosives. History Suicide weapons have been used both in conventional warfare, as well as in terrorism. In the Second Sino-Japanese War, Chinese used ...

Specifications

Replicas

There is a Fliegende Panzerfaust replica on display at the

Military Aviation Museum The Military Aviation Museum in Virginia Beach, Virginia, is home to one of the world's largest collections of warbirds in flying condition. It includes examples from Germany, France, Italy, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, from ...

Virginia Beach Virginia Beach is an independent city located on the southeastern coast of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. The population was 459,470 at the 2020 census. Although mostly suburban in character, it is the most populous cit ...

, Virginia.

Bibliography

* Manfred Griehl & Joachim Dressel, ''Die Deutschen Raketenflugzeuge 1935-1945: Die Entwicklung einer umwalzenden Technik'', Weltbild,

References

External links