Boom and Bust - The Disastrous Me163 Komet

Video Description

IF THE MUSIC IS TOO MUCH GO HERE - https://youtu.be/UDMcZzr5-tU IN which we look at one of the worst, or best, aircraft of the war - depending on how one looks at it, as well as an explanation of the rocket engine and how not to do it. A huge thank you to The Hellfire Club (aka Patreons) who made this video possible– if you want to join them please go to https://patreon.com/LordHardThrasher and in exchange you’ll get early video previews and my whitty bants on Discord, plus 10% off my merch store - https://hardthrasher-shop.fourthwall.com/en-gbp Twitter - https://x.com/LordHardThrashe BlueSky - @lordhardthrasher.bsky.social email - [email protected] Please keep comments fairly respectful and be mindful that text conveys no tone. The story of the Me163 is a complex and multifaceted one, and I have attempted here to draw together a number of different sources into a narrative covering the political, structural, scientific and operational history. Necessarily I will have missed things and probably got things wrong. Where I know a mistake has been made, you’ll find it in the pinned comment marked “snagging” - one obvious example is Winkle Brown flew a "sharp" start after the war ended on an Me163 in Germany, and a towed flight in the UK, which I missed. The below then is an extremely limited subset of the resources I’ve pulled on Me163 Rocket Interceptor – Stephen Ransom and Hans-Herman Cammann – not for the feint of heart, a book with brilliant nuggets, a drunken editor and a lot of very pretty pictures. This was my primary source Rocket Fighter – Marno Ziggler – Now out of print, this is a Hitler Jugen Own Adventure story most of which has some truth in it but a lot of which is Marno wishing to be in his early 20s and flying for the Fuhrer again. You can find it online fairly easily The kids probably haven’t got a clue what a video tape is, never mind Betamax https://legacybox.com/blogs/analog/vhs-beat-betamax - Betamax vs VHS Baxter, AD: Walter Rocket Motors for Aircraft, RAE Technote Aero 1668, September 1945 – a Technical note that’s incredibly hard to get hold of, but which I managed to find, quite by chance, in some papers I got years ago. Probably available from the UK National Archives still http://www.walterwerke.co.uk/walter/index.htm - a fantastic archive of all things Walter *but* it isn’t an https site as a warning https://hushkit.net/2019/03/29/the-lippisch-p-13-supersonic-wonder-plane-or-nazi-coke-head-an-assessment-by-former-british-technical-liaison/ - The coal powered bomber rammer P.13 https://donhollway.com/me-163/ - Bat out of Hell – great website for images of the Me163 as imagined in the Artists’ fever dreams https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBXIzY-GGk4 – Gun Cam Footage of the Me163 and Me262s being shot at and down by various USAAF pilots. https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/messerschmitt-me-163b-1a-komet/nasm_A19530072000 - Air and Space Museum have their usual, brilliant photos and terrible descriptions.