#X WING FIGHTER COCKPIT FULL#
#X WING FIGHTER COCKPIT SERIES#

Of the firms that participated in the Volksjager program, Heinkel became the winner with their He 162 'Volksjager' single-seat, jet-powered fighter. The war for Germany came to a close by June of 1945 and, as such, the Ho X fell to the history books.

#X WING FIGHTER COCKPIT FULL#

While several scale models were ultimately produced, a full scale engineless glider was never completed. The war progressed far too quickly for the Ho X to see much in the way of completion. An optimistic top speed of 684 miles per hour was envisioned, superior to that of the original RLM requirement. Performance from her engine was estimate to bring a service ceiling of 49,212 feet with a range of 1,243 miles. Her height was listed as 7 feet, 6 inches. The Ho X measured in with a 45 feet, 11 inch wing span and a length of 23 feet, 8 inches. The undercarriage would have been of a tricycle arrangement featuring two main landing gear legs and a nose leg, all fully-retractable into the fuselage underside. Drag for lateral control would have been supplied by wingtip installments. Control of the Ho X (as it fielded no vertical tail fins) was to be through combined movements of the ailerons and elevators held along the wing trailing edges. This cannon would have been supplemented by a pair of 13mm MG 131 machine guns, one afforded to each wing root. Armament was rather modest and would have consisted of a single 30mm MK 103 or 30mm Mk 213 cannon in the underside of the nose cone. The pilot sat in a pressurized cockpit under a large-area, curved canopy with excellent forward, upward and side views. The intakes delivered the air through a curved duct system straight into the front of the jet engine. Of note to the X's design was the use of two side-mounted intakes to aspirate the buried jet engine behind the pilot. The fuselage was aerodynamically contoured with a nose cone at the front and a tapered shape towards the engine exhaust ring aft. The wing roots themselves sported a surface sweep of up to 60 degrees. The overall shape of the X was of a wedge and utilized extensive sweep back along the leading and trailing wing edges.

#X WING FIGHTER COCKPIT SERIES#

Additional RLM specifications included use of the BMW 003 series turbojet, a 30-minute flight endurance and a 457 mile-per-hour maximum speed. The fuselage would maintain the armament, cockpit and engine. Similarly, the wings were also of wood and covered over in plywood. The fuselage would have incorporated steel with wood beams covered over in plywood.

To fulfill the requirement that stated use of non-strategic war materials, the Ho X would make heavy use of wood over a steel pipe frame. The Horten X was based upon the ongoing development of the Ho 229 flying wing and borrowed many of her inherent concepts including the lack of vertical tail surfaces, use of a pressurized cockpit and a jet-powered propulsion system. The Horten Brothers were not included in the project but elected to try their hand at fulfilling the requirement nonetheless. The German project, issued on September 8th, 1944, took on the name of 'Volksjager' (meaning 'People's Fighter') and several firms were handed the requirement. The top-performing Allied fighters in Europe by war's end became the British Supermarine Spitfire and the American North American P-51 Mustang and mounts like the American Republic P-47 Thunderbolt were also of note. The RLM requirement also specified that the new fighter should match (or overtake) the performance qualities of anything the Allies could field at the time. As such, the desperate times called for equally-desperate measures and German aircraft engineers did not disappoint. Allied fighters now found the range to escort their heavy brethren to and from German territories and losses to the Luftwaffe made for a light defense of key target areas. Allied bombers wreaked havoc on German infrastructure and made for a logistical nightmare. The war had begun to collapse on all sides for Hitler and his mighty German war machine and a vicious defense was all that would stand between the nation and total conquer from either the Allies to the West or the Soviets to the East. The Ho X was developed to an RLM requirement for a cheap, easy-to-produce fighter that could be fielded in quantity for the final defense of Germany. One of the sole completed examples was evaluated stateside and now remains in storage in a Washington, D.C. The Ho 229 itself was completed by war's end but never entered mass production and was ultimately captured by the United States Army. The concept was notably solidified in their well-known Ho 229 flying wing fighter which was ultimately realized in the modern Northrop B-2 Spirit stealth bomber. The Horten Ho X (10) continued the Horten Brother's love affair with the flying wing concept.

X wing fighter cockpit