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[Kilo]

Is a interesting "plane", cause is always interesting to land over a skid, but not sure that thing would have even flown with that radical aerodinamic shape.

Well, you know the saying: "Even a brick can fly if you strap a big enough engine to it." This thing was to be equipped with a ramjet engine.

[mikoyan99]

Also, it did fly, in unpowered form:

[Ta183Huckebein]

Say, mikoyan, weren't you once working on something like this?

[max_thehitman]

I think it was Ranswers that had a 3d-model already finished, but did not go any further into
putting it into the game. This was many years ago.
I think Mikyoan also created one.
It looked really great and had it own wheeled cart for carrying and transportation.

Ask Ranswers if he can donate his model and then rework it good enough for it to fly in the game.
The problem with it flying in the IL2-1946 may reside in the engine.
It was not a "jet engine". - It worked more like a V-1 rocket, a ramjet, but burned charcoal fuel. It was not gasoline
or diesel, but charcoal in a powder form.

That rocket would sound and work really out of the ordinary.
It might sound and look like this ....
--->

The aircrafts design was considered very revolutionary for its time and it did fly far better than most thought.
Many allied countries would later use this Lippish design for their future jet fighters.

[RealDarko]

That engine looks amazing, would be great to have one in Il2. Also the cart wheel sounds like a interesting thing.

[SAS~Skylla]

Although those pulse- and ramjet engines might look cool, they are in fact very problematic:

• about pulsejets: In 1942, German Test Pilot Erich Klöckner made a test flight in a DFS 230 which had strapped 2 Argus-pulsejets on it. After firing the engines, he was in big trouble: The Argus-pulsejet is igniting in a 50Hz frequency; those vibrations are _very_ uncomfortable if you have to keep your hands on the stick
  Also, in Klöckner's case, the vibrations forced the plane doors open ... Oh, and you need lot's of fuel for these, they get quite hot (~1000°C, you can see that nicely in the Video posted earlier by max) and the valves are scuffed very fast
• about ramjets: they only provide enough thrust when you're flying very fast already (during early tests, the engines were started inflight at 380kph to test their effect), they're hard to control, plus they need lot's of fuel .. do I have to say more?

Best Regards,
skylla

source: Horst Lommel, Vom Höhenaufklärer bis zum Raumgleiter - Geheimprojekte der DFS 1935 - 1945 (Motorbuch Verlag 2000)

[RealDarko]

You have control only for "all or nothing" on those pulse jet?

[max_thehitman]

You have control only for "all or nothing" on those pulse jet?

 I dont think the Germans had in mind to use these engines for a last-ditch kind
of weapon, or some type of Kamikazi airplane for the Third Reich.
According to what I have read many years ago in some papers and books, the Germans
were actually very advanced in their research into alternative fuels.  With the war coming
to an end for Germany and fuel being scarce in some places, they looked towards coal
and charcoal as a means to power the new engines for vehicles and airplanes.
This Lippisch designed airplane was to use this type of engine, with charcoal as fuel,
 but surely it was not to be a one-way ticket ride.
It was meant to fly into combat and then come back to base under its own power... or at least
come back gliding down to its airfield, like what happens
when you run out of fuel in a ME-163 "Komet".

The rocket-powered Bachem-Natter and a few other aircraft were designed around the same idea.
Get them up fast and flying into the Allied bomber formations, shoot down as many as you can in 2 or 3
passes and then when your fuel runs out, come back to base by gliding on air.
It sounds all very simple and glorious for the Third Reich.

At first it sounded great on paper, but in reality, those German pilots were not counting on hundreds
of Allied fighter airplanes attacking them while they slowly glided down back to base... and
they were also not counting on the extreme dangers it was to fly these rocket/Ramjet airplanes.
Many pilots just blew thermselves to pieces when they flipped on the ignition switch while still on the runway!
BOOM!

There is no doubt about it, that the Lippisch P.13a supersonic ramjet looks fantastic and very futuristic
in its design. It was just another crazy idea by some desperate mad-scientists still hoping for a miracle weapon
that would turn the war in their favor.

But if we can fly and fight in a "Lerche" in the IL2-1946... so, why not this one?
Anything is possible!
The IL2-1946+Mods pilots are known to be "Suicidal" anyways. They will fly ANYTHING into combat!  AAAAHAHAHA!

[razor1uk]

I must find that pdf on Coalfoam (charcoal, coke, tar & resin) matrix fuel - if I remember incorrectly is was all or nothing for each brick/puck of it when electrically ignited, but I think they were developing a mechanical way to gain a measure of control over the coal/charcoal powered ramjet - no 'pulsejet' reed valves.

[SAS~Storebror]

As much as these planes and their engines are fascinating from a technical point of view, as little did they solve the biggest issue for german fighters when trying to defend the incoming bomber fleets:
Suitable weapons.

Even the poor 163 pilots had to figure that once they made it to the allied bombers, the danger just began.
While that second they've had for aiming at an enemy bomber usually wasn't sufficient to score enough hits, the tens of seconds it took for them to fly through the group was more than sufficient to catch one or more shots from their gunners which, given the nature of fuel they had to take with them, easily went the fatal route.

Being able to fly higher and faster than your enemy for sure is a kind of life insurance on your approach to the target area and on your way back, all fine and granted.
It doesn't help much when you're at takeoff or landing, but there's nothing much you can do about that.
But once you reach a group of bombers, what you'd need most would be weapons which are effective at a distance where the gunners can't shoot back at you, and that's exactly what the germans didn't have at hands.

Having said that, even the P-13A would have just been another backstop for the allied gunners.

Best regards - Mike

[Koty]

Mike, don't forget, at that time germans were experimenting with guided missiles (they worked on the same principle as the antishipping missiles of that age... command guidance it is - good for attacking a ground target, so why not to use it against a bomber?)


But still, what can two missiles do (that would be maximum that such small thing can carry)? Bring down two bombers at max - but they were flying in hundreds...

[SAS~Storebror]

Sure, they were experimenting with lots of weapons, partly promising, partly strange, many of them pretty dangerous, mostly even to the own staff, and with hindsight one could say that some of these weapons even made sense for the purpose intended (like you example of guided missiles against bombers).
Problem is that they didn't have that hindsight available (that's the crux of the matter, you cannot travel in time as much as you'd like to), they had no time and no idea which of their hundreds of ideas would eventually prove feasible and successful.
Desperation made them grasp at any straw available, which just contributed to the chaos that lead to the demise.

All in all, with full hindsight you will come to the conclusion that with the resources, time, leadership and ideas available, they've had everything they needed, but still were as far from being able to defend their country as albania is from a manned lunar landing.

Best regards - Mike