Fieseler F1-103 A-1 “Reichenberg IV” with expendable Porsche 109-005 turbojet in 1/48 scale
One of the main interests for Germans during the last months of the WWII was to reach America. Hitler wanted to hit Washington directly, as well as New York and other important American cities. It was impossible for the Luftwaffe, due the lack of planes and pilots. A good option was the use of submarines. A proposal from Fieseler Werke was to bomb New York using V-1 missiles launched from submarines surfaced about 200 Km. before the American coastline. It does not make sense to make such a dangerous journey to launch an inaccurate weapon like the V-1 against a city with so high probability of failure. The new option was to use the piloted Fieseler Fi 103 A-1 “Reichenberg IV” suicide aircraft. One of the main problems of the Re IV was that it could not take off using its own engine, being a pulsejet that could only be started in flight. Usually, a Heinkel He 111 H-22 was the mother aircraft for launching this device. The matter could be solved by increasing the power of the pulsejets. As this was not possible, because this kind of engine was very basic, the use of the new expendable Porsche 109-005 turbojet was proposed. It had 500 kp. of thrust, which was enough for launching the Re IV from the submarine ramp. By the end of the war there was a program led by Dipl.-Ing. Willy Fielder, from Fieseler Werke, to adapt the “Reichenberg IV” to naval use, but it was too late for new ideas. |