Alan Boyle has an interview with Paul Allen. This isn’t right, though:
Adrian Hunt, the collection’s executive director, told me that putting a pilot in the V-1 turned out to be a terrible idea.
“The theory is that you open the cockpit and you jump out just when you’re getting close to the target,” he said. “There’s a slight design fault there. Once you open the cockpit, that’s the intake for the rocket – and it tends to suck in things, including people.
“…intake for the rocket”?
It was a pulse jet.
And the V1 pulse jet has louvers on the front which open and close with each fuel explosion in the tube. The louvers open after the explosion and the airstream itself moves air into the tube for the next explosion, so there wouldn’t be much “sucking” going on.
I think the idea with that particular wonder weapon was to bail out after the engine had run out of fuel anyway, even so the most likely scenareo was being blown into the engine pod or tail assembly.
Having seen the Fi 103 up close, I estimate the chances of successfully bailing out at “zero.”
I think the Nazis knew that. Official propoganda said that Aryan supermen were too valuable for suicide missions (unlike the Japanese). So, it was necessary to have a *theoretical* bailout capability, whether or not that capability actually worked, so it didn’t *look* like a suicide mission.
Not to second-guess the engineers on the project, but why not a trapdoor beneath the pilot on the same principle as the downward-ejecting seats on the B-52?
Not to second-guess the engineers on the project, but why not a trapdoor beneath the pilot on the same principle as the downward-ejecting seats on the B-52?
No room. The pilot was almost riding on top; the fuselage barely appeared large enough for the legs.
Although, the Germans might have been used to cockpits that were on the cozy side. The Me-262 cockpit was the most cramped I’ve ever sat in. I felt like my knees were on my chest.