Fieseler F1 103R Reichenberg

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Fieseler F1 103R Reichenberg

Courtesy Flying Heritage Collection, Seattle, Washington USA.
edited by David Barth, 2 March 2013. Photos taken by Dave Barth in July 2010.

Fieseler F1 103R Reichenberg.

Fieseler F1 103R Reichenberg.

Late in the WWII, several piloted V-1s were built. The plan was that a pilot would guide the missile into position close to its target and bail out at the last moment. It was essentially a suicide mission, as it would have been very difficult to open the canopy against the wind resistance and, in the unlikely event that the pilot was able to climb out, he would have undoubtedly been sucked into the intake of the engine.

This manned missile was tested several times, killing every pilot on landing. A famed female test pilot, Hanna Reitsch, discovered in simulated landing attempts that the craft had an extremely high stall speed, and that the previous pilots had attempted their approaches much too slowly.

Once her recommendation was put into effect, pilot fatalities were reduced, but not ended. All of the Reichenbergs were air-launched from planes, ulike the unmanned V-1s that were mostly fired from ground-based catapult ramps. The war ended before Germany could use the Reichenberg in combat.

Fieseler F1 103R Reichenberg.

Fieseler F1 103R Reichenberg.