Bachem Ba 349 Natter

Possibly the oddest plane to ever fly, the Bachem Ba 349 Natter (Viper) is more properly thought of as a manned missile.

With the Allies decimating the Luftwaffe in 1944, desperate measures were thought up to address the issue. Although most of the Luftwaffe commanders pressed for more jet fighters like the Me 262, all sorts of crazy ideas were given the green light for development, typically at the behest of some high-ranking Nazi official.

The problems were many. Jets had serious problems during takeoff and landing, so airbases were death traps. The current jets were also fairly difficult to fly, and with the majority of their better pilots being wiped out, more 262's were simply not going to help.

The Natter was the result of one of these searches, specifically for a plane that could take off vertically and attack bombers. Various efforts had been underway to develop missiles for this purpose, but invariably problems with the guidance systems prevented these from seeing widespread use.

Fitting a pilot to the top seemed like the only solution, which the Luftwaffe requested in early 1944. A number of simple designs were proposed, most using a prone pilot to reduce frontal area. The front runner for the design was initially a Heinkel design that took off from a rail and landed on a skid like the Me 163 Komet.

Erich Bachem's design was more radical. The plane took off and was guided almost to the bomber's altitude using radio control from the ground, with the pilot taking control right at the end to point the nose in the right direction and pull the trigger. This fired 24 rockets out of the nose of the plane, at which point it flew up and over the bombers. After running out of fuel the plane would then be used to ram the tail of a bomber, with the pilot ejecting just before impact to parachute to the ground.

Needless to say many thought the idea was crazy and rejected it out of hand. However the design was in fact much more reasonable than any of the others - they all use non-existant pilots. After some political wrangling Bachem's design caught the eye of Henrich Himmler. Suddenly one day later it was the winner of the design contest, but only after some minor redesigns to try to save as much of the plane as possible, as well as eliminating the ramming attack.

The resuling tiny plane was fired up a long wooden pole with the help of four solid fuel rockets, at which point it was going fast enough for its own Walter rocket to continue the mission. After firing its rockets the plane "broke" with the pilot flying out the front to use his parachute, and the engine area landing under it's own chute. Only the cockpit and wooden wings went to waste.

Perhaps even more amazing than the design was the fact that it was actually built and tested. After several unmanned tests the design was cleared for manned testing. In it's first and only manned test, the rocket took off and slowly turned over before crashing into the ground. The cockpit had become partially opened causing both the curving flight path, as well as the pilot's inability to escape.

Nevetheless a group of voluntees agreed to put the plane into operation at Kirchheim, but the war ended without any use.