Attachment 131159Attachment 131171Attachment 131170Attachment 131169Attachment 131168Attachment 131167Attachment 131166Attachment 131165Attachment 131164Attachment 131163Attachment 131162Attachment 131161Attachment 131160Attachment 131172 As you guys already know, the (Salamander) plane made primarily of wood as metals were in very short supply, this plane is now on display in RAF Hendon, Northwest London, The official RLM Volksjäger design competition parameters specified a single-seat fighter, powered by a single BMW 003, a slightly lower-thrust engine not in demand for either the Me 262A nor the Ar 234B front-line aircraft already in service. The main structure of the Volksjäger competing airframe designs would use cheap and unsophisticated parts made of wood and other non-strategic materials and, more importantly, could be assembled by semi- and non-skilled labor, including slave labor. Specifications included a weight of no more than 2,000 kg (4,410 lb), when most fighters of the era were twice that. Maximum speed was specified as 750 km/h (470 mph) at sea level, operational endurance at least a half hour, and the takeoff run no more than 500 m (1,640 ft). Armament was specified as either two 20 mm MG 151/20 cannons with 100 rpg, or two 30 mm (1.18 in) MK 108 cannons with 50 rpg. The Volksjäger needed to be easy to fly. Some suggested that even glider or student pilots should be able to fly the jet effectively in combat, and indeed had the Volksjägerprogramm aircraft design competition and its winning design got into full swing, that is precisely what would have happened. After the war, Ernst Heinkel would say "[The] unrealistic notion that this plane [The He 162] should be a 'people's fighter,' in which the Hitler Youth, after a short training regimen with clipped-wing two-seater gliders like the DFS Stummel-Habicht, could fly for the defense of Germany, displayed the unbalanced fanaticism of those days."[1] The clipped-wingspan DFS Habicht models had varying wingspans of both 8-metre (26 ft 3 in) and 6-metre (19 ft 8 in), used also to prepare more experienced Luftwaffe pilots for the dangerous Messerschmitt Me 163B Komet rocket fighter — the same sort of training approach would also be used for the Hitler Youth aviators chosen to fly the jet-powered Volksjäger.
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