Bachem Ba 349 Natter (X-Planes) by Robert Forsyth

Author:Robert Forsyth [Forsyth, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781472820112
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2018-06-27T23:00:00+00:00

The M17 takes off. Shortly afterwards, however, the aircraft’s salvage parachute failed to open and it broke up after hitting the ground.

M17 took off without problems, all four of its boosters firing at full thrust, and it rotated around its longitudinal axis as it climbed to around 2,500m in 25 seconds. On its descent, the salvage parachute deployed according to the pre-set timing, but it was ripped away at 700m when the cable snapped at the attachment to the shroud line ring. The parachute failed to open and the BP-20 crashed into the ground after having flown for 52 seconds. Not much was left, but one of the tailplanes with the reward message was recovered, as was the salvage parachute. Once more, however, thrust was well below the expected 1,200kg at 980kg.

Meanwhile, testing continued at Neuburg and Ainring airfields from November 1944 into February 1945. At least four trials are known to have been carried out in which BP-20s were suspended, using bomb carriers, below the wing of a He 111. The objective of these flights was to assess the separation of the nose section from the rest of a Natter so as to allow a pilot to exit the aircraft in the safest possible way. It was envisaged that a pilot’s own inertia would throw him forwards and away from the cockpit, while a parachute would slow down the movement of the remaining fuselage. This method would free a relatively unskilled pilot from having to open a canopy at high speed, to stand on his feet and then to climb out of the cockpit to bail out, hopefully avoiding impact with the tail unit.

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