The Heinkel He 162 Volksjäger (German, "People's Fighter") is a German single-engine, jet-powered fighter aircraft used by the Luftwaffe late in World War II. Developed under the Emergency Fighter Program, it was designed and built quickly and made primarily of wood as metals were in very short supply and prioritised for other aircraft. Volksjäger was the Reich Air Ministry's official name for the government design program competition which was won by the He 162 design. Other names include Salamander, which was the codename of its wing-construction program, and Spatz ("Sparrow"), which was the name given to the aircraft by Heinkel.
The aircraft was notable for its small size. Although almost the same length as a Messerschmitt Bf 109, its wingspan of was much less than the of the Bf 109. It had a distinctive top-mounted engine which, combined with the aircraft's short landing gear, allowed the engine to be easily accessed for maintenance. This would have made bailing out without hitting the engine difficult, and the He 162 was the first single-engine aircraft provided with an ejection seat. The small size left little room for fuel, which, combined with the inefficient engine, resulted in very limited endurance – around 20 minutes – and it only had room for two autocannons, making it relatively underarmed for the era.
Flight testing began on 6 December 1944. A series of fatal accidents during testing required a series of refinements which delayed the program.
Although production lines were set up and deliveries began in early 1945, the impending defeat of Germany by that time made the effort pointless. Of nearly 1,000 aircraft on the assembly lines, only about 120 were delivered and most of those never flew, usually due to shortages of parts, fuel, and pilots. A few were used in development squadrons and these ultimately saw combat in a few cases during April 1945, yet the He 162 also proved to be quite dangerous to its own pilots as its small fuel load led to a number of aircraft crashing off field, while additional losses were attributed to structural failure. Production was still underway when the war ended in May 1945. Numerous examples were captured by the Allied forces along with ample supplies of parts from the production lines.
The leading British test pilot of the era, Eric Brown, flew a He 162 soon after the war's end. He stated that it could have been a "first-rate" fighter, in the hands of experienced pilots; Brown also believed that the He 162 was unsuitable for novice pilots because of the careful handling required.
Several He 162s have been preserved in museum collections around the world.
Background State of the Luftwaffe fighter arm Through 1943, the U.S. Eighth Air Force (8AF) and German Luftwaffe entered a period of rapid evolution as both forces attempted to gain an advantage. Having lost too many fighters to the bombers' defensive guns, the Germans invested in a series of heavy weapons that allowed them to attack from outside the American machine guns' effective range. The addition of the MK 108, and even heavier Bordkanone autoloading weapons in and calibres on their Zerstörer heavy fighters, and the adoption in spring 1943 of the Werfer-Granate 21 unguided rockets, gave the German single and twin-engined defensive fighters a degree of firepower never seen previously by Allied fliers. Meanwhile, single-engine aircraft like specially equipped Fw 190As added armor to protect their pilots from Allied bombers' defensive fire, allowing them to approach to distances where their heavy weapons could be used with some chance of hitting the bombers. All of this added greatly to the weight being carried by both the single and twin-engine fighters, seriously affecting their performance.
In early 1944, the 8AF re-opened its bombing campaign with the Big Week offensive in conjunction with the RAF, to force a decisive battle with Luftwaffe by attacking German aircraft production and so achieve Allied air superiority over Europe. The bombers returned to the skies with the long-range North American P-51 Mustang escort fighters progressively replacing Republic P-47 Thunderbolts and Lockheed P-38 Lightnings. Unencumbered with the heavy weapons needed to down a bomber, the Mustangs (and longer-ranged versions of other aircraft) were able to fend off the Luftwaffe with relative ease. The Luftwaffe responded by changing tactics, forming in front of the bombers and making a single pass through the formations, giving the defense little time to react. Major General Jimmy Doolittle, commander of 8AF, had changed policy in January 1944; rather than forcing escorts to stay with the bomber formations, they were permitted to fly ahead of the bomber formations and sweep the Luftwaffe's fighters aside before they closed with the bombers.McFarland and Newton 1991, pp. 160–161.
This change in tactics resulted in a sudden increase in the rate of irreplaceable losses to the Luftwaffe day fighter force, as their heavily laden aircraft were "bounced" long before reaching the bombers. Within weeks, many of their aces were dead, along with hundreds of other pilots, and the training program could not replace their casualties quickly enough. The Luftwaffe were able to put up little fight during the summer of 1944, allowing the Allied landings in France to go almost unopposed from the air. With few planes coming up to fight, Allied fighters were let loose on the German airbases, railways and truck traffic. Logistics soon became a serious problem for the Luftwaffe, as maintaining aircraft in fighting condition became almost impossible. Getting enough fuel was even more difficult because of a devastating campaign against German petroleum industry targets.Miller 2006, p. 320.
Origins
Addressing this posed a considerable problem for the Luftwaffe. Two camps quickly developed, both demanding the immediate introduction of large numbers of jet fighter aircraft. One group, led by General Adolf Galland, the Inspector of Fighters, reasoned that superior numbers had to be countered with superior technology, and demanded that all possible effort be put into increasing the production of the jet powered Messerschmitt Me 262 in its A-1a fighter version, even if that meant reducing production of other aircraft in the meantime.
The second group pointed out that this would likely do little to address the problem; the Me 262 had notoriously unreliable Jumo 004 jet engines and landing gear, and the existing logistics problems would mean there would merely be more of them on the ground waiting for parts that would never arrive, or for fuel that was not available.Forsyth 2016, p. 8. Instead, they suggested that a new design be built – one so inexpensive that if a machine was damaged or worn out, it could simply be discarded and replaced with a fresh plane straight off the assembly line.Forsyth 2016, p. 7. Thus was born the concept of the "throwaway fighter".
Galland and several other Luftwaffe senior officers expressed their vehement opposition to this light fighter concept,Dorr 2013, p. 153. while head of the Luftwaffe Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring and Armaments Minister Albert Speer fully supported the idea. Göring and Speer got their way; accordingly, a contract tender to supply a single-engine jet fighter that was suited for cheap and rapid mass production was established under the name Volksjäger ("People's Fighter").
Volksjäger
The official RLM Volksjäger design competition parameters specified a single-seat fighter, powered by a single BMW 003 turbojet,Christopher 2013, p. 145.LePage 2009, p. 38. a slightly lower-thrust engine not in demand for either the Me 262 or the Arado Ar 234 jet bomber, 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.Dorr 2013, p. 152.
The specification stipulated various performance requirements, including a maximum weight of , a maximum speed of 750 km/h (470 mph) at sea level, an operational endurance of at least a half hour, while the takeoff distance was to be no greater than 500 m (1,640 ft).Forsyth 2016, pp. 8–9. Provisions for armour plating in areas such as the fuel tanks and around the pilot were also to be made, however, manufacturers were also asked to provide detail on the aircraft's performance both with and without armour installed. The armament was specified as either a pair of MG 151/20 cannon with 100 rounds each, or two 30 mm MK 108 cannon with 50 rounds each.Forsyth 2016, p. 10.
Furthermore, the Volksjäger needed to be easy to fly. Some officials, such as Artur Axmann and Karl Saur, suggested even glider or student pilots should be able to fly the jet effectively in combat and, had the Volksjäger achieved widespread use, this would have been a likely occurrence.Forsyth 2016, pp. 17–18. After the war, Ernst Heinkel said, "[The] unrealistic notion that this plane 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."Excerpt from Lucas Arts' "Secret Weapons of Luftwaffe" CD-ROM's Text Manual.Heath 2022, p. 223. The clipped-wingspan DFS Habicht models had varying wingspans of both or , and were used to prepare more experienced Luftwaffe pilots for the dangerous Me 163B Komet rocket fighter – the same sort of training approach would also be used for the Hitler Youth aviators chosen to fly the Volksjäger.Forsyth 2016, pp. 7–8.
On 8 September 1944, the requirement was issued to industry;LePage 2009, p. 244.Dorr 2013, p. 151. bidders were required to submit their basic designs within ten days while quantity production of the aircraft was to commence by 1 January 1945.Forsyth 2016, p. 9. Because the winner of the new lightweight fighter design competition would be building huge numbers of the planes, nearly every German aircraft manufacturer expressed interest in the project, such as Blohm & Voss, and Focke-Wulf, whose Focke-Wulf Volksjäger 1 design contender, likewise meant for BMW 003 turbojet power bore a resemblance to their slightly later Ta 183 Huckebein jet fighter design. However, Heinkel had already been working on a series of "paper projects" for light twin-engine fighters over the last year under the designation P.1073, with most design work being completed by Professor Benz, and had gone so far as to build and test several models and conduct some wind tunnel testing.Forsyth 2016, pp. 9–10.
As Heinkel had a head start on its design, some officials believed that the outcome was a largely foregone conclusion.Forsyth 2016, p. 10. Nevertheless, many companies opted to produce responses; some of these competing designs were technically superior (in particular to the Blohm & Voss P 211 proposal). Messerschmitt did not submit any design, the company's founder, Willy Messerschmitt, dismissed the Volksjäger concept to be a delusional failure.Forsyth 2016, p. 11. During October 1944, the competition's results were announced, only three weeks following the requirement being issued; to little surprise, Heinkel's submission was selected for production.Forsyth 2016, p. 15. In order to confuse Allied intelligence, the RLM chose to reuse the 8-162 airframe designation (formerly that of a Messerschmitt Bf 162 fast bomber);Sharp 2020b, p. 16. Heinkel had reportedly requested another designation, He 500, for the aircraft.Sharp 2020b, p. 178.Forsyth 2016, p. 22.
Design