| He P.1078 | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Model of the He P.1078 A at the Technikmuseum Speyer | |
| Role | Interceptor |
| Manufacturer | Heinkel |
| Status | Never went past the project stage |
| Primary user | Luftwaffe |
The Heinkel P.1078 (He P.1078) was a single seat interceptor developed for the Luftwaffe by Heinkel aircraft manufacturing company under the Emergency Fighter Program during the last years of the Third Reich.
As part of the Emergency Fighter Program (German : Jägernotprogramm), at the beginning of 1945 a programme was launched by the OKL for a new generation of fighter/interceptor aircraft in order to replace the winner of the Volksjäger fighter design competition, the He 162A Spatz. The new aircraft was intended to have superior performance in order to deal with high altitude threats such as the B-29 Superfortress, but only had a 30-minute endurance figure.
Heinkel produced three different designs of the project which were submitted in February 1945. The high-altitude fighter designs brought forward by other German aircraft makers were the Messerschmitt P.1110, [1] Focke-Wulf Ta 183 Huckebein, Blohm & Voss P 212 and the Junkers EF 128, the official winner of the competition. [2] After being subject to severe criticism, the project was cancelled by Heinkel at the end of February 1945.
The Heinkel P.1078 project had three quite different variants. All of them were a single-seat fighters with polyhedral swept wings. The wings were swept back at 40 degrees and included wood in their construction. All of the projected aircraft had the wing tips angled downwards and all of them would be powered by a single Heinkel HeS 011 turbojet.
Jet-powered interceptor. It was the most conventional-looking of the three designs submitted for it was the only one having a tail. Its armament was two MK 108 cannons, as in the following two variants.
A tailless asymmetric jet-powered interceptor with a short fuselage in which the air intake of the engine was located in the middle between two gondolas. The cockpit was located on the gondola of the left side, while the right side gondola contained the front undercarriage leg and cannon armament.
A tailless interceptor project similar to the P.1078 B but with a single short fuselage. Both the He P.1078 B and P.1078 C had wing tips angled downwards at a more pronounced angle than the P.1078 A.
Heinkel Flugzeugwerke was a German aircraft manufacturing company founded by and named after Ernst Heinkel. It is noted for producing bomber aircraft for the Luftwaffe in World War II and for important contributions to high-speed flight, with the pioneering examples of a successful liquid-fueled rocket and a turbojet-powered aircraft in aviation history, with both Heinkel designs' first flights occurring shortly before the outbreak of World War II in Europe.
The Focke-Wulf Ta 183 Huckebein was a design for a jet-powered fighter aircraft intended as the successor to the Messerschmitt Me 262 and other day fighters in Luftwaffe service during World War II. It was developed only to the extent of wind tunnel models when the war ended, but the basic design was further developed postwar in Argentina as the FMA IAe 33 Pulqui II. The name Huckebein is a reference to a trouble-making raven from an illustrated story in 1867 by Wilhelm Busch.
The Emergency Fighter Program was the program that resulted from a decision taken on July 3, 1944 by the Luftwaffe regarding the German aircraft manufacturing companies during the last year of the Third Reich.
The Messerschmitt P.1101 was a single-seat, single-jet fighter project of World War II, developed as part of the 15 July 1944 Emergency Fighter Program which sought a second generation of jet fighters for the Third Reich. A prominent feature of the P.1101 prototype was that the sweep angle of the wings could be changed before flight, a feature further developed in later variable-sweep aircraft such as the Bell X-5 and Grumman XF10F Jaguar.
The Focke-Wulf Project I was a design study for a jet fighter, to be built in Germany during World War II. In 1942, the Reichsluftministerium (RLM) asked Professor Kurt Tank of the Focke-Wulf factory to investigate the possibility of a single-engine jet fighter. He was given the development plans of the BMW 003, Jumo 004 and Heinkel HeS 011 engines. Late in 1942 the Project Office, led by Ludwig Mittelhuber, began to work on a series of fighter projects, to be powered by one of these new turbojet units.
The Heinkel He P.1079 was a projected German V-tail all weather jet fighter designed by Heinkel Flugzeugwerke in the closing stages of World War II. The aircraft was only a design; it was not produced.
The Blohm & Voss P 212 was a proposed jet fighter designed by Blohm & Voss for the Emergency Fighter Program Luftwaffe design competition during the Second World War.
The Heinkel P.1077 was a single seat interceptor design developed for the Luftwaffe by Heinkel under the Emergency Fighter Program during the last year of the Third Reich. This rocket-powered project was originally known as He P.1068, but that name was later used for a Heinkel design project for a turbojet-powered medium bomber.
The Heinkel P.1073, known also as Strahljäger, was a fighter project developed for the Luftwaffe by Heinkel aircraft manufacturing company during the last years of World War II.
The Blohm & Voss P 211 was a design proposal submitted by Blohm & Voss to the Volksjäger jet fighter competition of the Luftwaffe Emergency Fighter Program towards the end of the Second World War.
The Junkers EF 128 was a project for a single-engine jet fighter, developed for the Emergency Fighter Program Luftwaffe design competition during the Second World War.
The Messerschmitt P.1110 was a design for a single-seat, high-altitude interceptor, prepared for the German Luftwaffe by the Messerschmitt aircraft manufacturing company, under the Emergency Fighter Program during the last months of World War II.
The Messerschmitt P.1099 was a two-seat prototype jet plane designed by Messerschmitt for the Luftwaffe before the end of the Second World War.
The Focke-Wulf Volksjäger, meaning "People's Fighter" in German, was a German emergency fighter project for the Luftwaffe. It was designed by Focke-Wulf industries towards the end of World War II as part of the defense effort against the devastating Allied bombing raids.
The Messerschmitt P.1079 was a series of different experimental Messerschmitt fighters projected during the Second World War. The last designs were proposed in 1944 towards the end of the Third Reich. Except for the last one, all the aircraft designs were to be powered by pulse jets, the same engines used in the V-1 flying bomb.
The Heinkel P.1080 was a German Emergency Fighter proposed by Heinkel.
The Blohm & Voss P215 was an advanced jet night fighter project by Blohm & Voss during the Second World War. With a crew of three and twin jet engines, it featured a tailless swept-wing layout and heavy armament. An order for three prototypes was received just weeks before the war ended.
The Arado E.583 was a project design from 1945 for a jet-powered night fighter aircraft of the German manufacturer Arado Flugzeugwerke.
The Messerschmitt P.1107 was a jet-powered bomber project developed in the final years of the Second World War.
 | Wikimedia Commons has media related to Heinkel P.1078 . |