First Manned Rocket Launch

ebook

By Jean Paul Pallud

cover image of First Manned Rocket Launch

Sign up to save your library

With an OverDrive account, you can save your favorite libraries for at-a-glance information about availability. Find out more about OverDrive accounts.

   Not today

Find this title in Libby, the library reading app by OverDrive.

Download Libby on the App Store Download Libby on Google Play

Search for a digital library with this title

Title found at these libraries:

Library Name Distance
Loading...
"This is a very nice reference book that contains a well written informative text, subject specific photographs, well detailed captions and more, all detailing Erich Bachem's Ba 349 Natter..." -Aeroscale
Well before Yuri Gagarin or Alan Shepard, Lothar Sieber became the first man to take off vertically from the ground under rocket power on March 1, 1945. The plane crashed after flying for 55 seconds and he was killed. The launch marked a milestone on the road to spaceflight, even though it remained virtually unknown to the general public for more than half a century.
But the Natter was a weapon of war born out in the closing months of World War II when Germany was desperately looking for 'wonder weapons' to fight the inevitable defeat.
A vertical take-off rocket fighter, the Natter would reach the Allied bomber altitude in seconds, then the pilot would get within firing distance of a bomber, and fire all 24 rockets into the nose in a single shot. Its fuel running out, the pilot will then glide the plane at high speed to a lower altitude, at which point he will trigger the plane to break up, a large parachute opening at the rear, popping off the nose and the pilot with it. The pilot and the tail with the Walter rocket engine would land under their separate parachutes, while the disposable nose, fuselage and wings were to crash to the ground.
The Natter is unquestionably an exciting aircraft but it is safe to assume that it would have been a failure as a bomber interceptor.
First Manned Rocket Launch