Jetrader - Autumn 2015 - 48

aviation history

The
Fieseler V-1

A V-1 is launched from France
in 1944, aimed at London.
German photo via UK's Imperial
War Museum.

Flying Bomb

By Jack Feir

Turning Points
A major turning point in World War II was
D-Day, 6 June 1944, when British, American
and Allied troops came ashore the beaches
of Normandy. Just a week later, 13 June,
was another turning point in the war, as
four small aircraft crossed the English
Channel from France and exploded on
impact when they plunged into the ground
near the town of Swanscombe, about 20
miles east of London.
Examination of the bits and pieces collected there found no human remains,
confirming what the military intelligence
people had expected based on reports
from spies and aerial reconnaissance: The
Germans were developing unmanned "flying
bombs." The event marked the beginning
of the use of a new weapon, the V-1. More
than 30,000 of these weapons would be
manufactured before the war was over.
The V-1s were intended to be launched
from sites on the continent and aimed at
targets in southern England, especially
London. For the Allies, the immediate priority after D-Day was to secure and expand
the Normandy beachhead, but another priority was to find and destroy the production facilities and launch sites for the V-1s.

It's Just Artillery
On the most basic level, these weapons were a new form of artillery, as were
medieval catapults and trebuchets that
could hurl death and destruction to an
enemy from a distance. The same could be

said of bomber aircraft; they were basically
long-range artillery. The V-1 was different;
a bomb that would make its own way to a
distant target without the risk and expense
of sending manned bombers to do the job.
The challenge for the Allies was to find a
way to stop them.

"V-weapons" named V-1 (a Luftwaffe flying
bomb program) and V-2 (an Army ballistic
rocket program), with the "V" standing for
Vergeltungswaffe or Vengeance weapon.
This Aviation History column looks at the
V-1, the flying bomb.

The War Situation

The Fieseler Aircraft Company, formerly
a designer and manufacturer of sailplanes,
had been chosen in 1942 to design the flying bomb, known then as the Fi-103, which
would eventually become the V-1. After
an RAF bombing raid shut down Fieseler's
plant, serial production was moved to a
Volkswagen plant near Fallersleben and an
underground plant near Nordhausen. Cheap
to make, about 50 V-1s could be built for
the cost of one bomber.
The entire airframe could be built with
unskilled labor, mainly provided by Russian
and Polish war prisoners working underground in appalling conditions. The V-1s
were produced in kit form and delivered
by rail or truck convoy and assembled at
the launch sites.
The intended production rate was to
start at 100 per month in mid-1943 and
ramped up to 5,000 per month by mid1944, but actual deliveries were later and
slower owing to Allied bombing of roads,
rails and factories.

In 1943, four years into the war, things
were not going well for Germany. Russians
were advancing from the east, Allied
forces were advancing through Italy from
the south, and "thousand-plane" bombing
raids from Britain were routinely blowing
German factories and cities into rubble.
Most German generals already knew the
war was lost, and it was only a question of
how long Germany could stave off defeat.
However, any general who questioned
Hitler's leadership would either be shot or
worse-sent to the eastern front.
Having no viable heavy bombers of its
own, Germany's plan was to use "flying
bombs" or "aerial torpedoes" (what we
today call cruise missiles), and also to
develop a large rocket-powered ballistic
missile. Both programs had been under
low-priority development for several
years, but now they were to be rushed
into production and intended to be put
into service before the end of 1943. Hitler
couldn't decide which weapon was better, and even though it was late in the
game, both were given high priority for
materials and workers. These became the

48 The official publication of the International Society of Transport Aircraft Trading

The Bomb's Design

The Motor
Propulsion was by a pulsejet, a device
whose beauty was its simplicity; and it

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