Heinkel He 162 Volksjäger

The Heinkel He 162 Volksjäger (German, "People's Fighter") is a German single-engine, jet-powered fighter aircraft fielded 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 won by the He 162 design. Other names given to the plane include Salamander, which was the codename of its wing-construction program, and Spatz ("Sparrow"), which was the name given to the plane by the Heinkel aviation firm.

The aircraft was notable for its small size. It had a distinctive top-mounted engine which, combined with the aircraft's low landing gear, allowed the engine to be easily accessed for maintenance. This made bailing out of the aircraft without hitting the engine difficult, and the He 162 was the first single-engine aircraft provided with an ejection seat in an operational setting. The small size left little room for fuel, which combined with the inefficient engine resulted in very low endurance - in the order of 20 minutes - and it only had room for two autocannon, making it relatively underarmed for the era.

A series of fatal accidents during testing required a series of refinements that 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 to the airfields and most of those never flew, usually due to shortages of parts, fuel, and pilots. Small numbers 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 tiny fuel load led to a number of aircraft crashing off field, while additional losses were attributed to structural failure.

Production was still running when the war ended in May 1945. Numerous aircraft were captured by the Allied forces along with ample supplies of parts from the production lines. Eric Brown flew one just after the war and considered it a first-rate aircraft, albeit not suited for novice pilots. Several He 162s have been preserved in museum collections around the world.

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 30 mm (1.2 in) MK 108, and even heavier Bordkanone autoloading weapons in 37 mm (1.5 in) and 50 mm (2.0 in) 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 free to fly ahead of the bomber formations and roam freely over Germany to attack the Luftwaffe's defensive fighters wherever they could be found.

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.

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.