Buy now: https://www.mortonsbooks.co.uk/product/view/productCode/15008
Germany’s air ministry was quick to grasp the potential of the jet engine as early as 1938 and by 1939 several German aircraft manufacturers were already working on fighter designs that would utilise this new form of propulsion.
Rocket engines too were seen as the way of the future and companies were commissioned to design fighters around them.
As the Second World War began, the urgent need to bring these advanced new types into production saw a host of innovative aircraft designs being produced which would eventually result in Messerschmitt’s Me 262 jet fighter and the Me 163 rocket-propelled interceptor.
And as the war progressed, efforts were increasingly made to find better ways of utilising jet, rocket and latterly ramjet engines in fighter aircraft.