The Me 163 Komet Rocket Fighter Melted Her Pilots to Death

The “Speed Kills” motto was as fatal to the Komet’s pilots as it was to the Allied planes that the Komet was meant to dominate.

There have been numerous examples of such aircraft in the history of military aviation, which were as dangerous for their pilots as they were to the enemies they were engaging.

For instance, the Sopwith Camel was Britain’s mightiest fighter of the first World War and the very aircraft that helped Snoopy get the Red Baron.

Jumping forward to the next world war and we have the American built Martin A-26B-26 Marauder medium bomber was nicknamed the “Widowmaker” and “the plane that made men out of boys”. As for “Widowmaker,” this nickname was also used for the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter, which was also called a “Flying Coffin,” while the Republic F-105 Thunderchief was known as a “Thud” in the Vietnam War, which was not only because of the plane’s destructive capabilities, but also because of its tendency to explode in mid-air.

But the idea of crashing or exploding in mid air is one thing while disintegrating flesh and bones of pilots who fly the aircraft is quite another. Hence, the Nazi German Luftwaffe’s Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet rocket fighter-bomber can be rightly regarded as the most self-destructive fighter plane ever.

Besides being fast the Me 163 was also packing some serious punch in the form of two Rheinmetall-Borsig MK 108 30mm cannon with a firing rate of 650 rounds per minute and were called the ‘pneumatic hammer’ after the sound of the firing.

Some Komets were also upgraded with the Sondergerät 500 Jägerfaust early production experimental airborne anti-bomber shoulder-launched rifle. All of which goes to prove the paradoxical twin truths of combat aviation that “Speed Is Life” and “Speed Kills. ”

Regrettably, as has been previously mentioned, the “Speed Kills” motto affected the Komet’s pilots as well as the enemies planes that the Komet sought to dominate. While it is estimated that the Me 163 performed 16 aerial victories (including three P-51 Mustangs shot down during an engagement in August 1944), it is also believed that the aircraft was lost in six to nine air combats with Allied fighter pilots …... yet, more worrisome for the Luftwaffe personnel, is the fact that between nine and ten pilots of the Me 163 were killed in crashes.

The prime reason behind the Komet’s status as flying coffin was the aircraft’s highly flammable fuel mixture, a combination of T-Stoff and C-Stoff, which was not only flammable but also oxidizing and toxic in nature. According to the aeronautical engineer Dr. Alexander Lippisch, “If you stick your finger in it, then you get only the bone. ”

In order to drive home the point of just how lethal the plane’s fuel type was, the narrator of the aforementioned YouTube video tells the story of Josef Pöhs a thirty-one-year-old Luftwaffe ace and

Christian D. Orr is a Senior Defense Editor for National Security Journal (NSJ). He is a former Air Force Security Forces officer, Federal law enforcement officer, and private military contractor (with assignments worked in Iraq, United Arab Emirates, Kosovo, Japan, Germany, and the Pentagon). He has a Bachelors degree in International Relations from University of Southern California (USC) and Masters degree in Intelligence Studies (concentration in Terrorism Studies) from American Military University (AMU). He has also been published in The Daily Torch, The Journal of Intelligence and Cyber Security, and Simple Flying. Finally, he is a Companion of the Order of the Naval Order of the United States (NOUS).