Junkers/Doepp Rocket Fighter

[Jemiba]

The 2013 issue of the German "Flieger Kalender" features an article about an early concept for a
rocket fighter, proposed by Philipp von Doepp in 1932 with a detailed report. Von Doepp was
working then for the "Forschungsanstalt Professor Junkers", so this concept can be regarded as
a Junkers concept. It was intended to be powered by five rocket engines, all of them used for the
vertical take-off, but only by two for cruising flight. Interestingly at least some of the nozzles or
engines were intended to be movable and so that's an early example for thrust vectoring !
The plane would have been armed with two guns and was to have been used as a short range
interceptor. It seems, the achievable thrust from those quite small engines was somewhat over-
estimated, as with an MTOW of 2.330 kg a maximum altitude of 15.000 m should have been reached
in 53 s with a speed of up to 1.080 km/h.
Nevertheless, it is said, that this concept more or less was the basis for the other early German
rocket fighter designs, like the He 176, von Brauns rocket fighter or the Fi 166.

 

[lippischh]

Interesting design. I'm curious about what the canopy layout would look like.

This is my guess, based on the second drawing.

 

[Jemiba]

Yes, seems to be a good reconstruction of the fuselage and cockpit shape. I just think, that
the latter just reach to the first frame/panel line and not beyond. So the cockpit would be a
bit smaller to my opinion, without thinking about level of detail, this design actually progressed to.

 

[lippischh]

Thanks for your reply Jemiba.

Here's the finished model ready to be 3D printed in 6mm scale.