Messerschmitt Glide Bomb FG 03

[Jemiba]

This was a kind of a glider, developed in co-operation with Alexander Lippisch:
Developed during 1941, was a guided glide bomb of wooden construction, designated
"FG 03". The glider was test dropped from the Bf 161 V-1 and reached a rabge of about
20 km from a height of 4,000 m, but the second drop resulted in a total crash and the
program seem to have been stopped soon.
(from „Typenkompass – Deutsche Raketen und Lenkwaffen“ by Manfred Griehl)

 

[lippischh]

Any idea about its dimensions? i guess one way to get the length, would be to use perspective correction and the wheel diameter...

 

[Jemiba]

The mentioned book says, that "an aerodynamical model of 6.15 m length landed after gliding for more than 20 km".
I would think, that this model had the dimensions of the "real thing", but wasn't fitted with guidance and other equipment.

 

[lippischh]

Thanks for fetching that info Jemiba!

I needed this info for an attempt at a scale model.

 

[Grzesio]

A missile covering 20 km had to be guided, at least with a gyro autopilot. Germans undertook trials of building unguided glide bombs, but they ended with complete failures.

 

[Jemiba]

A missile covering 20 km had to be guided, at least with a gyro autopilot.

Interesting question indeed !
Aircraft and missiles always had to be inherently stable, back then, I think and I'm not sure, if an
autopilot actually was necessary , or if it even was useful for testing this. If gliding straight ahead
and finally landing (or better, hitting the ground as gently, as possible), without entering uncontrolled
flight regime, the design point "aerodynamic stability" was fulfilled.
And 20 km isn't and wasn't really a long distance for a glider, would have been a launch altitude of
4000 m with a glide ratio of just 1 to 5. But I have found no more information about the equipment
of such test devices. The V1 was tested with unpowered air drops, too, and for other designs, that
method was also used, e.g. the Me 262 fuselage. From what I know, to control such tests, chase
planes and/or ground station with cine cameras were used, but was there very much of kind of
on-board equipment, too ?

 

[Silencer1]

Hello!
Please, check the title of the tread - "bomb" is without last letter.

 

[Jemiba]

Thank you, corrected.

 

[Silencer1]

And 20 km isn't and wasn't really a long distance for a glider, would have been a launch altitude of
4000 m with a glide ratio of just 1 to 5.

This whole bomb reminds me... a torpedo!
From the very early examples torpedoes have been equipped with gyro device in order to maintain course to target, in order to prevent changing it due to various reasons.
After dropping such glider bomb would "interact" with a number of influences: wind' blows, vertical air streams, asymmetric parts of the bomb' itself.
So, in my humble opinion, there were should be some sort of device, which allows bomb to maintain the course.
Without it any 500-100 meters error of target location made gliding bomb ineffective.

 

[Grzesio]

As I wrote, Germans actually did build two types of unguided glide bombs (I don't have my notes at hand, but by DVL and DFS I think), assuming that very precisely built airframes should be stable in flight and able of a straight line flight. Tests showed, they were not and all flights ended with uncontrolled crashes.

 

[Temistocle]

Hi all,
some information (including dimensions) here:

http://www.deutscheluftwaffe.com/archiv/Dokumente/ABC/b/Bomben/Gleitbomben/FG%2003/FG%2003%20%20Gleitbombe.html

Bye

Temistocle