such a feel of vintage illustration! very retro.

I like the character you created for this, and the layout - everything is awesome.

I had never heard of this Messerschmitt model before. How interesting! it seems almost futuristic for its time. This was mighty instructive! the landing gear tidbit made me chuckle. And a skid? wow.

"Ignition!" classic.

Very well done, professional, man.

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- Time traveller dies tragically. (1967 - 1608)

ONLY ONE COMMENT!!!! ugh...must change that.

This is an excellent image. I love the way the coloring was done. It's got a great kid's illustration look and feel to it. Very nostalgic.
This layout is great, it has a nice flow...you can follow along and not get lost.

Well done.

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Me 163! Sweet!

The info you provided sofar is pretty accurate, so I don't have too much to add...
The main thing you omitted is the fact that, eventhough most of the airframe was aluminium, the wings were of plywood construction (hence the tendency to disintegrate at high speed)...

Fuel only lasted for 8 minutes, the combat equivalent of 2 passes trough the enemy formation, afterwards the pilot gliding back for landing(6 were shot down while returning to base)....

Also, although the landing was unpowered, the landing speed was in excess of 80m/s, a fact that caused, in conjunction with ill training, 4 fatal crashes during the aircraft's short operational history

-After 1941 they changed the original armament from two MG 151/20 20mm cannons in the wing roots to a couple of 30mm Rheinmetall-Borsig MK 108 cannons (with 60 shells each), which, despite their low muzzle velocity (and thus limited range) packed quite a punch... (to the point that 3 shells could obliterate any given heavy bomber)
A latter development was the introduction of the 'Sondergerät 500 Jägerfaust' (a series of tubes situated in the wing roots and firing heavy 50 mm projectiles vertically into the lower sides of bombers, first used in combat on the 10th of April 1945) and was triggered , as you mentioned, by an optical cell, thus limiting its use to daytime fighters. Aparently, as reported afterwards, only one hit from this innovative weapon was enough to shoot down a bomber....

-The flight you are reffering to took place on October 2 1941, at Peenemünde, and Dittmar was performing the first rocket flight of the V3 prototype (fuselage number CD-IM)

-The clothing was made of PVC fibers, to guard against contact with the "T-Stoff" fuel for the Walther engine (a mixture composed of 80% highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide and 20% water, the other component being the "C-Stoff"- hydrazine hydrate, methyl alcohol, and water), because it had an unnerving tendency to self-ignite in the presence of oxygen, and the T-Stoff tanks were located directly behind the cockpit.... Also, the Komet pilots were issued a yellow armband inscribed "Deutsche Luftwaffe" because their clothing lacked any distinctive markings and after bailing out they could be mistaken for allied airmen and shot by irate civilians before they had a fair chance to identify themselves... armabnd that was later discarded because it was made of regular cloth and caught fire easily....

-The Komet was indeed known for it's high maneuverability, but turning very sharply could make the pilot unconscious, resulting in a series of fatal crashes (including some of the prorotypes) and accounted for 3 of the 14 fatal crashes sustained by JG 400, the only fighter group to operate the Komet (compared to the squadron's only 9 kills)

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Nope, I don't have a signature.

No really, I don't.

Seriously now, stop looking down here.

forgot to mention... the prototypes from the "A-0" series of the plane and the first twelve "B-1"'s were flight-tested by Erprobungskomando 16 at Peenemünde, and their aircraft were painted in bright orange, a fact that later inspired the same colour livery for the famous american X-1 rocketplane....

Also, I found more info on the record-breaking flight of October 2, 1941... the airplane was not V-3, as I mentioned earlier, but V-4 (production series: 1630000001, fuselage number: KE+SW -see photo), the first of the Me 163 A's, the earlier 3 prototypes (the "A-0" series) being called "Bf 163" instead of "Me 163", as part of an earlier project undertook by Willly Messerschmitt at the request of the RLM, working on an 1935 specification.

Due to commitments in the Bf 108, 109 and 110 design the work was passed on to Rohrbach Metallflugzeugbau (Berlin), a company in the proces of being absorbed into Weserflugzeugbau (Lemwerder). The first prototype (D-UICY) was finalised in 1937, and first flew on February 19, 1938 ...

The Second develpment period happened at Messerschmitt's Augsburg factory, and later in the factory at Regensburg-Obertraubling, and was supervised by Dr. Alexander Lippish, resulting in the"A", B" series, production after 1943 being handed to Klemm Technik in Stuttgart-Böblingen.

<img src="http://www.luftarchiv.de/flugzeuge/ messerschmitt/me163a.jpg" alt="">

Also, apparently the V-3 prototype crashed during landing at Bad Zwischenahn, on December 30, 1943, with the loss of the pilot's life.

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Nope, I don't have a signature.

No really, I don't.

Seriously now, stop looking down here.

These are all HOT.
Reminds me of Vaughn Bode's works. Beautiful style as usual


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my photo-DEV [link]

...and bill plympton XD

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my photo-DEV [link]

Amazing drawing i must say... real nice detail as allways

great job!

W.O.R., you are the man! Argh, if only I had hit you up before doing this presentation; I could have had several more pages to contribute to the paper that I turned in. Ah well...

hey...this is pretty cool. It reminds me of making up different vehicles and coming up with specs when I was younger....in fact thats what I thought this was until I read the description. I really like the sketchiness of this, and the character is very appealing. Is he based on the costuming of messerschmitt pilots?