The Heinkel He 162 Volksjäger (German, "People's Fighter") is a German single-engine, jet-powered fighter aircraft fielded by the Luftwaffe late in World War II. Developed under the Emergency Fighter Program, it was designed and built quickly and made primarily of wood as metals were in very short supply and prioritised for other aircraft.

Thanks to Ludo Kloek, a reader from Belgium who sent me these photos of the He-162 Salamander (or Volksjager) ejection seat displayed in the Deutches Museum. This is one of the earliest seats in service in the world. The seat had the parachute stored in the seat pan, and was cartridge fired hence the name 'Schleudersitz Heinkel-Kartusche'.

The He 162 was one of the first German aircraft to be equipped with an ejection seat as standard equipment. The cockpit was separated from the rest of the plane by a sloped metal plate. This plate was installed in order to provide the pilot some …

2022年9月14日 · To aid in the survivability of the pilot, the He 162 was given a crude form of ejection seat, becoming one of the first military aircraft to offer this potentially life-saving feature. A first-flight of an He 162 prototype was recorded on December 6th, 1944 and service introduction followed as soon as January 1945 - such was the desperate war ...

Although Ernst Heinkel named the plane the Spatz for Sparrow, the He 162 was mostly known as the Salamander, because of the creature’s mythical ability to to live through fire. The prototype He-162 V1 emerged in 74 days and weighed 6,180 lbs., fully loaded.

The Heinkel He 162 jet fighter was conceived, designed, and built in 90 days as a last attempt by Germany to avoid defeat in Second World War. Intended as an inexpensive fighter, the Heinkel He 162 could be built by semi-skilled labour out of non-strategic materials.

The He 162 Volksjäger fighters were designed based on a philosophy loved by the German political leadership in Berlin such as Hermann Göring and Albert Speer but hated by Luftwaffe generals such as Adolf Galland.

2017年9月8日 · Featured Image: Heinkel He 162, courtesy of the San Diego Air and Space Museum Archive, Public Domain. Design Characteristics for the Heinkel He 162 A. Crew: 1 pilot, with an ejection seat. Length: 9.05 m (29 ft 8 in) Wingspan: 7.2 m (23 ft 7 in) Height: 2.6 m (8 ft 6 in) Wing area: 11.16 m² (120 ft²) Empty weight: 1,660 kg (3,660 lb)

The He-162 was a single-seat, single-engine jet fighter powered by a BMW 003 axial-flow turbojet engine. This engine provided a top speed of around 562 mph (904 km/h), making it one of the fastest jet fighters of its time.

The Heinkel He 162 Volksjäger (People's Fighter) was a single seat single engine turbojet twin vertical tail fins