The Heinkel P.1080 was a German
Emergency Fighter An emergency fighter is an aircraft designed or adapted for use as a fighter aircraft, fighter during an emergency period in war. While useful as a broad concept or definition, it is not easy to make the category of emergency fighter clear cut, as m ...
proposed by
Heinkel.
Design and Development
Work on the P.1080 began in early 1945 when the
Ministry of Aviation
The Ministry of Aviation was a department of the United Kingdom government established in 1959. Its responsibilities included the regulation of civil aviation and the supply of military aircraft, which it took on from the Ministry of Supply.
...
issued specifications for a fighter powered by two
ramjets
A ramjet, or athodyd (aero thermodynamic duct), is a form of airbreathing jet engine that uses the forward motion of the engine to produce thrust. Since it produces no thrust when stationary (no ram air) ramjet-powered vehicles require an ass ...
. The specifications called for two
DFS ramjet engines, each with of thrust.
The aircraft would have been
tailless, with the elevators built in to the swept wing, which was based on that of the
Heinkel P.1078, and would have had a single vertical stabilizer. The cockpit was located far forward in the fuselage, and the two engines were mounted at the wing roots. The nose would have housed a radar and two 30 mm
MK 108 cannon
The MK 108 (German: ''Maschinenkanone''—"machine cannon") was a 30 mm caliber autocannon manufactured in Germany during World War II by Rheinmetall‑Borsig for use in aircraft.
The cannon saw widespread use as an anti-bomber weapon during the ...
. For takeoff, the aircraft would have been fitted with solid-fuel
RATO
Rato is a village in the Cornillon commune in the Croix-des-Bouquets Arrondissement, Ouest Ouest (French for west) may refer to:
*Ouest (department), Haiti
*Ouest Department (Ivory Coast), defunct administrative subdivision of Ivory Coast
* Oue ...
boosters and jettisonable undercarriage. Landing would have been accomplished with a retractable skid. No prototypes were built.
Specifications (Heinkel P.1080, as designed)
See also
References
{{Heinkel aircraft
P1080