The Heinkel Lerche ( en,
Lark
Larks are passerine birds of the family Alaudidae. Larks have a cosmopolitan distribution with the largest number of species occurring in Africa. Only a single species, the horned lark, occurs in North America, and only Horsfield's bush lark oc ...
) was the name of a set of project studies made by
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
aircraft designer
Heinkel
Heinkel Flugzeugwerke () was a German aircraft manufacturing company founded by and named after Ernst Heinkel. It is noted for producing bomber aircraft for the Luftwaffe in World War II and for important contributions to high-speed flight, with ...
in 1944 and 1945 for a revolutionary
VTOL
A vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft is one that can take off and land vertically without relying on a runway. This classification can include a variety of types of aircraft including helicopters as well as thrust-vectoring fixed-wi ...
fighter and
ground-attack aircraft
An attack aircraft, strike aircraft, or attack bomber is a tactical military aircraft that has a primary role of carrying out airstrikes with greater precision than bombers, and is prepared to encounter strong low-level air defenses while pres ...
.
The ''Lerche'' was an early
coleopter design. It would take off and land sitting on its tail, flying horizontally like a conventional aircraft. The pilot would lie prone in the nose. Most remarkably, it would be powered by two
contra-rotating propellers which were contained in a doughnut-shaped,
nine-sided annular wing.
The remarkably futuristic design was developed starting 1944 and concluding in March 1945. The aerodynamic principles of an annular wing were basically sound, but the proposal was faced with a whole host of unsolved manufacture and control problems which would have made the project highly impractical, even without the material shortages of late-war
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
.
Specifications (''Lerche'' II)
:Figures below are given for the 'Lerche II' plan dated 25 Feb 1945.
See also
References
* ''Luftwaffe Secret Projects - Ground Attack & Special Purpose Aircraft'', D. Herwig & H. Rode,
{{Heinkel aircraft
Annular-wing aircraft
Abandoned military aircraft projects of Germany
Ducted fan-powered aircraft
Lerche Lerche is surname of:
* Jacob Lerche Johansen (1818–1900), Norwegian naval officer and politician
* Julius Lerche (1836-1914), German politician
* Peter Lerche (1928-2016), German jurist
* Sondre Lerche (born 1982), Norwegian singer, songwriter ...
1940s German fighter aircraft
Tailsitter aircraft