The Heinkel P.1073 (He P.1073), known also as ''Strahljäger'' (Jet fighter), was a fighter project developed for the

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...

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 ...

aircraft manufacturing company during the last years of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Development

In 1944 Heinkel produced different designs of the project using either two Heinkel HeS 011 or two BMW 003 axial-flow turbojets. One of the turbojets was placed on top of the fuselage and the other in a ventral position. The engine below the fuselage was placed asymmetrically in order to provide space for the retractable front

undercarriage Undercarriage is the part of a moving vehicle that is underneath the main body of the vehicle. The term originally applied to this part of a horse-drawn carriage, and usage has since broadened to include: *The landing gear of an aircraft. *The ch ...

wheel. The designs of this aircraft would be used by Heinkel to develop the

He 162 The Heinkel He 162 ''Volksjäger'' (German, "People's Fighter") was a German single-engine, jet-powered fighter aircraft fielded by the Luftwaffe in World War II. Developed under the Emergency Fighter Program, it was designed and built quickly ...

''Volksjäger'', which used only one turbojet engine, towards the end of 1944.

Variants

Heinkel produced twenty variants of the project between July 6 and October 3, 1944. All variants would have been armed with two 30 mm

MK 108 cannon The MK 108 (German: ''Maschinenkanone''—"machine cannon") was a 30 mm caliber autocannon manufactured in Nazi Germany, Germany during World War II by Rheinmetall‑August Borsig, Borsig for use in aircraft. The cannon saw widespread use as an ...

He P.1073 01 4

This was the original design of the jet-powered fighter project. It had a v-tail and

swept wing A swept wing is a wing that angles either backward or occasionally forward from its root rather than in a straight sideways direction. Swept wings have been flown since the pioneer days of aviation. Wing sweep at high speeds was first investigate ...

s fitted with a streamlined 500 liter fuel tank on each wing.

He P.1073 01 8

Project for a high-altitude

reconnaissance aircraft A reconnaissance aircraft (colloquially, a spy plane) is a military aircraft designed or adapted to perform aerial reconnaissance with roles including collection of imagery intelligence (including using photography), signals intelligence, as ...

. It was also a slightly asymmetric jet-powered plane like the earlier design, but with the cockpit located at the front end of the fuselage. The design included an alternative version with a high aspect ratio upswept wing.He P.1073/8
/ref>

He P. 1073 02

A variant with

forward-swept wing A forward-swept wing is an aircraft wing configuration in which the quarter-chord line of the wing has a forward sweep. Typically, the leading edge also sweeps forward. Characteristics The forward-swept configuration has a number of character ...

Specifications

References

External links

Heinkel He P.1073 fighter image

{{Heinkel aircraft Abandoned military aircraft projects of Germany World War II fighter aircraft of Germany P1073 World War II jet aircraft of Germany V-tail aircraft