The Heinkel Wespe ( en, Wasp) was a project study by the German company

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 ...

for a tail-sitting,

vertical take off and landing A vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft is one that can takeoff and landing, 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 ...

-interceptor aircraft. The aircraft did not have conventional wings, but instead featured a large rotor. Completed in 1945, it remained untested due to a lack of material at the end of the

Second World War 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 ...

. A related project was the

Heinkel Lerche The Heinkel Lerche ( en, Lark) was the name of a set of project studies made by German aircraft designer Heinkel in 1944 and 1945 for a revolutionary VTOL fighter and ground-attack aircraft. The ''Lerche'' was an early coleopter design. It would ...

Design

The aircraft was to be powered by a turboprop in the center of the airframe which was unusual for having a

circular wing A circular wing is a disc-shaped wing having the outer planform of a circle. If the aircraft has no fuselage or tail the disc-shaped craft is sometimes described as a ''flying saucer''. If the entire disc rotates it is called a ''disc wing''. Disc ...

and would have had a small frontal area, making it a good platform for attacking bombers. It may have been designed for point defense, but due to the situation in Germany at the time, the engine was not completed and none were ever built.

Specifications

See related aircraft

Focke-Wulf Triebflugel Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau AG () was a German manufacturer of civil and military aircraft before and during World War II. Many of the company's successful fighter aircraft designs were slight modifications of the Focke-Wulf Fw 190. It is one of the ...

Lockheed XFV The Lockheed XFV (sometimes referred to as the "Salmon") was an American experimental tailsitter prototype aircraft built by Lockheed in the early 1950s to demonstrate the operation of a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) fighter for protecti ...

Convair XFY Pogo The Convair XFY Pogo was an experiment in vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) tail-sitter. The Pogo had delta wings and three-bladed contra-rotating propellers powered by a turboprop engine. It was intended to be a high-performance fighter aircr ...

Notes

References

* {{Heinkel aircraft

Wespe The Sd.Kfz. 124 ''Wespe'' (German for "wasp"), also known as ''Leichte Feldhaubitze 18/2 auf Fahrgestell Panzerkampfwagen II (Sf.)'' ("Light field howitzer 18 on Panzer II chassis (self-propelled)"), is a German self-propelled gun developed and ...

Tailsitter aircraft Ducted fan-powered aircraft Single-engined tractor aircraft Abandoned military aircraft projects of Germany