| DFS 228 | |
|---|---|
 | |
| General information | |
| Type | High-altitudeaerial reconnaissance |
| Manufacturer | Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug |
| Designer | |
| Status | Scrapped1947 |
| Primary user | Luftwaffe |
| Number built | 2 |
| History | |
| First flight | August1944 |
| Retired | June1945 |
| Developed from | DFS 54 |
| Variant | DFS 346 |
TheDFS 228 was arocket-powered, high-altitudereconnaissance aircraft designed by theDeutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug (DFS - "German Research Institute for Sailplane Flight") duringWorld War II. By the end of the war, the aircraft had only flown in the form of two unpowered prototypes.
Initial design of the DFS 228 was undertaken before the outbreak of war as aresearch aircraft, theDFS 54, aimed at developing a high-altitude escape system forsailplanes. The project was suspended by thecommencement of hostilities, but was revived in 1940 when theReichsluftfahrtministerium (RLM - "Reich Aviation Ministry") delivered the DFS with a requirement for a rocket-powered reconnaissance aircraft.[citation needed]
The advantages of a sailplane foraerial reconnaissance included its silence, its low speed relative to the ground (allowing for higher-quality photography), and its potential ability to loiter above an area of interest. The project gave the DFS the opportunity to investigate two additional areas that it was interested in: the effects ofwing sweep on sailplane design, andsupersonic flight.[citation needed]
The DFS 228 was designed byFelix Kracht and a firstprototype was completed in March 1944; it was undergoing gliding tests by that August, carried aloft piggyback andstrut-mounted atop aDornier Do 217. The aircraft was of conventional sailplane arrangement with long,slender wings and designed to land on aretractable skid mounted on its belly. The nose of the aircraft could be separated in an emergency and formed a self-contained,pressurized escape capsule for the pilot.[1] Because of problems with thecabin pressurization system, the second prototype accommodated the pilot in a prone position.[1]
Forty flights were made with the prototypes, and installation of a rocket was to have taken place in February 1945, but the project fell by the wayside as the war situation became more desperate. The second prototype was destroyed in an air raid in May 1945, and the first prototype was captured byU.S. troops in June. In 1946 it was sent to theUnited Kingdom for study where it was apparently scrapped in 1947, although its exact fate is unknown.[citation needed]
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Data from[2]
General characteristics
Performance
Aircraft of comparable role, configuration, and era
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