Jan 262009
On dispaly a tthe Udvar-Hazy annex of the National Air and Space Museum is a 1/10 scale model of the V-1. That’s not terribly newsworthy… but the model is not of the V-1 London came to know and love, but instead it’s a model of one of the very early test designs, with a vertical rudder placed in front of the pulsejet engine (Why? Don’t friggen’ know.) Also features the different tail, inlet and nose that the early V-1’s had.
2 Responses to “Early V-1 Buzz Bomb Model”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Ya gotta love the spoils of war!
The “backfin” of some of the test V-1’s is still a bit of a mystery, but I suspect it had something to do with keeping it on course in a side wind as it headed to its target (you would check the weather conditions between the launch point and target and set the fin a bit one way or the other to cause the missile to crab slightly into the wind so that it arrived at the target in pretty much a straight line). Whatever it was apparently didn’t work, as it got dropped on the production model. At least two of the prototypes had the fin, including the first one test launched from a catapult, (Versuch 12, or V12) and one dropped from under a FW-200 Condor.
The overall missile was smaller than the production one, and the rod sticking out of the nose housed a tracking flare so that a chase plane could follow it.