Heinkel He 162

The Heinkel He 162 Volksjäger, or People's Fighter, was a single-engine German jet fighter flown by the Luftwaffe in the last months of the Second World War. Built mostly of wood because metal was scarce, it won the Reich Air Ministry's Volksjäger design competition and was nicknamed Spatz, meaning sparrow, by Heinkel. It was small, with a wingspan of 7.2 metres, and carried its BMW turbojet on top of the fuselage, and it was the first single-engine aircraft fitted with an ejection seat. The prototype flew on 6 December 1944, less than ninety days after the design was chosen. Of nearly 1,000 aircraft on the assembly lines only about 120 were delivered, and endurance was around 20 minutes, so it saw very little combat before Germany surrendered.