Messerschmitt P.1101

The Messerschmitt P.1101 was a single-seat, single-jet fighter project of World War II, drawn up in 1944 for the Emergency Fighter Program, which sought a second generation of jet fighters for Germany. Its notable feature was a wing whose sweep angle could be changed on the ground before flight, an idea later developed in variable-sweep aircraft such as the Bell X-5 and the Grumman XF10F Jaguar. A paper design was formed within nine days of the 15 July 1944 specification and evolved through several forms, reusing the outer wing of the Me 262. On 28 February 1945 the RLM chose the Focke-Wulf Ta 183 instead, though reduced funding continued for experimental flights. The V1 prototype at Oberammergau was about 80 percent complete when American troops found it on 29 April 1945, and it was later shipped to the United States, where features of the design informed the Bell X-5.