Heinkel P.1077

The Heinkel P.1077, also He P.1077, was a single-seat rocket-powered interceptor design developed for the Luftwaffe by Heinkel under the Emergency Fighter Program in the last year of the Third Reich. It was originally known as He P.1068, a name later used for a turbojet medium bomber project. It belonged to the last phase of the war, when lack of materials and the need for a quick defence against Allied bombing called for small aircraft built fast in underground factories. The pilot would fly prone, take off with four jettisonable solid-fuel rockets and a sled, climb almost vertically, have only five minutes for combat, and land on a fixed skid. The Julia version used a Walter HWK 109-509 rocket; one prototype was built but was destroyed in an Allied air raid over Vienna on 22 December 1944 before flying. The Romeo pulse-jet version was never built.