Zeppelin Fliegende Panzerfaust

The Fliegende Panzerfaust, meaning flying tank fist, was a project for a very-short-range interceptor of the Third Reich designed by Luftschiffbau Zeppelin and proposed to the Emergency Fighter Program against the Allied bombing raids on Germany in the last years of the Second World War. It was a small rocket-powered parasite aircraft with an armoured nose and a V-tail, a wingspan of 4.5 metres and a length of 6 metres, meant to be towed behind a Messerschmitt Bf 109G and released above the enemy bombers. Six Schmidding SG 34 solid-fuel rocket engines would have driven it, and it was to fire two 73-millimetre RZ 65 air-to-air rockets at extremely close range. Its front half, with the pilot lying prone, was to separate from the rear half once the fuel was spent, and both parts were to land by parachute to be reused. A replica is displayed at the Military Aviation Museum in Virginia Beach.