When the rumor began to circulate in 1944 about German fighters without propellers, the USAAF bomber crews had a good laugh until the first sightings and attacks. The Me-262 jet was encountered first and then an amazing sight of the Me-163 Komet rocket fighter that had a top speed of 600 mph and an incredible climb of 16,000 fpm vertically to 39,000 ft after which it had only 8 mins to dive on the bomber stream and open up with two 30mm MK-108 cannons that could shred a bomber with a few bursts. Usually the Komet only had time for a single pass but some made two and then a long gradual decrease in speed as it glided back home to land on a skid. This made it vunerable to Allied escorts that followed the planes or attacked them on take-off. The volatile binary fuels also caused many Komets to explode due to intense vibrations and the acidic fuels could literally dissolve a LW pilot so they had to wear protective flight suits and goggles. Yet the Komet was the only rocket fighter used in combat operationally in history. Few were flown, however, due to lack of fuel and were thus grounded most of the time. Around 50 scored 18 kills in under a year of limited flights. But they caused panic whenever spotted. The escorts could do little when the Komet was powered and a modified version, the Me-263, was being developed to provide conventional tricycle gear and an aux. rocket chamber to allow longer combat time. The Soviets captured that prototype and MiG modified it as the I-270... but gave up on rocket powered aircraft as impractical postwar.

Me-163 Komet: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.walker6/komet/flight/me163_01_sm.jpeg Me-263: http://www.nurflugel.com/Nurflugel/Lippisch_Nurflugels/me263/me263.jpg MiG I-270: http://prototypes.free.fr/ye8/images/i270_02.jpg