Mistel 4

[Louis]

The Mistel 4 is a composite aircraft, consisting of a explosives filled Me 262 and a so called "Führungsflugzeug" (guidance aircraft) Me 262 A1 or A2/U2 which was mounted on top. This composite aircraft didn't make it far more then to the design stage and never became operational.

The Mistel 4 consisted of two Me 262 mounted on top of each other. The lower Me 262 A was modified to a so called "Sprengstoffträger" (explosives carrier). The complet front section, up to the wing frontedge, was designed as a warhead. So this was a seperate construction section at all, the warhead could have been built as a seperate section and fitted on. For example the whole section was planned to be made from explosives, without any wooden or aluminum fuselagecovering. More explosives, liquid and solid ones, should be placed in the aft fuselage.

The lower Me 262 should be older ones or especially designed ones made from no metal materials like wood. There have been tests to build the Me 262 fuselage particialy and in whole from wood to save precious aircraft aluminum.

 

[Louis]

Mistel 2: a Ju 88 G1 + Fw 190.

 

[mTk]

Okaaay. What the hell was that supposed to do?

 

[Rico]

Mistel (German for "mistletoe", a parasitic plant) was the larger, unmanned component of a composite aircraft configuration developed in Germany during the later stages of World War II. The composite comprised a small piloted control aircraft mounted above a large explosives-carrying drone, the Mistel, and as a whole was referred to as the Huckepack ("Piggyback"), also known as the Beethoven-Gerät ("Beethoven Device") or Vati und Sohn ("Daddy and Son").[1]

The most successful of these used a modified Junkers Ju 88 bomber as the Mistel, with the entire nose-located crew compartment replaced by a specially designed nose filled with a large load of explosives, formed into a shaped charge. The upper component was a fighter aircraft, joined to the Mistel by struts. The combination would be flown to its target by a pilot in the fighter; then the unmanned bomber was released to hit its target and explode, leaving the fighter free to return to base. The first such composite aircraft flew in July 1943 and was promising enough to begin a programme by Luftwaffe test unit KG 200, code-named "Beethoven", eventually entering operational service.

Mistel - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[mTk]

Somebody should have told them about bombs sooner.