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The Emergency Fighter Program ((ドイツ語:Jägernotprogramm), literally "Fighter Emergency Program") was the program that resulted from a decision taken on July 3, 1944 by the Luftwaffe regarding the German aircraft manufacturing companies during the last year of the Third Reich. This project was one of the products of the latter part of 1944, when the Luftwaffe High Command saw that there was a dire need for a strong defense against Allied bombing raids. Although opposed by important figures such as Luftwaffe fighter force leader Adolf Galland, the project went ahead owing to the backing of Marshall of the Reich Hermann Göring.〔(The Heinkel He-162 Volksjaeger )〕 Most of the designs of the Emergency Fighter Program never proceeded past the project stage.〔(Heinkel He P.1077 (Julia) Rocket-Powered Interceptor - History )〕 ==History== In the Emergency Fighter Program emphasis was laid in shifting production to defensive interceptor/fighters. A number of new aircraft design competition programmes were launched to provide new jet fighters. Production of the Messerschmitt Me 262A fighter versions continued, as well as the development of advanced piston-engined fighters such as the Dornier Do 335 as per Hitler's personal request on May 23, 1944, before the July 3rd announcement of the program. Bombers, however, were severely curtailed, with only jet bombers allowed to continue in production after the edict, such as the Arado Ar 234. New jet bombers such as the Junkers Ju 287 and Heinkel He 343 were worked on fitfully as low priority projects in the last months of the war. Towards the end of the war some of the fighter designs, such as the Heinkel P.1077 ''Julia'', the Blohm & Voss BV 40 and the Arado E.381 ''Kleinstjäger'' – "smallest fighter" were designed with the pilot flying the aircraft in a prone position; or for a vertical takeoff like a modern missile launch system for the first time with a manned aircraft, with the Bachem Ba 349 ''Natter''. The ''Natter'' and ''Julia'' designs were expected to climb to their ceiling at vertical or near vertical angles, while the Arado design was a parasite aircraft that needed to be carried by a "mother" plane, with the unpowered BV 40 needing an aerotow into action. These small interceptors had fuel for only a few minutes for combat action and landing was difficult, for instead of having a wheeled undercarriage they had only a fixed skid, or as with the ''Natter'', the pilot bailed out at the end of a mission while the rear fuselage containing the rocket motor descended under its own parachute. Such simplified and dangerous planes were the products of the last phase of the Third Reich, when the lack of materials and the dire need for a strong defense against the allied bombing raids required such craft to be built quickly in underground factories. In the design of the planes little thought was given to the safety or comfort of the pilots who were mostly Hitler Youth motivated by fanaticism. Those were dire months in which Nazi authorities even considered the use of ''selbstopfer'' (suicide) planes such as the ''Reichenberg'' (a manned version of the V-1 flying bomb),〔(Ulrich Albrecht: ''Artefakte des Fanatismus; Technik und nationalsozialistische Ideologie in der Endphase des Dritten Reiches'' )〕 and in one case of actual use, a "special detachment" unit dedicated to desperate aerial ramming tactics, known as ''Sonderkommando Elbe''. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Emergency Fighter Program」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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