Luftfahrtforschungsanstalt (LFA) - Feuerlilie AA Missile

best i can do is the Feuerlilie F 25 experimental missile.

see putnam's 'German Aicraft of the second world war' pp 705-6.

also see 'secret wonder weapons of the third reich', miranda & mercado, pp 98-9.

cheers,
Robin.
 
At Volkenrode, near Braunschweig, Germany was an aeronautical research center
during WW II, with a large high speed wind tunnel. The picture seem to show
a windtunnel model and it looks, as it had a kind of flying tailplane. I wouldn't
be too sure, that it actually resembles a built or planned type.
 
agreed, most likely a wind-tunnel model of what became the Feuerlilie F 25.

see below the 3-view from page 705 of putnam's 'German...1939-45'

cheers,
Robin.
 

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Rob, you're right, I think ! I only knew the tailless version of the
Feuerlilie, as shown in Waffenarsenal Bd.103 and was puzzled
by the designation "rocket driven glider".
 

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according to putnam's 'German...1939-45', page 706, the version you've posted is the Feuerlilie F-55, which was a developed supersonic version.

it's also in justo's book, 'secret wonder weapons of the third reich', miranda & mercado, pp 98-9.

i seem to remember they had one at cosford, back in the early 80's, anyone know if it's still there? IIRC, it was made of stainless steel, it was certainly polished metal.

cheers,
Robin.
 
HECHT FEUERLILIE

The LFA Braunschweig had a development program on a glide bomb, Hecht, and on a flak rocket, Feuerlilie, which moved very slowly. The glide bomb Hecht was developed in the period from early 1940 to late 1941. A few drops were made but nothing came of the development.

The work on Feuerlilie began in early 1942, was given high priority in early 1943, stopped late in 1943, later revived, and again stopped in early 1945. Three models of smaller size, designed F-25 were fired in May, 1944, and one of the intended size F-55 was fired also in M$.y, 1944. Much theoretical work was done on the theory of homing missiles and the theory of beam-guided missiles. The actual tests made were not very satisfactory.

The LFA was finally instructed to use Enzian or Schmetterling for its beam-guiding experiments but no such experiments were actually made.

The Feuerlilie weighed 600 kg and had a maximum speed of about 422 m/sec. Its maximum altitude was about 8 km. It was 55 em in diameter and 480 cm long.

This project suffered because of lack of support by an industrial group. Two statements by Blenk, director of the LF A, which were made in 1942, illustrate the situation. Reporting on missile research in Germany in 1942, he says: "Work is in progress on remote-controlled bombs in Germany in various places in industry and in aeronautical research laboratories. In spite of the many-faceted aspects of the problem it is desirable that the experiences collected in these projects should come to the knowledge of all agencies active in this field more quickly and completely than hitherto. In this the communication of negative results is especially important since much time would be saved thereby.

"While industry is capable of making rapid progress in these problems because of their large workshops, the research laboratories must take up ever slower negotiations with industrial firms to have their designs constructed at least in a few samples and to test them. Here some support is to be desired for the more rapid completion of such jobs."

In a report on the LFA guided.missile research in 1942, Blenk states that he, Braun, Kerris, and Retert had been working on an air-to-ground rocket-propelled remote-controlled missile since the beginning of the war and on a ground-to-air rocket-propelled remote-controlled missile for about one year. He said that numerous problems were encountered, for example:

(1) Necessity of automatic stabilization in roll.
(2) Suppression of the phugoid motion.
(3) Influence of jet propulsion on the flight characteristics.
(4) Stability at extreme inclination of flight path.
(5) Development of suitable antennas.
(6) Influence of jet on radio receiver.


Source: Technical Intelligence Supplement, May 1946
 
According to Novarra "Die deutsche Luftrüstung 1933 - 45", volume 4, the Feuerlilie 25 was the subsonic
variant, fitted with swept wings and tail surfaces, whereas the tailless missile was the Feuerlilie 55.
(Both pictures from the mentioned book)
 

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Here is a drawing of the Feuerlilie 25 from the February 1946 issue of Science & Vie:
 

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That's indeed the Feuerlilie 25, a small difference are the endplates. But would "Bomb volante"
not imply an air-to-ground weapon ?
 
Jemiba said:
That's indeed the Feuerlilie 25, a small difference are the endplates. But would "Bomb volante"
not imply an air-to-ground weapon ?

Probably. But I guess at the time they would call many things "flying bombs" for lack of a better terminology... ::)
 
Thanks guys, I appreciate your inputs. Most of documents are available on the net. They are very very few. Best would be a series of pictures from the Cosford rocket.

As anyone such pictures from different angles or know how to get it from the museum? Do we have any particular contacts in Cosford?

I am going to order the main fuselage parts in September (2 NCs and one piece of FG in 10"). Everything else (wings, fins) will be carbon custom made. German altimeter boards, US parachutes & Kevlar harnesses. First flight around May 2014. Contrail USA 75mm Hybrid Motor, potentially L impulse class for a previsional 20kg bird.

Shall be good for 3,000ft altitude and lots of noise :)
Thx
Denis
 
Denis, I have quite a few pics of the other types developed at the time (Feuerlilie F55, Enzian, X-4, Rheintochter, etc.) but very little on the Feuerlilie F25. I'm attaching two more pictures for you that I found in Waffen-Arsenal Sonderband 67: an original drawing and a photo of the wheel cart that was used to convey it.
 

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I don't understand your last post at all: "we actually had only posts about the Feuerlilie still yet"...

We had a discussion on the Feuerlilie 25 in another topic not so long ago.
 
Stargazer2006 said:
I don't understand your last post at all: "we actually had only posts about the Feuerlilie still yet"...

The original title was "LFA Hecht/Feuerlilie missiles", but actually no information about "Hecht" had showed
up still yet. As you can see here http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,20745.0.html, I've
split it, as both were considerably different types, with different purposes, although the research work for
"Hecht" laid the foundation for the later "Feuerlilie"
Sorry about obviously haven't made it clear enough, but I thought the two similar titles would be self-explaining.
 
Still can't see the point of having two very similar topics on the Feuerlilie with even a few pics being duplicated.

Hope I've done the right thing in merging them... :-\
 
During the weekend I rediscovered some long lost aviation mags in a place, where
they never should have been ...
In FLUGZEUG 1/93 was an article about the Feuerlilie, containing some pictures, we
hadn't here before, I think:
 

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Looks like the Feuerlilie could have been a bit of an influence on Ken Norris when he penned Donald Campbell's rocket powered CN-8 land speed record car (Unfortunately never built)

Bluebird_CN8_Rocket_Car_L_Ashwell_Wood_Eagle_Cutaway_Drawing.jpg

Bluebird-CN8-Rocket-Powered-Car-Donald-Campbell.jpg

Bluebird_CN8_Concept_Rocket_Land_Speed_Record_Car.jpg
 
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