Flying The Me. 163

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30212, 17 August 1963, Page 3

Flying The Me. 163

Rocket Fighter. The Story Of Me. 163. By Mono Ziegler (MacDonald.) 161 pp. The Messerschmitt 163. perfected in the closest secrecy during the Second World War, was a technical tour-de-force, capable of exceeding 1000 kilometers an hour in level flight. No other aircraft of the period could approach this record. Had the tighter been available earlier,, and in sufficient numbers, it might have checked the allied bombings which so effectively crippled Germany's industrial cities. Mano Zieler was one of 30 test pilots who volunteered to test the Me 163. In a brisk conversational style, he tells of the exhilaration and dangers of test-flying an aircraft still technically immature. and describes the first operational sorties which began towards the end of the war. It is an absorbing story of a dedicated group of men who. owing to the extremely dangerous nature of the aircraft they were flying, faced each day the possibility of violent death. Thus, the book is not, as the title suggests, a history of the Me 163 but rather the story of Mano Zieler and his fellow teat-pilots. This may be a disappointment to aviation enthusiasts, who will And the production history ot the Me 163—the problems of Dr. Lippisch and the Messerschmitt Company in producing merely sketched in briefly in an appendix