Fieseler Fi-103R-IV Reichenberg. This particular aircraft is one of six existing Fi-103R-IV aircraft, and was found in an underground facility that had been covered over by the advancing Soviet army at the end of World War II. It was restored by Bavarian restorer Alexander Kuncze in Geisenhausen (near Landshut). My photos of this (obviously) static aircraft at Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum on Paine Field in Everett, Washington, and the link to my walk-around is below.

https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=949978048363186

In the summer of 1944, the Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug (DFS – German Research Institute for Sailplane Flight) was tasked with fitting the Gerhard Fieseler Werke Fieseler Fi-103 “V-1” Vergeltungswaffe (retaliatory/reprisal/vengeance weapon) flying bomb with a cockpit It was given the codename “Reichenberg Geräte” (Reichenberg Apparatus) after the capital of the former Czech territory in the Reichsgau Sudetenland (now Liberec). Some Fieseler plants were located in Czechoslovakia. The aircraft was manufactured of sheet metal and plywood (the wing and nose cone). It was powered by an Argus AS 109-014 pulse-jet (50 pulses per second) which was ignited by an automobile spark plug using a portable electrical power unit and (typically) acetylene gas. The engine used 75 octane gasoline, and once operational temperature was reached, the spark plug was no longer needed. It was fitted with an 850 kg. Amatol 39 high explosive warhead in the nose cone. The cockpit was placed behind an armored front panel, and the instrument panel was comprised of a clock, speed indicator, altimeter, turn and bank indicator, gyro-compass, and a switch to arm the warhead. Some space was gained by removing the autopilot that the V-1 had, and reducing the number of compressed-air cylinders from two to one. The side cockpit window had dive angles painted on it for the pilot to supposedly get a last moment bearing before bailing out; the intent being that the pilot eject and parachute to safety once the target had been visually acquired. The leading edges of the wings were fitted with hardened edges to cut barrage balloon cables. It was planned that Heinkel He-111’s would carry and launch one or two Fi-103R-IV’s from under its wings. Beginning in late 1944, a number of these were built and then tested by the Luftwaffe Leonidas Squadron of Kampfgeschwader 200 (KG 200, named after Leonidas I, King of Sparta, who is said to have led his 300 Spartans against the Persians at the Battle of Thermopylae, fighting to the last man), which was a suicide squadron required to sign an agreement attesting to the assignment’s lethality. Approximately 70 pilots volunteered for duty. The other variant included the R-I, which was a single-seat glider version; the R-II, a two-seat glider; the R-III, a pulse-jet trainer; and the R-V, a trainer for the He-162. Those painted in green-gray Luftwaffe camouflage were “Wasserläufer” – intended to be used against shipping. Well-known test pilot Hanna Reitsch was supportive of the Fi-103R project, and successfully tested the aircraft, although not without injury. After successive failures, Werner Baumbach, the new KG 200 commander, convinced Minister of Armaments Albert Speer – and eventually Hitler – that the aircraft was a poor deployment of resources, and the squadron was disbanded March 15, 1945. World War II ended before it could be flown in combat.