Luftwaffe - Secret Projects of the Third Reich

Hundreds of thousands of classified documents were captured from Germany’s aircraft manufacturers and aviation ministry at the end of the Second World War, including details of ‘secret project’ aircraft designs created by firms such as Arado, Gotha, Blohm & Voss, Messerschmitt and Focke-Wulf.

Ongoing new research in archives around the world has revealed dozens of previously unknown wartime plans and proposals for aircraft that were radical, revolutionary or just plain weird. In the sixth volume of his Luftwaffe series, historian Dan Sharp reveals a wealth of new discoveries - including never-before-seen drawings and designs for fighters, bombers, transports, rammers, ground-attack aircraft, flying boats and flying bombs.

Luftwaffe: Secret Projects of the Third Reich profiles Focke-Wulf’s reluctant attempts to marry a Ta 152 airframe to a British Napier Sabre engine, Messerschmitt’s experimental Me 109 S with ‘blown’ flaps, four versions of Arado’s E 380 floatplane, Blohm & Voss’s asymmetrical P 171 stuka, Lippisch’s piston-engined Me 163, Germany’s three-step supersonic research programme, Focke-Wulf’s giant flying wings, the anti-submarine DFS Lotos glider, and many more ‘unknown’ designs.

Hundreds of original and previously unseen documents have been used to compile this unrivalled look at some of Germany’s least-known Second World War project designs, featuring a host of new and period drawings, illustrations and photographs.