Original subtitles

ditma took off from carls hagen at

pinamunda in 1941

on becoming airborne the undercarriage

was jettisoned

and the aircraft demonstrated an amazing

rate of climb

later dietmar was towed to altitude to

conserve fuel

when he achieved 623 miles per hour

easily breaking the existing world speed

record

though naturally this was not claimed

due to wartime security

during that record-breaking flight honey

ditma probed the edges of what was later

to be called

the sound barrier

honeydedmar was not the only test pilot

to fly the 163

hana reich also test flew one of the

early models

from the messerschmitt airfield at

lehman and she later flew a more

powerful version

now named comet which made a great

impression on her

and i can only tell you it was

fascinating it was like

thundering through the skies sitting on

a canoe wall

like being intoxicated by speed it was

not difficult

to uh fly it it was only an overwhelming

impression

at the end of the airfield of the

airfield boundary you already reached

about 500 miles per hour and with

constant speed

you were climbing up in one and a half

to

two minutes into a height of thirty

thousand feet

exhilarating though it undoubtedly was

after six minutes the comet's rocket

fuel was exhausted

and the world's fastest fighter became

the world's fastest glider

but the landing was not the only

difficulty the fuel used by the comet

consisted of seistorf and t staff

they were basically methanol alcohol and

hydrogen peroxide

which are highly incompatible a few

drops of one on the other

produced a violent reaction

testoff was capable of spontaneous

combustion when in contact with any

organic material

which of course included the pilot

in view of the nature of the fuel hana

reich like all comet pilots

had special protective clothing but

despite this protection

some pilots were dissolved alive by the

murderous fuel

hannah wright well remembers the dangers

of test flying the meshes schmidt comets

i experienced two comrades

blowing to pieces

when their plane exploded

on one of hannah righteous test flights

as she was towed into the air

the undercarriage refused to jettison

i couldn't get rid of it at the same

time this

often happens when you have an accident

that many things at the same time go out

of work

so all electrical

operating instruments where kaput

also the landing flaps and so many and

also the

radio connection with the top pilot and

with the ground

so it was difficult to let

the two pilots know that i wanted to

come into a

great height so for 10 minutes he

circled

uh in a height of about

nine uh 900 feet

um but i stubbornly remained on the rope

and suddenly and i only watched when

they

uh when the ambulance and the stretcher

and the fire joined all

it came to receive me and i thought he

said oh i hope i will come

quite safely down suddenly the two pilot

went up

to 9000 feet

and i released the cable and i tried

with

positive and negative g's to

get rid of the undercarriage but i felt

that

it i didn't succeed but i hope

to bring this

test plane to the ground

safely because such a test

airplane has many many uh valuable

instruments

and but because

all electrical operating instrument

didn't work

also not the landing flaps

the last side slip i had to come to

approach the airfield in a greater

height as normally

in order to be sure that you will reach

the place and your head then to lose

high

if you caught your sideslip but this

destroyed the whole

air flow because it was only wind

without tail plane it came out of

control and crashed in the field it was

completely demolished in my head

came to an instrument and i suffered

my nose was i have an artificial nose

and

squirrel of fractured highland

and vertipro broken and many things so

after having been five months

hospitalized i was well again

spurned on by the only burning wish

to continuous test pilot again

by 1944 comets had become operational

single gun camera record and the pilot

of that comet was himself killed a few

days later

when his 163 fighter blew up on takeoff

for no apparent reason

soon after that all the operational

comets were immobilized on their

airfield at brandis

due to the bombing of the only factory

making the special fuel

on recovering from her the troika

schlepper