Luftwaffe - Secret Wings of the Third Reich

In the years that followed Germany’s crushing defeat in the First World War, German aviators took to flying gliders - a sport which led to rapid advances in the study of aerodynamics.

Radical ideas for new aircraft flourished alongside more conventional designs and soon developed into a struggle between proponents of ‘tailless’ and ‘flying wing’ types and those who saw traditional layouts with tail fins and tail planes as the way forward. It was a research odyssey that would continue throughout the war and produce some of the most incredible, unusual and downright bizarre aircraft designs ever seen.

Luftwaffe: Secret Wings of the Third Reich examines types such as the Messerschmitt P 01, P 04 and P 08, Alexander Lippisch’s tailless Delta wing destroyers and the little known Messerschmitt Super 163, the Horten brothers’ 8-229, the Gotha P-60, Arado’s nine twin-jet night fighter designs, Blohm & Voss’s line of batwing fighters, the mighty Harbich Arctur and many more.

Hundreds of original and previously unseen documents have been used to compile this unrivalled history of Germany’s secret Second World War tailless and flying wing designs, illustrated with a host of new and period drawings, illustrations and photographs.