Komet 163 • Chief test pilot Rudy Opitz tells it like it was • Walking on the Edge—the challenges of data acquisition • Popular Wisdom vs. a Test Pilot’s Experiences (interview with Rudy Opitz) • A Fighter Ahead of Its Time (includes aircraft specs)

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Immersed in technical research, Rudy’s passion was not the War but the rewards and challenges of testing and perfecting experimental aircraft.

“At one point, I had to decide whether to stay on the technical side and fly on the sidelines. Once I made the decision to be a flight instructor and test pilot, I have to say that the War effort was completely out of my mind.” Yet the dangers Rudy faced were no less lethal.

A Hellmuth Walter Kiel Kommandogesellschaft HWK 109-509 bi-fueled rocket powered the first B-model Komets. Throttle positions of off, Idle, 1st, 2nd and 3rd stages thrust were controllable from 220 lb. to 3,307 lb. The engine dimensions: length—8 ft. 3.5 in.; height—2 ft. 11 in. Total weight was 813 lb. (fuels system 441 lb.; motor 366 lb., control system 7 lb.). The 163B was propelled by fuels coded T-Stoff and C-Stoff. C-Stoff was a mixture of 57% methyl alcohol, 30% hydrazine hydrate and 13% water. T-Stoff was 80% concentrated hydrogen peroxide, to which some additional stabilizers were added. The T-Stoff fuel tank system consisted of a main fuselage tank and two smaller tanks on each side of the pilot’s seat in the cockpit (see cockpit photo). Total fuel capacity was 3,717 lb. of T-Stoff and 1,032 lb. of C-Stoff.

“Our parachutes were licensed to 250 kilometers, so there was a question: how to get out of the 163 at 900 kilometers per hour. The means chosen to slow the 163 was a ballistic chute. In my first test, the parachute would not release even after I activated both independent release circuits. I could not jump from the plane for fear I’d land in the plane’s chute. I dove the plane and pulled out at the last second for a soft landing. I landed short, in a farmer’s field, but safely. That was the only parachute that stuck.

“At the end of the War we were at an airfield close to the Danish border. One day, unexpectedly, a single railroad car arrived with fuel. We started to fuel and camouflage three 163s. It was a foggy morning. Suddenly, bombers were flying in from the West and there was an alarm. The three 163s took off to engage the bombers but one flew back, having broken off because of engine troubles.

“After landing, the ground crew ran up the engine and found no problems. Now there was a question about the pilot’s account. Further complicating the situation was that the plane had been assembled and flown without any real checkout, but that was the reality of the War at that point. So I said, ‘Let’s fly it and see about the engine.’ By then, it was in the afternoon. Just after I lifted off, sure enough, the fire light came on. I couldn’t go straight out over the water, as it was a cold April and there was nobody to pick me up. I pushed the quick release to jettison the fuel.

“Fuel vapors then appeared in the cockpit and I figured I had to bail out. When I got the canopy off, the airflow circulated from the back towards the front of the cockpit. As I made my approach to land, there was fire in the cockpit. I was sitting on the parachute and figured it had gotten pretty hot and was getting hotter and may not open.

Rudy Opitz donning his flight coveralls before the flight described in “Walking on the Edge” sidebar; the plane is the 163BV21 and the date is July 31, 1943.

“My instruments were all covered with soot even before the canopy went, as were my goggles, so I had to take them off. Now I flew with a 200mph wind in my face, without goggles, and with plenty of smoke coming in. Looking sideways I could see the field, I just didn’t know where I was. Looking from just behind the bulletproof glass in front of me didn’t help.

“I missed the runway, probably by 20 degrees. Suddenly, I saw the roof of a house very close by, and the plane touched down, flew a bit, touched down again, settled down in a meadow and continued forward, plowing through a stone fence, leaving the wings behind. It came to rest near a ditch with a little creek. I had injured my collarbone but was able to get free of the plane and shortly fell unconscious. I came to for a moment and remember seeing cannon tracers exploding from the plane and bouncing off the hillside as the plane burned.


“I didn’t miss the airfield by much, and people were quickly attracted to the explosion and billows of smoke. They all thought that was the end of me. A farmer who lived nearby said, ‘There’s a guy down there, he told me to run away because it will explode.’ I was lying in that ditch close to the water and remained unconscious until they found me. They took me to the hospital. That was the last flight I made in the 163.

“When the ground crew had told me that the pilot of that plane had come back and yet the engine ran normally, I knew it would forever be on that pilot’s mind. They would have blamed him for letting the other guys face the bombers on their own, you know. I heard from one of the pilots in that unit, 25 years later, after he had moved to Canada. He said it was his turn to fly that aircraft on the next shift, and he was so glad I had checked it out!”

Rudy in the cockpit of an early 163 at Peenemünde. Rudy was instrumental in the success of the DFS 230 assault glider attack on the fortress of Eben Email, May 10, 1940, for which he earned the Iron Cross, first class. He later became the chief test pilot for the entire Me 163 program.

At the end of the War, Rudy, in characteristic fashion, fought to preserve the Komets under his management for the benefit of aviation. “I think all the 163s that are now in England are from my base. They were state-of-the-art aircraft, and I did not see the purpose in destroying them.”

After the War, Rudy and his wife, Hanna (she had been his nurse after his last 163 flight), moved to the U.S., where Rudy continued his long and successful career as a test pilot at the Aeronautical Research and Development Center at Wright-Patterson AFB and later with the the gas turbine division of Avco Lycoming. He served as an FAA pilot examiner for private commercial and flight-instructor certificates for over three decades.

Rudy has always been one to pursue every avenue necessary to perfect the flying qualities of the aircraft he tested, often at great personal risk and always with great perseverence. “That Lippisch team was a wonderful team—one that wouldn’t just push in one direction. Superior handling was as important as performance. When we wanted to solve a problem, it was done regardless. That was our real success: that we produced an aircraft whose handling and performance had not been duplicated anywhere.”

In 1984, Rudy was elected and certified by the Society of Exper-imental Test Pilots as an Honorary Fellow, and in 1994, was inducted into the United States Soaring Hall of Fame by the Soaring Society of America. One of the great aviators and test pilots of our century, Rudy, with a twinkle in his eye, a quick smile and a lifelong enthusiasm for flight that knows no boundaries, continues to help aspiring pilots earn their wings at the local soaring club in Connecticut.

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