"Sam Nelson" wrote in message
...
In article .com,
"Aidan" writes:
Roger R wrote:
The Germans used concentrated hydrogen peroxide as a propellant for
their V-1
flying bomb. It was used to rapidly generate steam for the launching
catapult.
They called it T-Stoff.

Also used on one of their rocket propelled fighters, Heinkel,Me 262 or
something; some otaku anorak will know.

He163 and Me262 were both jet aircraft. They may have carried H2O2 as
some
auxiliary fuel, I suppose. I can't see a `rocket-propelled fighter' being
very practical: it would be in-theatre swiftly, out-of-theatre equally
swiftly, and be out of juice shortly thereafter.

The planes used to crash
frequently on take off or landing. I've read that if the pilot escaped
instant cremation, he'd probably get dissolved by the hydrogen peroxide.

Having watched that used on a cut on my leg once, as a kid, I've an idea
of that experience etched (NPI) on my memory.
--
SAm.

Just to add my bit of pedantry, the Me262 was a jet, the Me163 was a rocket
powered aircraft. There was a rocket powred He 176, but as far as I am aware
no He-163. At the stage of the war it was used it was a very practical
aircraft, in that the 'theatre' was German cities subject to mass daylight
bombing raids. The Me163 could sit around and wait for the massed raids to
come over, then fly to altitude, attack at speeds that allied aircraft
couldn't hope to deal with, and be back on the ground within minutes.
However by the time they were deployed Germanies infrastructure and
manufacturing were so disrupted that they couldn't be bult in the quantities
required They only built a few 100, and they could never deploy them in
numbers to do real damage. It is estimated that they shot down about 10
allied planes for 15 Me163s lost in combat, but that hundreds of Me163 were
destroyed in landing or takeoff, or due to airfarme failure when mucking
about at the edge of the sound barrier. There is a Me-163 in the Science
museum in London.

Just to bring things back to D-I-Y - go to
http://www.stormbirds.com/project/index.html and
you too can dream of building an Me-262 n your shed!

Andy M