The Ho XVIII Long Range Jet Bomber

As mentioned in the Ho VIII chapter, an aircraft with a 4000 mile operating range was desired by our Government. Such a range required flight altitudes where the required bomb load could not be carried.

 To gain some experience with large flying wings, I had proposed to double the size of a Ho III, equip it with six 640 HP pusher engines, give it an endurance of 20 hours at 500 km/h, and the ability to carry a few bombs. Such an aircraft would be useful in the North Atlantic war. The official argument against it was that "our bombers already do 500 km/h!"

Without a contract, we still started to build the Ho VIII, but planned to use the smaller AS-10 engines.

The order to proceed with the building of the Ho XVIII came, despite my arguments that preliminary calculations were not completed. Construction was started in Kahla near Weimar in April 1945.

 The Ho XVIII was basically shaped like the Ho VIII, with aerodynamic refinements for a Mach speed of 0.75.