The DFS 194

When preliminary design work started on the DFS 194 it was once more intended to fit a piston engine at first. But when Projekt X and Lippisch's team came under the Messerschmitt umbrella on January 2, 1939, work started on converting it to rocket power.

The DFS 194 was completed early in 1939 and ground tests with the Walter HWK R.1-203 "cold" rocket motor began at Peenemunde in October of that year. Four months later the DFS 194 airframe was first test-flown in unpowered glider form. It was first flown under rocket power at Peenemunde-West in August 1940 with Heini Dittmar flying it and subsequently made several highly successful flights, achieving 342 mph (550 km/hr) in level flight. The DFS 194 was a single-seat tailless aircraft similar in planform to the DFS 40 but lacking the wingtip anhedral, which was compensated for by the fitting of a larger central fin and rudder. The success of the flight test program led to the increase in the priority rating of the Me 163 project.