Italian Forces

Italian pilots for the Me 163

Italian pilots for the rocket-powered fighter Messerschmitt Me 163: an event disclosed only some years ago when started the studies about the history of Aeronautica Nazionale Repubblicana (ANR), the air force of Repubblica Sociale Italiana, the Italian fascist republic founded by Benito Mussolini on Autumn 1943 in the Italy controlled by the Germans. November 1944: at a small number of Italian fighter pilots of ANR’s 1st Gruppo Caccia, leaded by Squadron Leader Adriano Visconti, on training for the Bf 109G at Holkirchen base, on Germany, the Luftwaffe suggest the training for a new fighter aircraft without disclose the plane’s type still secret. Seventeen pilots, all unmarried, leader the Captain Giuseppe Robetto, rally to the offer confident that the plane is the Me 262. Transferred on Rangsdor Airport, the pilots come not the Me 262, but the single seat gliders Grunau Baby and Habicht. The latter, an aerobatic glider, is in versions with the wing span progressively short-tailed, until 6 meters, resulting the growth of wing loading. In effect the plane for the Italians is the Me 163 Komet and the training with the Habicht 6 meters is directed to learn the best technique for precision landings at high speed with an unpowered aircraft (the Me 163 land in fact without fuel) characterized by a strong wing loading. The Italian pilots displayed a good command of this landing’s techniques together with the ability on aerobatic flights. The mystery is revealed early 1945: the plane is the Me 163, the theory’s course on the ground begin and on Sprottau Airport are planned some flights with Me 163 without engine (glider mode), with liquid ballast (water) on the wing (still today the modern high performance gliders have ballast, water, in the wings, drained before the landing, for the wing loading’s growth when on required high speed on leveled flight) and pulled by Bf 110s in configuration glider tug. But for the Italian pilots the Me 163 is an unrealized dream. Sprottau Airport is impracticable for snow and on 12 January 1945 the Soviet troops going beyond the Vistula and for the German forces beginning the retreat. The Italian pilots coming back in Italy with the commit to a rigorous secret. The photo depict one of Habicht 6 meters gliders surrounded by the Italian pilots during the training on Rangsdor Airport. Victor Sierra