2-839-590 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Single seat, single engine, rocket powered interceptor, WW2. Dr. Erich Bachem's Ba 349 Natter (Viper) was the world's first, manned, vertical-take-off interceptor. The aircraft was an imaginative solution to a desperate problem but World War II ended before the weapon saw combat. Dr. Werner von Baun first proposed the concept in 1939 but the Air Ministry (RLM) rejected it as "unnecessary and unworkable."