ScienceDirect - Technol Rep Tohoku Univ ... - Garryck Osborne

NICK COOK 51
In the spring of 1941, Schriever's blueprints were being used to
construct a "proof-of-concept" model in a "garage" away from prying
eyes. Officially known as the VI (V for "Versuchs" or "experimental
version 1"), informally it was referred to as the "Flying Top." It was
probably no more than two or three feet in diameter and powered by an
electric motor or a small two-stroke engine. It is not known where this
garage was, but within the sprawling complex of buildings at Marienehe,
set in three square kilometers of the Mecklenburg State Park, there was
ample room for Schriever's esoteric little engineering project to be hidden
from view. Furthermore, it fitted into the Heinkel way of doing
things. During the development of the world's first turbojet, Ernst
Heikel had installed Dr. Hans-Joachim Pabst von Ohain, a gifted graduate
of the University of Göttingen, in the same kind of environment—
a converted garage at the university—before transferring the fruits of
von Ohain's labors, the revolutionary HeS 3A turbojet, to a secure
facility within the Marienehe site.
By June 1942, Schriever's Flying Top had been test-flown and the
results deemed sufficiently interesting to secure top secret funding from
the RLM, the Reichsluftfahrtministerium or State Air Ministry.
With RLM funding, the intention was to construct a full-scale piloted
version capable of controlled vertical takeoff and landing. Construction
of this full-size version, the V2, began at Marienehe in early 1943.
The V2, which was known as the "Flugkreisel" or "Flightwheel," had
a diameter of approximately 25 feet, its power generated by one or perhaps
two Heinkel-Hirth jet engines, depending on which version of the
Legend you want to believe. The V2 supposedly flew with Schriever at
the controls, but as a piece of technology it was deemed to be heavily
overengineered and was quickly scrapped. As a proof-of-concept vehicle,
though, it seems to have served its purpose, because shortly afterward,
Schriever and his team relocated to Czechoslovakia where they set about
constructing a larger and altogether more sophisticated prototype known
as the V3.
With the Allied aerial bombing campaign now at its height, their
activities were dispersed around the Prague area to minimize the
exposure to the relentless air attacks, by now penetrating deep into the
Reich. But the bulk of the team's work was centered on a restricted area
of a satellite facility outside Prague belonging to the Munich-based
Bayerische Motorenwerke engine company, better known today as
BMW. Despite the existence of Heinkel's own jet engines, the real
cutting edge of German gas-turbine research was centered on BMW and
in particular on its Bramo division, located at Spandau in Berlin. Bramo,