The Bv P.210 fighter was one of Blohm & Voss' entries in the Volksjager Project competition in September 1944. Chief Designer Dr. Richard Vogt, assisted by Hans Amtmann, developed the BV P.210 from the BV P.208 tailless fighter project. The P.210 featured Blohm & Voss' usual tubular spar, which was the central air duct from which the other components were attached. The wings were swept back at 30 degrees, and had dihedral on the main wings with drooping wing tips. A single BMW 003A-1 jet engine provided the power, there was also optional rocket takeoff assistance. The landing gear was of a tricycle arrangement, with the main gear being attached to the wing spars and retracting inwards and the front gear rotated 90 degrees to lie flat beneath the air intake duct. Armament was to be either two MG 151/20 20mm cannon or two MK 108 30mm cannon in the nose.

Pictured here is a 1:72 scale replica of a German Blohm and Voss Bv P.210 fighter. Sold Out!

Dimensions:
Wingspan: 6-1/4-inches
Length: 4-inches

Release Date: July 2014

Historical Account: "The Emergency Fighter Program" - The Emergency Fighter Program (German: Jagernotprogramm, literally "Fighter Emergency Program") was the program that resulted from a decision taken on July 3rd, 1944 by the Luftwaffe regarding the German aircraft manufacturing companies during the last year of the Third Reich. The Do 335 was the only piston-engined fighter allowed to go forward under the Jagernotprogramm.

This project was one of the products of the latter part of 1944, when the Luftwaffe High Command saw that there was a dire need for a strong defense against Allied bombing raids. Although opposed by important figures such as Luftwaffe fighter force leader Adolf Galland, the project went ahead owing to the backing of Marshall of the Reich Hermann Goring. Most of the designs of the Emergency Fighter Program never proceeded past the project stage.

In the Emergency Fighter Program emphasis was laid in shifting production to defensive interceptor/fighters. A number of new aircraft design competition programmes were launched to provide new jet fighters. Production of the Messerschmitt Me 262A fighter versions continued, as well as the development of advanced piston-engined fighters such as the Dornier Do 335 as per Hitler's personal request on May 23rd, 1944, before the July 3rd announcement of the program. Bombers, however, were severely curtailed, with only jet bombers allowed to continue in production after the edict, such as the Arado Ar 234. New jet bombers such as the Junkers Ju 287 and Heinkel He 343 were worked on fitfully as low priority projects in the last months of the war.

Towards the end of the war some of the fighter designs, such as the Heinkel P.1077 Julia, the Blohm & Voss BV 40 and the Arado E.381 Kleinstjager - "smallest fighter" were designed with the pilot flying the aircraft in a prone position; or for a vertical takeoff like a modern missile launch system for the first time with a manned aircraft, with the Bachem Ba 349 Natter. The Natter and Julia designs were expected to climb to their ceiling at vertical or near vertical angles, while the Arado design was a parasite aircraft that needed to be carried by a "mother" plane, with the unpowered BV 40 needing an aerotow into action. These small interceptors had fuel for only a few minutes for combat action and landing was difficult, for instead of having a wheeled undercarriage they had only a fixed skid, or as with the Natter, the pilot bailed out at the end of a mission while the rear fuselage containing the rocket motor descended under its own parachute.

Such simplified and dangerous planes were the products of the last phase of the Third Reich, when the lack of materials and the dire need for a strong defense against the Allied bombing raids required such craft to be built quickly in underground factories. In the design of the planes little thought was given to the safety or comfort of the pilots who were mostly Hitler Youth motivated by fanaticism. During this period the Nazi authorities also considered the use of selbstopfer (suicide) planes such as the Reichenberg (a manned version of the V-1 flying bomb), and in one case of actual use, a "special detachment" unit dedicated to desperate aerial ramming tactics, known as Sonderkommando Elbe.