Messerschmitt Me 163 B-1a

NASM, Jan 2014

Information from NASM

... The operational history of the National Air and Space Museum's Me 163 B-1a, Werk-Nummer (serial number) 191301, remains obscure. One of five Me 163s brought to the United States after the war, it arrived at Freeman Field, Indiana, during the summer of 1945. There it received the foreign equipment code FE-500. On April 12, 1946, it was flown aboard a cargo aircraft to the U.S. Army Air Forces facility at Muroc dry lake in California for flight testing. Testing began there on May 3, 1946 in the presence of Dr. Alexander Lippisch and involved towing the unfueled Komet behind a B-29 to an altitude of 9,000 to 10,500 m (30,000 to 35,000 ft) before it was released for a glide back to earth under the control of test pilot Major Gus Lundquist. Powered tests were planned, but not carried out after delamination of the aircraft's wooden wings was discovered. It was then stored at Norton AFB, California until 1954, when it was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution. The aircraft remained on display in an unrestored condition at the museum's Paul E. Garber Restoration and Storage Facility in Suitland, Maryland, until 1996, when it was lent to the Mighty Eighth Air Force Heritage Museum in Savannah, Georgia. It is currently displayed at the Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA.