Dragonfly: The Luftwaffe's Experimental Triebflugeljager Project

by David Myhra

This is the story of the world’s first attempt at perfecting a true, tail-sitting vertical take off and landing (VTOL) interceptor flying machine – Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau’s proposed “Triebflügeljäger” or thrust wing fighter project of 1944. The Triebflügeljäger was not intended to be an air-superiority dogfighter, but a bomber killer rising straight up from its hiding place in the forest or urban area to meet and attack Allied bombers head on. With its mission completed it would return to its hiding place on the forest floor and wait to arise again. The Triebflügeljäger would have been a point-defense interceptor intended for the Luftwaffe home defense squadrons and its most important virtue was that it would not need a runway. Highly unusual, then as well as today, the “Triebflügeljäger” was an amazing prototype.

120 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2003

About the author

David Myhra is a US-based author and researcher, actively publishing from 1980 to the present; he has published more than 130+ books, and dozens of eBooks & articles on varied historical topics, from Soviet-era aircraft carriers and Japanese battleships to X-planes and World War II German flying machines. His primary focus was the later; most of his books cover individual aircraft types, both paper-projects and full production warplanes, and their designers - many he personally interviewed. Myhra was first to publish books on VTOL (Vertical Takeoff and Landing) test aircraft. He interviewed dozens of aviation designers, gas turbine & rocket scientists all over the world. He traveled extensively to research and interview German scientists captured and taken to the Soviet Union, forced to work on their derivative projects after the war. He was involved in production of numerous "History Channel" documentaries and other historical programming, foremost being the National Geographic 2009 documentary “Hitler’s Stealth Fighter” which featured the building of a full-scale model of the Horten "Flying Wing" by the Northrop Grumman Corporation. This model was built to investigate the stealth characteristics and radar cross section of the original 1944 design.