DESCRIPTION. This missile was designed primarily as an air-to-air weapon to be carried on fighter aircraft as well as the bomber types. The fuselage is of the conventional type mounting twin vertical tail surfaces at the ends of the signal horizontal tail surface, the horizontal tail surface being mounted high on the fuselage. The arrowhead wing is placed about the center of the fuselage. The nose, like the Hs 117, is symmetrical, the asym-metry on this missile being in the vertical plane. For the propulsion system this missile uses a two stage powder rocket. Spoiler type of aerodynamic controls is used.

This missile used a short length of launching track mounted underneath the parent air-craft.

DETAILS. The following detailed report is written around the Hs 298 V-2, as this model is considered the basic model of this series.

Type and Description. The fuselage is a stressed aluminum skin structure. The wind and tail are cast magnesium with an aluminum covering. The cast magnesium wing frame ex-tremely light in weight and rigid.

Aerodynamic Characteristic or Peculiarities. The missile is controlled in roll and yaw by trailing edge spoilers on the wings. It is controlled in elevation by spoilers on the horizon-tal stabilizer. Trailing edge spoilers were used because they gave an adequate and simple control as compared to other systems and produced less drag.

The forward part of the fuselage of this missile, like that of the Hs 117, is non-symmetri-cal; however, in this missile the assymmetry is in the vertical plane. The reason for this change is not known. The after section of the fuselage also has a peculiar shape in that it ends in two tubular shapes, placed one above the other. The top one is the smaller of the two and accommodates either a flare or light for the purpose of recognition and enabling the pilot to follow it. The lower circular cross section accommodates the powder rocket motor.

Length Over all

Length of Fuselage

Span of Wings

Span of Horizontal Stabilizer

Height of Vertical Rudder

Diameter of Fuselage

Launching weight:

Weight of Target:

Weight of Propulsion Unit:

Explosive:

Average Horizontal Speed:

Mach No.:

Max. Range (approx. 5,000 m alt):

Min. Range:

Ceiling Above Lauchning Point:

Max. Elevation for Attacks from Below:

In April 1944, production of 2,500 Hs 298's was ordered by RIM with a peak production rate of 300 airframes per month. In July 1944, the RIM ordered the production of an ad-ditional 2,000.

POWER PLANT. Propulsion Motor Data. The power plant is a powder rocket with two combustion chambers exhausting though the same nozzle and having the following com-ponent weights:

Fuel. The fuels of this motor are dry powder. The booster is a single perforated charge with a high burning rate. The main fuel consists of a round hollow shaped charge having a very slow burning rate. In the hollow cavity of this charge are placed alternate slugs of material, first a slug of powder with a very high burning rate (apparently similar to black powder) followed by a slug of inert material. These slugs are packed one against another through-out the core of the main slow burning powder. This combination presented only few problems, the main one being the sensitiyity of the fuel to temperature. For a time it was thought necessary to heat the projectile while still attached to the launching air-craft, but experiments in this direction had not been completed.

Operation. Apparently the powder available for the main charge burned too slowly to use the standard end burning technique, so a complicated procedure was worked out. In or-der to obtain sufficient area to burning, a conical burning surface is used. To prevent this surface from degenerating to a section of a sphere as the charge burns, the peculiar core construction was devised. This consists of alternate plugs of an inert material and a very rapid burning powder. With the proper geometry of these plugs, the speed of core burning can be maintained which will preserve the original core angle. The chamber pres-sure is lower during the burning of the main charge than during the boost. It was desired to decrease the throat diameter of the nozzle to compensate for this effect, but this was never archieved.

INTELLIGENCE AND CONTROL SYSTEM (ELECTRICAL). Type and Description. The radio receiver and other electrical equipment of this missile was made as similar as possible to that of the Hs 117, the main difference being the arrangements to accommodate the two-wire control that is used for this missile. Since all radio directed missiles are subject to jamming, the Germans, including Wagner's group, have experimented extensively with this two-wire missile control. All Henschel missiles are adaptable to wire control.

It is interesting to note the crude from of air speed measuring device intended to control the throw of the spoilers in the same proportion to the missile speed. This device is mounted on the top of the tail portion. This restriction to the throw of the spoilers is probably done by inserting the spoiler solenoid circuits by means of a resistor on the pi-voted, spring returned support of the pear-shaped speed measuring plug.

Power for the electrical system was obtained from a propeller-driven generator. This mis-sile was limited to use against targets with a speed of 140 meters a second or less.

WARHEAD AND FUZE. Warhead. This missile contains 48 kg thin case blast effect char-ge. It is reported to be placed around the outside of the propulsion unit, which appears necessary from space considerations and is desirable in that the C.G. of the propellant charge can be held nearer to the C.G. of the entire unit. A small amount of insulation protects the explosive from the heat of the propelling charge.

Fuze. The missile was designed for the C-98 "Abstandszünder" high frequency proximity fuze; however, nearly any of the other proximity fuzes would work. This missile also in-corporated a self-destroying fuze which operated at a certain time interval after laun-ching.

LAUNCHING DEVICE. This missile uses a rail type launcher 60 cm in length on the car-rier aircraft on the under side of the fuselage or wing of either bomber of fighter aircraft.