Dornier Do 335 "Pfeil"

The Dornier Do 335 belongs in the small group of aircraft whose performance put them at the pinnacle of piston-engine aircraft development because it was one of the fastest aircraft powered by a piston engine ever flown. The Germans claimed that a pilot flew a Do 335 at a speed of 846 km/h (474 mph) in level flight at a time when the official world speed record was 755 km/h (469 mph). Two liquid-cooled engines each developing about 1,750 hp powered the Do 335. Dornier mounted one engine in the nose and the other in the tail in a unique low-drag push-pull configuration. This innovative design also featured an ejection seat, a tail fin which the pilot could jettison, and tricycle landing gear.
Dornier finished building as many as 48 Do 335 airplanes and another nine or so were under construction when the war ended.

• The NASM displays at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center the second Do 335 A-0 built. Dornier designated this airframe construction number 240102 and gave it the aircraft identification code VG+PH and A-02. Crafts persons completed the aircraft at Dornier's plant at Mengen, Germany, on 30 September 1944, and then test-flew the airplane during the winter of 1944-45. From 20-23 April 1945, German test pilot Hans Werner Lerche flew the Do 335 from Rechlin back to Oberpfaffenhofen near Münich, via Prague, Czechoslovakia, and Lechfeld, Germany. Allied forces found the Do 335 at Oberpfaffenhofen on April 29.
  
  In mid-June, pilots ferried two Do 335s, including the NASM aircraft piloted by German test pilot Hans Padell, from Oberpfaffenhofen to Cherbourg, France, for shipment to the USA aboard the British aircraft carrier HMS Reaper, along with other captured German aircraft and equipment for technology evaluation. Following U. S. Navy testing from 1945-48, the navy transferred the Do 335 to the Smithsonian's National Air Museum in 1961. The Do 335 remained stored at Naval Air Station Norfolk until 1974 when the Smithsonian returned it to Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, where the Dornier company preserved and restored the airplane in 1975. Dornier craftsmen, many of them factory employees since World War II, were surprised to find still attached to the aircraft the explosive bolts designed to blow off the tail fin and rear propeller. Dornier displayed the preserved airplane at the May 1976 Hannover Airshow, and then moved the artifact to the Deutsches Museum in Munich until the aircraft was returned to the Paul E. Garber Facility for storage in 1986.