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00:16:22
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Transcription: [00:16:23]
{SPEAKER name="Werner Karl Dahm"}
--thought that this was the case. Or he may not, I don't know. Anyway, I'm sure that later on it was well-known among a small circle, that the vehicle could not work.
[00:16:40]

The wind tunnel, later, in about I think probably 1944, tried to modify experimentally the configuration to see whether they could find something similar to the Wasserfall, [[papers rustling] and it didn't work.
[[crosstalk]] Not successful.
[00:17:09]

{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
So these are models that were used in the wind tunnel?
[00:17:13]

{SPEAKER name="Werner Karl Dahm"}
Yes. Configurations that [[crosstalk]]

{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
Of A9 now called, er A4 B, as it was at the end of the war --
[00:17:18]

{SPEAKER name="Werner Karl Dahm "}
Yes. It was later called A4 B simply to capture, to make use of the A4 priorities. Anything A4 had high priority and could get materials and manpower and what-have-you, resources.
[00:17:35] Anything A9 was not under this high priority, so that gave a place.

{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
A9 seems or A4 B seems to have had a number of different purposes at times. I mean there was the early proposal A9/A10 for a two stage missile, and that probably predates the time when you were there, right?
[00:18:03]

{SPEAKER name="Werner Karl Dahm "}
Yes, and I remember that somebody calculated a trajectory through the time I was there, but A10 was a longer range thing, it was an idea, it would not have worked anyway, but I have never worked on the A9 as part of A9/A10, but only as a glider that was supposed to increase the range of the V2.
[00:18:38]

{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
So that was clearly the purpose for it when you were working on it.

{SPEAKER name="Werner Karl Dahm "}
Yes.
[00:18:42]

{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
Because at least one place it was asserted, I think, that it didn't make much sense as a glider to extend range, it was really a sort of cover project for a manned, winged missile, but you, as far as you were concerned when you worked on it was the clear intent was -- [[crosstalk]]
[00:19:04]

{SPEAKER name="Werner Karl Dahm "}
It was a clear intent to increase range. And I have never seen any manned idea, at Peenemünde. I heard about it later, but there were a lot of brain bubbles around, and I tend to see the A10 even, as a bit of a brain bubble.
[00:19:27]
What had been tangibly done were some sketches, were some trajectories which showed OK if I have a vehicle with this kind of propulsion capability and size and aerodynamics, it would be able to make this much of a range, flat mechanically.
[00:19:53]

{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
Yes, in fact I think I've seen a document that discusses a trajectory, er, from the west coast of Europe to New York, an attempt to hit New York with a two stage missile-- [[cross talk]]
[00:20:05]

{SPEAKER name="Werner Karl Dahm "}
Well, yes, I believe I have some trajectory, one trajectory, which was calculated in the Projektenabteilung, and this does not have the range.

{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
Mmm huh. It appeared to be very marginal, this idea of two stages and gliding to hit the United States.
[00:20:26]


{SPEAKER name="Werner Karl Dahm "}
Well, in practice it would not have worked because, A, the glider had this supersonic center of pressure shift; it would have just come down ballistically.
[00:20:38]
Secondly, if we had managed to make the glider flyable, it would have died from aerodynamic heating, so--

{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
[[crosstalk]] The wings would have been lost probably or, or
[00:20:50]

{SPEAKER name="Werner Karl Dahm "}
[[Cross talk]] The wings and the fins would have been lost, the tip probably too, because aerodynamic heating was in its infancy.
[00:20:59]
Aerodynamic heating technology has really or let's say the aerodynamic side has been developed in the early 50s. At that time, there was a Doctor Eber, of the wind tunnel, had performed heat transfer tests on coals, in the wind tunnel.
[00:21:23]

{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
What was his name? Eber?

{SPEAKER name="Werner Karl Dahm "}
Eber, E B E R, and he made his PhD on this, and this was the only tangible transfer heat data available.
[00:21:38]
And the only heat transfer calculations I have seen were calculations on the conical part near the tip of the V2. And the A9 also, but nothing on the wing. And the heat on the wing is worse, close to the leading edge.
[00:22:00]

{SPEAKER name="Michael Neufeld"}
So you're confident that aerodynamic heating would have made the idea disastrous.

{SPEAKER name="Werner Karl Dahm "}

Yes, yes, It was way ahead of its time, the idea simply.
[00:22:13]


Transcription Notes:
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