Originally Posted by
By George
The pusher that fascinates me is the Dornier Do335 Pfeil (Arrow). I was very lucky enough to have a crawl over one in the Duetsches Museum in Munich in the late eighties. They were removing it from display to return it to the US. (It is now at the National Air and Space Museum). A true monster with that evil look only German engineers seem capable of designing. You could walk underneath the fuselage, it was that tall. With a speed of 400 knots, I guess it is proof of the advantages of keeping the wing clean. Again, you could hear it comming before you could see it, witnesses saying it gave a deep howl. So, a little hard to sneak up on people you wish to do harm.
Interesting observations by the English test pilot Eric Brown. In his book 'Wings on my sleave". He said, 'it was very fast, but could not turn for nuts'. This is the trouble with aerodynamics, everything is a compromise, or one win defeats another. Still, I would love to buzz the tower in a Do335 (upside down going flat out).
It was a "Push-pull" design, rather than a pure pusher- but yeah, if it had been produced in sufficient numbers, it would have been a great aircraft.