Weserflug P.1003

The Weserflug P.1003, was a two-seat German aircraft designed in 1938 by Weserflug. The aim of the project was to construct a military tilt rotor aircraft with VTOL characteristics for use in World War II.[1]

At the beginning of 1938 plans for a tilt rotor aircraft were drawn up, and the project, named P.1003, was supported by the Air Ministry. The aircraft was a monoplane featuring a fairly conventional fuselage. The aircraft was built with high mounted wings that could be hinged halfway along, and with a propeller at each wing tip. A single Daimler-Benz DB 600 engine was mounted in the middle of the fuselage, and drive shafts connected the engine to the propellers, which were abnormally large with a diameter of 4 metres, where for a similar aircraft the propellers would have had a diameter of 2 metres. The initial plans included the aircraft being fitted with retractable landing gear.[2]

For takeoff, the entire outer part of the wing could be rotated 90 degrees so that the propellers pointed straight up, lifting the aircraft off the ground in a manner similar to that of a helicopter. Once in the air, the wing and the propeller would be rotated to a horizontal position, so the plane could go into horizontal flight.

The aircraft was never constructed due to the complexity of the VTOL system.