The Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet remains the only operational rocket-powered fighter in history, a machine that climbed to 39,000 feet in about three minutes and hit roughly 700 mph in 1944, a speed no turbojet officially matched until 1953. This episode traces its strange origins in Alexander Lippisch's tailless gliders, the 1928 black-powder rocket experiments with Opel, and the classified Messerschmitt program that skipped propellers entirely and went straight to Helmuth Walter's liquid rocket engine.

The Komet's performance came at a horrific price. Its hypergolic propellants, T-Stoff and C-Stoff, exploded on contact and could dissolve human tissue, forcing fuel trucks to leave the tarmac one at a time and killing pilots like Josef Pohs in ground accidents. We cover the jettisoned takeoff dolly, the spine-crushing belly-skid landings, the ...