A plywood jet fighter? The Heinkel He 162 Spatz was an early jet fighter developed for Nazi Germany in late 1944. It was powered by a single BMW 003E turbojet engine—and the desperate hopes of a belligerent nation on the brink of defeat. Per the specifications of a contract between the Luftwaffe and Germany’s Heinkel aircraft company, the Spatz was constructed mostly of plywood (to avoid depleting steel and aluminum reserves) and featured controls intended to be so simple Hitler Youth pilots trained on gliders could fly it. The Spatz first flew just 74 days after the contract was signed, but the Heinkel company’s effort to introduce a new fighter was too little, too late, too flawed. The prototype crashed four days after the first flight, but the He 162 was rushed into production anyway. Pilots found it difficult to fly, and it had a tendency to break apart when flight maneuvers overstressed the glue holding it together. The He 162 pictured here is in the Museum's collection and is cur...