I was readinga book called Aktos: The Polar Myth and came across a reference to a supposed Nazi Secret weapon called the A7. It’s was described as being like a german UFO that used VSTOL(Vertical Take-off and Landing) tech.
Every attempt I’ve made to look for references using a search engine have netted me UFO-conspiracy sites.
So now I’m not sure. While it does sound a bit like all the other Nazi myths out there, I don’t want to discount it because the Luftwaffe did have interesting secret and prototype weapons, including the Go-229(the flying wing) and the Me-163( Rocket inteceptor.
If memory serves me correctly, A7 was the designation of an experimental rocket that was further developed into the infamous V-2. The A7 would not have had landing capability.
I will have to wait until I get home to check in my copy of “Rocket Island” (a history of Peenemünde and the V-2) to make certain that there were no other of the A series before the V-2 went into production.
The A-7 is indeed very real. It was started by the Nazis, but has grown since. It now covers a large portion of central Europe and it still kills people every year!
[sub]It’s the longest stretch of autobahn in Germany, at around 1000km it goes through the country from north to south.[/sub]
Having checked with my book, I can tell you this:
The development of the V-2 began with the experimental rocket A-1. By the time the A-3 was developed, it was decided that the A-4 would become the operational rocket V-2. As development progressed with the A-3, it became obvious that there would have to be more development work done before an operational rocket was possible. To this end, the designation A-4 was skipped and development continued with the A-5. The book glosses over the development work until the first A-4 is to be tested. When the first A-4 launch fails (crash less than 1 minute after takeoff,) the book mentions that there was then talk of an A-9 or A-10 series being made before going operational. This leads me to the conclusion that the first A-4 was built after the A-8. Last mention of the A-3 is from mid 1937, with the first A-4 launch in June 1941 - leaving four years for further development on the A-5 through the A-8.
As a side note, the V-1 was a completely seperate development project from the V-2. Von Braun’s (the head of the V-2 team) only connection to the V-1 team was that he verified the proposed development plans for the V-1 as sound and recommended that it be built, and that the V-1 team was later situated at Peenemünde with the V-2 team (and other development teams.)
The Germans do seem to have expended some effort researching disc-shaped VTOL aircraft, but these appear to have been mainly garage-shop operations, and there there is little hard evidence that any disc-shaped piloted craft were actually flown. A few small unmanned prototypes may have been built and flown, however.
Chapters 4 and 5 of Nick Cook’s recent book The Hunt for Zero Point describe what little is known about possible German research into disc-shaped, jet-powered air vehicles during WWII. Most of the information for these chapters appears to derive from German Secret Weapons of World War Two, by Major Rudolph Lusar, published in the late 1950’s.
In Cook’s version, the penultimate Nazi ‘UFO’ is referred to as V7, but surely is the same vehicle described by the OP. According to at least one account, a full-scale prototype was successfully flown just before the end of the war, reaching 12,400m and 2000 km/hr in level flight. These claims seem dubious in light of the fact that almost nothing was known at the time concerning compressibility problems related to supersonic flight, which required several years of research (and resulted in numerous fatal accidents) before being overcome in the West.
When I last checked several months ago, The Hunt for Zero Point could be ordered from Amazon UK only. A US version may have been published since.
Here is some info on the A7
It looks like I was wrong about it being a predecessor of the V-2. It was a further development that apparently never got completed.