Dornier Do 335 Pfeil – Dornier Aircraft Factory, Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, April 22nd 1945

IXO Models 1/72 PIXJ014: Dornier Do 335 Pfeil located at Dornier Aircraft Factory, Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, April 22nd 1945

Length 7.5 inches Wingspan 7.5 inches

Only one Do 335 survives today. The aircraft was the second preproduction Do 335 A-0, designated A-02, with construction number (Werknummer) 240102, and factory registration VG+PH. The aircraft was assembled at Dornier’s plant in Oberpfaffenhofen (southern Germany) on April 16, 1945. It was captured by allied forces at the plant on April 22, 1945. The aircraft was test flown from a grass runway at Oberwiesenfeld, near Munich, to Cherbourg, France while escorted by two P-51’s. The Do 335 was easily able to out distance the escorting Mustangs and arrived at Cherbourg 45 minutes before the P-51’s. VG+PH was one of two Do 335’s to be shipped to the United States aboard the Royal Navy ship HMS Reaper, along with other captured German aircraft, to be used for testing and evaluation under a USAAF program called “Operation Sea Horse.” One Do 335, with registration FE-1012, went to the USAAF and was tested in early 1946 at Freeman Field, Indiana. Its fate is a mystery.

VG+PH went to the Navy for evaluation and was sent to the Test and Evaluation Center, Patuxent River Naval Air Station, Maryland. Following testing from 1945 to 1948 the aircraft languished in outside storage at Naval Air Station Norfolk. In 1961 it was donated to the Smithsonian’s National Air Museum, though it remained in deteriorating condition at Norfolk for several more years before being moved the the National Air & Space Museum’s storage facility in Silver Hill, Maryland. In October, 1974 VG+PH was returned to the Dornier plant in Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany (then building the Alpha Jet) for a complete restoration. In 1975 the aircraft was beautifully restored by Dornier employees, many of who had worked on the airplane originally. They were amazed to find that the explosive charges built into the aircraft to blow off the tail fin and rear propeller in the event of an emergency were still on the aircraft and active thirty years later. Following restoration the completed Do 335 was displayed at the Hanover, Germany Airshow from May 1 to 9, 1976. After the Airshow the aircraft was loaned to the Deutsches Museum in Munich where it was on display until 1986, when it was shipped back to Silver Hill, Maryland. VG+PH can be seen today in the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air & Space Museum alongside other unique late-war German aircraft such as the Arado Ar 234B-2 “Blitz,” and the only surviving, though unrestored, Heinkel He-219A “Uhu.”