laststandonzombieisland

France Oct 1944. Official wartime caption: “Flettner helicopter with counter-rotating, intermeshing blades, once landed on the deck of a submarine which was moving at 18 knots.”

The Flettner Fl 282 Kolibri (Hummingbird) was an unrealized program of the Kriegsmarine that showed lots of potential.

As detailed by the Smithsonian, which has a collection of wartime engineers’ drawings for the Kolibri on hand:

In 1940, the German Navy made a request for a naval helicopter, and the FL 282 deliveries began in 1942; by the next year, 20 prototypes were in service. The prototypes were built in different variants, one or two-seater, closed or open cockpit, and other modifications. Based on the prototypes’ success, plans to manufacture 1,000 helicopters were approved; however, because the Kolibri was a Navy aircraft, they had little claim on production facilities, and the plans to manufacture them were finally aborted due to the Allied bombing of the Flettner factories. Only three Kolibri survived the war; the rest were destroyed to prevent capture