mounted on a long fork and retracted by being swung backward so it was semi-protruding from the fuselage. The fixed rear wheel was below the trailing edge, half within a large fairing which was rectangular ahead of the wheel and raked behind. This probably acted as a short-coupled fin. Development The first Horten H.II was completed as a glider in May 1935 and flew shortly after, too late for the 1935 Rhön contest. It was soon flying as a motorglider, designated H.IIM powered by a pusher configuration Hirth HM 60R air-cooled, inverted, four cylinder, inline engine, mounted on top of the wing. The engine increased the empty weight by and enabled a maximum speed in level flight of , but increased the minimum sink rate to . To clear the propeller, the rear wheel fairing was altered to have a squarer profile. In 1937 the borrowed engine had to be returned, ending the career of the first Habicht. The Luftwaffe became aware of Horten's work during tests of the Horten H.V, a twin engine aircraft with military potential, and ordered three more Horten II motorgliders. Designated Horten H.IIL, they had slightly increased washout and a more upright seat. The pilot's head was now above the wing under a high clear perspex canopy. The alterations increased the weight by . The first two of these were built in 1937 and the decision was made to enter them as gliders in the annual Rhön contest. Their performance there were not outstanding as their wing loading was too low to reach the speeds necessary for rapid cross country flights between thermals. The third Horten H.IIL was test flown in November 1938 by Hanna Reitsch, who reported that whilst comfort was "not exceptional", the "view is bad" (even with the new canopy), entry and exit were "only possible for athletes" and that the undercarriage retraction lever could only be operated by pilots with longer arms than hers. It achieved a soaring flight of in 1938. That example was destroyed in a fatal accident in March 1939. Witnesses described how the canopy detached during a high-speed dive in aerobatics practice, hitting pilot Kurt Hiekmann. Encouraged by the military, the Hortens concentrated on the Horten H.III as a competitor in the 1938 Rhön, where the H.IILs were used only for pilot training. Nonetheless, D-10-125, the first of the H.IILs, was continuously modified. One of the first