Check out this amazing painting of the WW2 German fighter jet. It's the first time I've ever seen an artist's conceptual drawing of one of these mysterious machines. There's quite a detailed background story to them (fighter jets were a very exotic technology at the end of WW2).
Here is an actual photograph of this plane:
In early tests, the Germans found that this plane EASILY outflew their best prop aircraft. The jet engine is a vastly more powerful design than any prop engine could ever hope to be. We're actually pretty lucky that the man who developed these devices was thought of as a crackpot until the 1940s, when people began taking him seriously. If Hitler had found this guy earlier, he would still be in power. Imagine what would have happened if Hitler had a squadron of these enormously fast machines ready to fly to Britain. There would have been carnage. Back then, these jets were so fast compared to the existing technology that they could literally run circles around the Spitfires of the RAF. Unfortunately, not many were made, so numbers were on the side of the British, who eventually wiped them out.
Even a jet plane cannot withstand an attack by 15 Spitfires
I just think this plane looks so ominous, and yet beautiful at the same time, like a serpent, coiled and ready to strike. The tasteful use of colour, with the stark red Swastika framed by the tunnel's outline, draws the eye away from the even more deadly fighter jet. The painting is composed in such a way that the artists lets your eye discover the plane after immediately homing in on the Swastika symbol, and as such it is a masterpiece. It bears a powerful emotional message.
For those interested, more background info on the development of these terrors of the sky is available here: http://www.soton.ac.uk/~genesis/Level1/Main3a.htm
(Edited for typos)
[SYN], UADA - Unseen Apostate Directorate of Africa - For Great Justice!