Me 262 "Weiss 3" III./JG 7

[Njaco]

(from "Jet Aces of World War 2" by Hugh Morgan and John Weal - pics via Bundesarchiv, Deutsches Museum and unknown sources)

The photos show Me262A-1b "White 3" (W.Nr. 500071) of 9./JG 7. This aircraft entered the annals of Me 262 history whilst being flown by Oberfahnrich Hans-Guido Mutke on the morning of 25 April 1945. The pilot, who had taken off from Furstenfeldbruck, described his final flight in the aircraft to the authors almost 50 years later;



"I made contact with 20 to 25 Marauders north of the Bodensee, then I noticed that I was running very low on fuel while flying over French-occupied territory. I had two choices - to land in Zurich or bale out and use my parachute at 2000 metres. I chose to land in Switzerland as I wanted to avoid being captured by the French, and came down at Zurich's Dubendorf military airfield with only enough fuel left for a further two minutes flying. The Swiss surrounded the plane with roughly 60 soldiers, all with guns aimed at me - something which struck me as being rather belligerent in neutral Switzerland, particularily since I was 'over the moon' at having escaped being taken prisoner by the French and had no intention whatsoever of somehow opening fire on the Swiss with my aircraft's weapons."

Today, Hans-Guido Mutke's aircraft rests in its full glory in the Deutsches Museum in Munich.

[Crimea_River]

Thanks for posting Chris.

[Airframes]

Good stuff Chris. There was a magazine photo-feature about this aircraft some years back. Apparently it fell into decay, and IIRC, a guy who had been a youngster at the time it landed at Dubendorf, was instrumental in getting it restored, with painstaking accuracy regarding the colour scheme in particular.

[beaupower32]

Great Pictures. Do you know if that is the original paint, or was it redone sometime after the war?


Oops, looks like Airframes answered my question after I already posted it. Thanks Airframes.

[Airframes]

I'll try to find the magazine article. from what I remember, the aircraft was re-painted following the pattern of the remains of the original paint, and also working from a large collection of photos the guy had amassed over the years. I seem to recall some effort going in to getting a particular area right, which had been finished in some non-standard way.

[Erich]

yes it is all non original paint, I have a pic of the man in front of the jet and was in correspondence with him at length before his demise mostly in conversation about his so-called breaking the sound barrier with the 262 in a dive...........very interesting G.'s concept with the ground techs as they monitored the flight quite by accident while the seams were splitting and bolts were popping.

[Crimea_River]

That aircraft is heavily featured in Squadron's Me-262 Walkaround. It says that "a considerable portion of the original upper camouflage on the fuselage and engine nacelles was repainted" by the Swiss airforce before donating the plane to the Deutches Museum in 1957. Apparently the original machine had a very thin layer of paint on it and they felt the need to spruce it up to protect it. The museum redid the paint as close to the original scheme as they could, sans swastikas of course.

[Maximowitz]

He seems to have been an interesting man. Fighter pilot, gynaecologist and.... art exhibit.

Perhaps he should be displayed alongside "Weiss 3."

Obituary of Hans-Guido Mutke

[Gnomey]

Nice stuff Chris!

[Njaco]

two more.....

[Wayne Little]

[imalko]