p-80 V Me 262

[davparlr]

Originally Posted by Soren

The P.1101 certainly seems a winning design, eventhough the US attempt at replicating it was a faliure.

This is certainly a leap. The Bell X-5 was clearly a more complex design than the P.1101 in that the wing sweep was variable in flight whereas the P.1101 was only ground adjustable. This does mean that the German plane would have had less development and flight problems than the X-5, and far less benefit from the wing sweep, but projecting an aircraft as being a winning design, when it never flew nor had a successful follow-on, is ignoring the vast number of aircraft that looked like a "winning design" while on the drawing board, turned out to be a less than stellar performer.

P.1101, Ta-183, and Go 229V-3 were all advanced designs, but the Germans did not have a mystical history of making advance designs into war machines without the time consuming trial and errors that all other designers had to go through in this era. Only the Go 229V-3 flew and only for couple of hours, as such, none of these aircraft can be called a "winning design". I would consider the Me-262 a winning design because it did perform beautifully and had problems that could be overcome with normal development. I would also consider the P-80 as a winning design because it continued to evolve into an effective fighter and had, in one form or another, a long history.

The Allies could've done it yes, however because of their lack of knowledge on the subject they would've ended up with a machine of no particular value. The P-80 was not a slow project at all if thats what you guys believe..

Both the Allies and Germans had demonstrated the ability to adapt very rapidly to new threats by their enemy and there is no reason to assume this would not continue. The allies were very familar with jet engines and were knowledgable of swept back wings in 1945.

Originally Posted by DerAlder

I think it is more of a safer bet to say the allies did not have a reason to rush a jet fighter into combat like the Germans did. The Me-262 was rushed into combat before she was ready.

Very knowledgable comment.

[Soren]

Originally Posted by davparlr

This is certainly a leap. The Bell X-5 was clearly a more complex design than the P.1101 in that the wing sweep was variable in flight whereas the P.1101 was only ground adjustable. This does mean that the German plane would have had less development and flight problems than the X-5, and far less benefit from the wing sweep, but projecting an aircraft as being a winning design, when it never flew nor had a successful follow-on, is ignoring the vast number of aircraft that looked like a "winning design" while on the drawing board, turned out to be a less than stellar performer.

Never mind the variable sweep, a fixed wing is stronger and isn't as heavy, and like you said would prove less troublesome.

Anyway what I meant by that it seems a winning design is when all of its bugs were worked out, who knows how many, it surely would've performed well - aerodynamically it isn't that much different from the US Sabre. But its still only just a guess ofcourse...

P.1101, Ta-183, and Go 229V-3 were all advanced designs, but the Germans did not have a mystical history of making advance designs into war machines without the time consuming trial and errors that all other designers had to go through in this era. Only the Go 229V-3 flew and only for couple of hours, as such, none of these aircraft can be called a "winning design". I would consider the Me-262 a winning design because it did perform beautifully and had problems that could be overcome with normal development.

The P.1101, Ta-183 and Go-229 probably would've all flown if it wasn't for the fact that German industry was being bombed as heavily as it was.

I would also consider the P-80 as a winning design because it continued to evolve into an effective fighter and had, in one form or another, a long history.

Effective ? Well thats debatable, it didn't do that well..

Both the Allies and Germans had demonstrated the ability to adapt very rapidly to new threats by their enemy and there is no reason to assume this would not continue. The allies were very familar with jet engines and were knowledgable of swept back wings in 1945.

No, the Allies were behind in aerodynamics, and not only in terms of wing sweep and its effects. Remember that the main center of theoretical, mathematical aerodynamics and fluid dynamics research was the Ludwig Prandtl laboratory at Göttingen from 1904 to the end of WW2. The Lab remained the leading in the world in terms aerodynamics until the end of WW2.

And in Jet engine design the Allies were behind as-well, their centrifugal jet engine being much larger and less efficient than the German axial flow jet engine.

[syscom3]

Wasn't the swept wing design (for the me-262) a result of the engineers attempting to balance some aerodynamic loads, without the knowledge it was more efficient at high subsonic speeds?

[davparlr]

Originally Posted by Soren

Never mind the variable sweep, a fixed wing is stronger and isn't as heavy, and like you said would prove less troublesome.

Anyway what I meant by that it seems a winning design is when all of its bugs were worked out, who knows how many, it surely would've performed well - aerodynamically it isn't that much different from the US Sabre. But its still only just a guess ofcourse...

It is a good looking design, but still there are always unknowns when a plane flies.

The P.1101, Ta-183 and Go-229 probably would've all flown if it wasn't for the fact that German industry was being bombed as heavily as it was.

Probably, but again, unknown problems. I think the G0-229 was a long way from becoming an effective war bird. Too advanced for the technology available. Tank seemed to have some problems with the Ta-183 in Argentina, modifing the wing installation.

Effective ? Well thats debatable, it didn't do that well..

The P-80 seems to perform very comparatable to comtemporary jets, Vampire and Meteor, during the period 1945 to 1950. In Korea it did effective yeoman service but was outdated.

No, the Allies were behind in aerodynamics, and not only in terms of wing sweep and its effects. Remember that the main center of theoretical, mathematical aerodynamics and fluid dynamics research was the Ludwig Prandtl laboratory at Göttingen from 1904 to the end of WW2. The Lab remained the leading in the world in terms aerodynamics until the end of WW2

.

I would agree that, up until WWII, the Germans had done significant advanced work in all areas pertaining to warfighting ability while Allied scientist was starved of support. However, by 1945, massive research had closed that gap to a large extent, and passed them in certain categories such a nuclear research. Allied aerodynamic papers discussing swept wing atributes had been submitted as early as Jan. 1945. The German data after the war validated the research.

And in Jet engine design the Allies were behind as-well, their centrifugal jet engine being much larger and less efficient than the German axial flow jet engine.

Those centrifugal engines were developed into powerful and reliable engines. In fact the Russians were very successful in using centrifugal engines to make the world class aircraft Mig-15 and Mig-17. You would have a hard time telling a Sabre pilot in his axial flow jet how much more inefficient that Mig engine was.

As for Allied axial technology, the Westinghouse 19XB-2B flew in an XFH-1 in Jan. 1945, and the GE J-35 flew in the XP-84 in Feb. 1946. The J-35 eventually grew into the J-47 engine, so it was quite a sophiscated and modern engine. The Brits worked even earlier on axial flow compressors. I don't have good data on their effort. Allied technology was accelerating in this field.

[davparlr]

Originally Posted by syscom3

Wasn't the swept wing design (for the me-262) a result of the engineers attempting to balance some aerodynamic loads, without the knowledge it was more efficient at high subsonic speeds?

I believe this is correct, but they had done a lot of work on transonic airspeed design including swept wings, as shown by the Ta-183.

[Soren]

The Ludwig Prandtl laboratory at Göttingen had nothing to do with nuclear research Davparlr, it was all about aerodynamics & fluid dynamics and was in the lead in this area from the beginning of WW2 to the end.

About centrifugal jet engines, well they were big and draggy, the axial flow jet engines weren't - and the German axial flow engines were developing a lot of power for their size, however the metals used on the engines just couldn't withstand the heat developed. Centrifugal jet engines weren't bad though, they were more reliable and capable of the same power levels.

Btw, you meant the XFD-1 right ?

[Soren]

As to the Me-262's swept wings, well no I don't believe they were swept for reasons of load distribution, Messerschmidt knew about the aerodynamic benefits of sweep which would be why he incoperated this into the Me-262 design.

[davparlr]

Originally Posted by Soren

Btw, you meant the XFD-1 right ?

For some reason, the Phantom was orginally called the XFD-1 but D is a designation of Douglas, so the designation was changed to XFH-1, since H is the McDonnell letter.

[davparlr]

Originally Posted by Soren

As to the Me-262's swept wings, well no I don't believe they were swept for reasons of load distribution, Messerschmidt knew about the aerodynamic benefits of sweep which would be why he incoperated this into the Me-262 design.

Wikipedia contains the following:

"The production Me 262 had a leading edge sweep of 18.5° primarily to properly position the center of lift relative to the center of mass and not for the aerodynamic benefit of increasing the critical Mach number of the wing (the sweep was too slight to achieve any significant advantage)"

Which traces back to a NASA document.

This in turn references the following:

Boyne, Walterj.: Messerschmitt Me 262, Arrow to the Future (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1980).

I don't know the expertise of this writer, so I have no opinion of his data. I think there was some translation changes between the references.

[FLYBOYJ]

Originally Posted by davparlr

"The production Me 262 had a leading edge sweep of 18.5° primarily to properly position the center of lift relative to the center of mass and not for the aerodynamic benefit of increasing the critical Mach number of the wing (the sweep was too slight to achieve any significant advantage)"

Which traces back to a NASA document.

I believe this this was the "Status Quo" for the incorportation of swept wings during this period and the benifits of increasing critical mach number was dicovered after the fact. Take a look at the XP-55 Acender. It's predessor the CW-24B incorporated at least a 45 degree swept back wing and that was flying in late 1941.

[Udet]

Flyboy and/or Soren:

Do you know if there were any documented mock air-combats between the Me 262 and P-51 or P-47?

They captured several intact Me 262s when it all ended; i have papers of some flight tests...but have not found anything regarding mock dogfights.

[davparlr]

Originally Posted by FLYBOYJ

I believe this this was the "Status Quo" for the incorportation of swept wings during this period and the benifits of increasing critical mach number was dicovered after the fact. Take a look at the XP-55 Acender. It's predessor the CW-24B incorporated at least a 45 degree swept back wing and that was flying in late 1941.

and the Northrop XP-56, oh, and let's not forget the famous transonic C-47!

[W@CC0]

Originally Posted by davparlr

Probably, but again, unknown problems. I think the G0-229 was a long way from becoming an effective war bird. Too advanced for the technology available. Tank seemed to have some problems with the Ta-183 in Argentina, modifing the wing installation.

I completely disagree with what you say on the Horton IX/gotha 229. The first prototype did 4 very satisfying test flights, before it crash landed due to an engine failure. The plane was allmost completely build from wood and welded steel tubes, not so advanced huh. The plane flew well, so the concept worked. Fact is, only the V1 flew. When allied troops overran the gotha factories, some 5 or 6 more prototypes were discouvered in various states of readiness. Some even with weapon bays. Sadly for the german warfare machine, gotha didn't had enough skilled woodworkers, unbombed workshop space and influence to make the fighters in a high tempo. Other projects were found to be more urgent. If the Horton plane got the same recourses availible as for messerschmitt or focke wulf projects, a lot more planes would have flown.

On the Ta-183,
The only thing that actually was "wrong" with the huck, was that it didn't had wing fences. In a turn, the air would just follow the leading edge of the wing or run parrallell with the wing's leading edge, and so, no lift would be produced anymore and the plane would fall down. On the pulqui II, this was resolved by putting fences on the wing (small fin like things, in somewhere in the middle of the wing.) The russians did the same on the mig 15.

Tom

[FLYBOYJ]

Originally Posted by Udet

Flyboy and/or Soren:

Do you know if there were any documented mock air-combats between the Me 262 and P-51 or P-47?

They captured several intact Me 262s when it all ended; i have papers of some flight tests...but have not found anything regarding mock dogfights.

As far as I know there wasn't but I could be wrong.

I know "Watson Wizards" were the first group of US pilots to fly the Me 262 and I think they were just overwhelmed to fly the aircraft. Seems like they just zoomed around Germany and France after the war and went home. The tests done at Wright Patterson after the war made comparisons with the P-80 but I couldn't find anything else against other aircraft. Don’t know if the Brits did anything as well.

I think one of the reasons why they didn't do air-to-air testing because of the reliability factor. When the AAF did the Me 262/ P-80 performance tests they went through 4 engines.

[Udet]

Flyboy: thanks for the response. I was aware of the Wizards being the first ones to fly the Me 262.

I too have searched in England, but to no avail; it is my belief they did not carry out any mock aerial combat that got documented.

I ask this because in my guncamera footage collection (of Luftwaffe fighters shooting down USAAF fighters), there is this incident of some Luftwaffe plane that is out pursuing an enemy plane, as the German closes in -real fast- the enemy plane he´s after turned out to be a Mustang; he attempted evasive action by turning as tight is it seemed to have been possible to the poor guy in the cockpit, the German plane managed to remain inside the P-51s turning and practically shoot overhead the USAer, the whole burst smashing directly into the cockpit...he got so close you can almost see inside the bubble canopy of the P-51 D. If you ask me, i tell you is a horrible sight, a pilot receiving cannon fire on top of his head.

I once lent the CD to someone who knows, and it was his believe the killer had been a Me 262. A complete expert since he did not fire until getting real close, assuring the destruction of the enemy plane.

I know what the value of guncamera footage can be, but this film made me beginning to wonder if the allied version that points out to the fact the Me 262 "was dead meat if it turned" is true. Too bad i am a low tech creep and do not know how to convert the episode into .mpeg file to include it here.