# Horton HO 229 Vs Vampire...



## Seawitch (Apr 10, 2015)

Had WW2 dragged on a year or two longer the the Horton HO 229 and early Vampire jets may have met, I note the Hortons higher cieling and speed, that said, which do you think is best and would have fared better if flown by equal pilots?


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## GregP (Apr 10, 2015)

I'm not sure the Hortens could have even flown on one engine, much less been a fighter. I have yet to see a good flight report on it. Yes, I know it flew, but because it did does not mean it was suitable as a fighter or even as a service aircraft.

That said, had it proven a good aircraft, then I'd take the Vampire in a dogfight simply because it has conventional controls and can be trown about the sky. Not too sure about the Horten. Our own (Planes of Fame) Northrop N9M-B Flying Wing flies OK, but it won't win any fights agianst a maneuverable aircraft. I think the Ho.229 was likely in the same boat.


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## GrauGeist (Apr 10, 2015)

The HO-IX was never really put through combat trials, so any comparison would be pure speculation. It *should* have done well based on it's design and armament, but how well would it have handled battle damage? Again, it's anyone's guess but I would think without conventional control surfaces, it would not have sustained damage well at all.

And you can't compare Northrop's N9M to the Ho-IX, that's like comparing the F-16 to a MiG-15. Instead, perhaps compare the N9M to the Ho-V, as both were identical in most respects (size, weight, engines, etc.)


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## kool kitty89 (Apr 10, 2015)

GregP said:


> I'm not sure the Hortens could have even flown on one engine, much less been a fighter. I have yet to see a good flight report on it. Yes, I know it flew, but because it did does not mean it was suitable as a fighter or even as a service aircraft.
> 
> That said, has it proven a good aircraft, then I'd take the Vampire in a dogfight simply because it has conventional controls and can be trown about the sky. Not too sure about the Horten. Our own (Planes of Fame) Northrop N9M-B Flying Wing flies OK, but it won't win any fights agianst a maneuverable aircraft. I think the Ho.229 was likely in the same boat.


It might have made a good interceptor, recon aircraft, and possibly fighter-bomber, but probably not great for fighter vs fighter combat. Then again, the Me 262 wasn't very good as a dogfighter (potentially good for boom and zoom bouncing and energy tactics against fighter formations and probably easier to push into some limited amounts of maneuvering than the 229, but still limited).

The Ho 229 might have been able to manage a better sustained turn-rate than the 262 and better energy retention, but roll rate and high speed maneuvering (including performance for instantaneous high-G turns -not sustained) would be important to consider.

Plus, stable as it might have been, flying wings tend to be tricky in extreme stall conditions and sudden cases of asymmetric thrust (like engine flameout). The drag/break rudder system for lateral control might have been good enough to allow at least reasonable performance as a gun platform, but likely less so during any heavy maneuvering. (so again, probably best for high-speed, linear passes)

The BMW 003 might have been a better engine for it given the lower weight, greater reliability, better acceleration, better ability (longer TBO, better throttle control/limiter) to re-start in flight, and higher peak thrust with overrev. Plus the smaller size might have come in as an added bonus for better hiding radar reflections near the intake and exhaust.

The later Jumo 004D and E models should have helped too.

The other big problem was just manufacturing of both prototypes and preparing for mass production. Wood design or not, by the time it was nearing flight readiness, the manufacturing infrastructure in Germany meant the materials and labor resources were major hindrances to development and production. (the glue issues in particular wreaked havoc with every wooden aircraft design in the late war period) And then you had conflicting management/political issues between the Horton brothers and Gotha.


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## GregP (Apr 10, 2015)

I was mentally comparing flight characteristics, not performance numbers. The Horten and our N9M-B have very similar shapes and should handle quite a bit like one another.


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## davparlr (Apr 11, 2015)

As discussed before, I do not think the the Go 229 was any where near prime time. As noted before, it had not gone through any rigorous testing and with zero yaw stability and tight pitch stability, I think that there would have been some major redesigns to fix unknown unknowns these types of design generated, especially pre design computer days. Vertical stabilizers ala XP-56 would probably be needed (Northrop had much more experience with flying wing aircraft). Most likely more sophisticated flight control systems would most likely have been needed to make this aircraft a viable fighter plane. In my opinion, it would not be viable until late 40s or early 50s. I may have had good potential at that time, but unlike the delta wing and the swept wing, the concept was not picked up by post war designers, maybe because of recognized problems.

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## Seawitch (Apr 11, 2015)

Thanks for these answerss, they are interesting. Kool Kitty...one Horton indeed crashed after an engine flame out. What prompted the question waas that the Germans put one up against a Messerschmit 262 which it out performed in some ways...see that in this video at about point 30.40 
_View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqgfjXaJxV8_


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## GregP (Apr 11, 2015)

Don't think it actually DID outperform the Me 262 except on paper.


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## ScreamingLighting (Apr 11, 2015)

The Vampire out-turns the Horton at realistic early jet speeds. The Ho-229 probably had a better climb/dive, but the plane itself would be god-awful to fly. Technically it might have a better sustained turning radius than the 262, but its extremely high stall speed and lack of rudder severely hamper it. In the hands of Erich Hartmann vs a greenhorn, the Horton might win. But otherwise, I think the Horten is limited to a few brief hit-and-run passes before disengaging.


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## GrauGeist (Apr 11, 2015)

Seawitch said:


> Had WW2 dragged on a year or two longer the the Horton HO 229 and early Vampire jets may have met, I note the Hortons higher cieling and speed, that said, which do you think is best and would have fared better if flown by equal pilots?


I think more realistically, you would have seen combat between the more conventional types like the Me262 (including the HG series), the He162 (and it's successors), the Ta183 and the P.1101. On the Allied side, the British had the Meteor and the Vampire and the U.S. had the P-80 and a few other types of mixed power in the works. Of course, if a better powerplant were available, the U.S. may have re-evaluated the P-59.
The Soviets were a little behind the game, and the MiG-9 was reliant on captured German technology to make it happen much like the Su-9.

The Ho-IX was certainly a capable platform, but there were other jets in the Luftwaffe that could perform any particular task better. This is all assuming, of course, that Germany were able to remain in the game long enough to make all that happen.


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## stona (Apr 12, 2015)

GregP said:


> Don't think it actually DID outperform the Me 262 except on paper.



The only evidence for this comes from Ziller's telephone reports to Reimar Horten. Ziller said that he had flown the H IX in joint manoeuvring tests with an Me 262. No details of the Me 262 are known, but it was probably one of the three that Ziller had flown as part of his jet training.
Ziller claimed that the H IX could out turn and out climb the Me 262, but under what conditions we don't know. There certainly wasn't a rigorous series of comparative flights with proper data collection.


A decision was taken to use the H IX V1 glider prototype to train the pilots of JG 400 for their planned transition to the Ho 229. One experienced pilot, Heinz Scheidhauer, reckoned that the Me 163, which he had flown as a glider, was more manoeuvrable and out turned the H IX. 

Opinions differ, but with so little data it is impossible to make any serious appraisal of the potential performance of a production version of any of the Horten designs. There are plenty of paper estimates but how good they are we'll never know. The Hortens estimated a top speed of 950-970 kph for their Ho 229 V2 and V3 prototypes. Ziller, their own test pilot, doubted they could make 900 kph.

Jets fly fast and Reimar Horten admitted that, _"in fast flight, the flying wing is only superior to a conventional aircraft when wing loading are equal." _Post war he preferred to emphasise characteristics such as a high ceiling, low landing speed and manoeuvrability that the relatively low wing loading of his designs offered. He had no choice as by this time (1949/50) conventional aircraft were exceeding the performance goals set for the H IX. 

Cheers

Steve

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## Juha (Apr 12, 2015)

I have grave doubts on the claim that the Ho 229 proto would have ourmanoeuvred a Me 262, IIRC the proto crashed on its 3rd test flight killing Ziller, so the joint manoeuvring tests would have had been flown on the 2nd test flight, which is difficult to believe, especially when the proto in question was so radical. IIRC the document film says that the reproduction was tested against the frequency used by CH radars but the duty to pick up low level intruders was from 1942 onwards the job of CHEL stations (Types 13 and 14) which worked 3 GHz range (10 cm), so on entirely different frequency band than CH stations. IMHO not the most realistic docu.

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## stona (Apr 12, 2015)

Juha said:


> I have grave doubts on the claim that the Ho 229 proto would have ourmanoeuvred a Me 262, IIRC the proto crashed on its 3rd test flight killing Ziller, so the joint manoeuvring tests would have had been flown on the 2nd test flight, which is difficult to believe, especially when the proto in question was so radical..



Well, since Ziller and Horten are both dead you can either believe the account (which originates in Reimar Horten's post war interviews) or not. If Ziller did indeed manoeuvre the H IX with an Me 262 as claimed it would have been on one of the earliest flights. In any case it is hardly compelling evidence. 
Theoretically the H IX should easily have out climbed the Me 262. As for turning, there are far too many variables for Ziller's opinion, even if substantiated, to be any more than that...his opinion formed on one less than rigorous flight test.
Cheers
Steve


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## GregP (Apr 12, 2015)

I have absolutely no trouble believing the Horten could out-turn a 262. It is, after all, a flying wing and the Me 262 was NOT a dogfighter. I have trouble believing you could throw the Horten around the sky with abandon given the handling idoisyncrasies of flying wings without vertical tails. So once in a turn, yes, but the Me 262 would likely out-roll the Horten and have none of the handling problems if anything is a bit out of kilter, airflow-wise.

I've never seen a real flying wing do aerobatics, even in old film clips, so I have no idea how they handle in hard-maneuvering flight. I HAVE seen a few RC flying wings do some amazing things, but the flying characteristics of an overpowered foam flying wing probably don't compare well with those of a real aircraft with turbojets in it. AT least I would not think so. And several people have been killed in them just trying to fly around in more or less level flight. Harry Crosby comes to mind.


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## GrauGeist (Apr 12, 2015)

Even a modern flying wing builder, Gilbert Davis, had difficulties with some of his aircraft, one of which suffered a mechanical failure, resulting in a crash that broke his back. It were these injuries that incapacitated him, preventing any further work on his aircraft and eventually caused led to his death due to complications.


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## Juha (Apr 13, 2015)

GregP said:


> I have absolutely no trouble believing the Horten could out-turn a 262...



I don't have oppinion on that, what I doubt is that so radically new proto would have taking part in mock dogfight against a service fighter on its 2nd test flight. IIHUC Ziller wasn't in condition to telephone anybody after the 3rd and last flight of the V2.


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## stona (Apr 13, 2015)

Juha said:


> I don't have oppinion on that, what I doubt is that so radically new proto would have taking part in mock dogfight against a service fighter on its 2nd test flight.



Horten never claimed that Ziller had flown a mock dogfight against an Me 262. He specifically said they had done some 'joint manoeuvring', which is not the same thing. We can only guess what this might have involved, but given that the H IX was on one of its first flights Ziller was hardly likely to have pushed it far. He was initially under instructions not to exceed 500 kph or 4,000m altitude. On the third and fatal flight a speed of 795 kph at 2,000m was estimated from the ground.

Suppose that the two aircraft flew at a given speed and altitude and then both climbed at their maximum rate under these conditions. The H IX should out climb the Me 262 from most starting points and that's what Ziller claimed. Likewise they may have made some turns together which gave Ziller the impression the H IX could out turn the Me 262. Whatever they did together, it was hardly rigorous flight testing.

Ziller was also reporting to his boss who was after a contract, though the flights were observed by an engineer from the RLM (Franz Binder). The Hortens had made unsubstantiated claims for their designs before and Reimar would do so again long after the war. It worked because the order for the three prototypes (V3-V5) was confirmed along with ten 'Zerstorer' prototypes (V6-V15) and 40 initial A-0 series production aircraft.

Cheers

Steve

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## Juha (Apr 13, 2015)

Hello Stona
I was commenting the claim on the video, which stated that there was a mock dogfight. I had seen the program earlier, shown here a couple yees ago and checked from the link that my recollection was right, in it they claimed a mock dogfight between V2 and a Me 262. That's what I find hard to believe. And thanks for the info on what Ziller really told.

Juha


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## stona (Apr 13, 2015)

Juha said:


> Hello Stona
> I was commenting the claim on the video, which stated that there was a mock dogfight.
> Juha



No worries. I have seen that program and the dogfight claim is one of many that are 'economical the truth', in the words of a senior British civil servant. 
Like all the best myths such claims have a basis in fact. Extrapolating joint manoeuvring to a dogfight is something that many less aware of what the two terms really mean might find easy to swallow. Such things, and there are plenty more in that video, tend to stick in my throat 
Cheers
Steve


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## Milosh (Apr 13, 2015)

Is that a typo stona > H XI?


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## stona (Apr 13, 2015)

Milosh said:


> Is that a typo stona > H XI?



Yep  I've changed it to H IX above.

Cheers

Steve


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## GregP (Apr 13, 2015)

I’ll explain why I said what I said above. Numbers from Wiki. I am comparing the Ho.229 A (V3) and the Me 262 A-1a.
1) The Ho.229 had more than twice the wing area of the Me 262 but the weights weren’t all that different while the thrust was almost the same. The Ho.229 had an empty thrust to weight ratio of 0.39 and a normal thrust to weight ratio of 0.26. The Me 262 had an empty thrust to weight ratio of 0.47 and a normal thrust to weight ratio of 0.28. So they were about the same power wise when at normal weight and every minute they flew the Me 262 got relatively more powerful, thrust-to-weight-wise.

2) The Ho.229 had an empty wing loading of 18.8 lbs / sq ft and a normal wing loading of 28.2 lbs / sq ft. The Me 262 had an empty wing loading of 35.8 lbs / sq ft and a normal wing loading of 61.0 lbs / sq ft. While wing loading might not always give a direct indication of maneuverability, when the disparity is that high, it does. No matter what condition they met in, the Horten was much more lightly loaded than the Me 262. Ergo, it probably could turn better, all else being equal (I know all else was NOT equal all the time).

3) According to Wiki the Ho.229 A had a projected service ceiling of 52,000 feet while the Me 262 A had a servicer ceiling of 37.565 feet. They both used the Junkers Jumo 004 turbojet and I’m not convinced the Jumo 004 could run at 52,000 feet. Maybe … but maybe not. The service ceiling of the Ho.229 should be higher than the Me 262 if only due to wing loading delta, but I’m not sure it would get that high. In the real world, it never did.

Everything else is conjecture and also due to the fact that I know the pilot of our Northrop N9M-B Flying Wing of similar configuration. He would never pull that aircraft into a stalling turn because it would likely tumble like a Maple leaf in a stall. So while the wing loading says it will turn well, the real world situation is it will turn better if the pilot does it and is comfortable with the stall margin. If the Me 262 was making … say … 500 mph and loaded up into a 5 g turn, the Horten could easily out-turn it a similar speed only by turning at a higher g-level. I don’t know the limit strength of the Ho.229, but it might be constrained by airframe strength to be no more maneuverable at higher speeds than the Me 262. At lower speeds it SHOULD have a better maneuvering envelope than the Me 262 since it should have the capability to generate considerably more lift than the Me 262.


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## thedab (Apr 13, 2015)

I have seen is a minutes of a meeting concerning comparison flights between Me262 and the Ar234 at E-Stelle Rechlin in late 44

which does say that the 262 has excessive elevator forces,that it can not pull up at speed,and the forces acting on the ailerons was too high

so going by that, it not going to take much to out manoeuvre a 262 at any speed.


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## GrauGeist (Apr 13, 2015)

thedab said:


> I have seen is a minutes of a meeting concerning comparison flights between Me262 and the Ar234 at E-Stelle Rechlin in late 44
> 
> which does say that the 262 has excessive elevator forces,that it can not pull up at speed,and the forces acting on the ailerons was too high
> 
> so going by that, it not going to take much to out manoeuvre a 262 at any speed.


And yet there's a good number of Luftwaffe pilots that would disagree with your statement.

Additionally, there were several "Experten" who were successful at engaging and defeating Allied fighters with their Me262.


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## GregP (Apr 13, 2015)

It easy to shoot someone down if you get them from ambush. Not very sure any Me 262's were successful in dogfighting an opponent who was aware of them.


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## GrauGeist (Apr 13, 2015)

why are people so surprised that the Me262 could stand and fight?

This wasn't a DC-2, people...it was a twin-engined turbojet that was heavily armed. Yes, it could stand and fight, especially with an experienced pilot at the stick.

Quite a few Allied pilots found this out.


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## GregP (Apr 14, 2015)

I'm not surprised, I just don't believe it.

In WWII the Me 262 killed piston fighters mostly from ambush. One cannon hit tended to "slow up" the piston airplane a lot, sometimes in big pieces.

If anyone got shot down in a dogfight with one or several, he wasn't paying much attention to the Me 262 that actually got him, and that wasn't all that unusual. It was mostly the one that you didn't see that got you.

If any piston fighter SAW the Me 262 that was attacking him, it wasn't all that hard to get out of his attack path. If you didn't see him ... then it was your time.

Bombers weren't all that able to dodge the Me 262, especially in formation. They don't change direction as quickly as fighters. But you KNOW that, Graugeist.

My post wasn't aimed at you and this isn't an argument.

It's just what I have heard from, oh ... maybe 250 pilots from WWII. That's WAY more than enough for me to believe it. Versus the P-80 it would have been a fight. Versus the P-51 was about as good a versus a P-26 ... it just changes direction too rapidly for an Me 262 to mostly follow. Some timing errors might have gotten some, sure, but not a lot relative to what was attempted.

I'm not trying to convince you of anything. It's just what I think ... by myself along with a bunch of former WWII fighter pilots.

It might or might not be that way in a flight simulator. I pretty much quit flying them some time back when I discovered the P-51 in most flight sims usually doesn't mimic a real P-51 very well except near straight and level flight. Get a Microsoft Flight Sim P-51 into a turning fight and it quickly becomes a pile of dung. A real one doesn't.


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## GrauGeist (Apr 14, 2015)

There's several instances where the Me262 overtook a PRU, like an F-5 and shot it down...but the PRU pilot was counting on speed as a defense. Of course, this wouldn't work with the Me262 in pursuit.

But there's some good accounts where the Me262s were tearing up a bomber formation and were confronted by furious escorts and the pilots of the Me262s had to stand their ground. The Me262 could outclimb just about any piston powered fighter when there was advanced warning, but when bounced by escorts with a speed and altitude advantage, there was no alternative. Stand and fight or get shot down.


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## GregP (Apr 14, 2015)

OK.


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## thedab (Apr 14, 2015)

it from a German test

and did they can you match their claims with planes shot down?


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## Koopernic (Apr 14, 2015)

The Horton Ho 229 was designed as a fighter or strike bomber. It had a bomb bay. Gotha was involved only so much as providing a manufacturing facility.

It conformed to Hermann Goering's edict that he would only support new fighters with a 1000km/h x 1000km(range radius) and 1000kg(bomb load).

It was armed with a pair of 30mm canon because it was thought it would be a capable fighter as well. Given its performance it would ideally never meet a Vampire as a bomber: it was far faster due to the Vampire's relatively (to Me 262 and Meteor III/IV) low Mach limit.

A level bombing sight was probably not necessary. Electronic aiming could be done by the Luftwaffe's single engine aircraft using EGON and Zyklops. The Go 229 had air brakes. It would be a suitable candidate for the Luftwaffe's toss bombing sight the TSA 2D which was being combat tested successfully on the Me 262 and due to the good view over the nose the Stuvi 5B computing dive and shallow angle slide bombing site would also be good.

Dr Kurt Tank conducted an analysis of flying wing versus conventional configuration aircraft. His broad conclusion was that in General that flying wings offer no advantage in speed or other areas of performance but do offer an notable advantage in altitude due to their lower wing loading. He however concluded that due to the extra flight testing required of a flying wing that it would take longer to reach service. I would tend to think range was a little better as well.

Things went slightly wrong in that the aircraft was designed around the BMW 003, then upgraded to the Junkers Jumo 004 which was progressing faster and more powerful. At one point Junkers had moved an accessories gearbox. Unfortunately nobody informed Horton (this is today still and all too common mistake in fast moving tech projects) and this gearbox now went though the spar area and would have forced the spar to be too thin in that area. The short term solution was to thicken the wing/fuselage in the centre area slightly. It was thought this might effect mach limit and the solution was to be a slight scaling up of the aircraft to restore fineness. The first two prototype were to be test beds and the subsequent ones slight scaling ups (about 5%). The final versions were already under construction. It is these units that incidentally would have incorporated that supposed 'anti radar' sandwich ply.

The Germans didn't exactly have an oversupply of Ecuadorian balsa as DeHaviland had so the sandwich material they used was formholz (plastic wood) consisting of sawdust, glue and graphite(charcoal) to form a lightweight 1 inch thick 'filler' between plys. Graphite, as was already being used in tires, was the original 'nano' material and added strength. It also was semi conducting and would have partially absorbed radar waves rather than reflecting them back to the enemies radar or transmitting them only to be scattered by underlying metallic structures. Furthermore the absence of propellers and radar traps such as the area between wing and tail was absent.

One of the types of radar absorbers the German navy used for masthead stealth was a "Jaumann Absrober". One can make a Jauman absorbers by impregnating paper/cardboard/plastic with graphite. By layering several sheets (say 7 is about what was used) starting with a low density of graphite to high raising in exponential fashion radar will be absorbed. Such an absorber should be about half a wavelength thick but will work well from 1/4 upwards. 1 inch is perfect for both 9cm and 3cm radar.

The mental analogy would be the difference between a sea wave hitting a flat sea wall (causing a perfect reflection) versus it hitting a sloped shore line with a variety of rocks that absorb the wave. Without the exponential layering the wooden construction with graphite would still absorb radar but nowhere near as well.
We do know the Hortons were interested in radar 'camouflage' and may have encountered the work of German stealth material researchers such as Jaumann. The work tended to be focused on U-boats masts and conning towers but also efforts to hide targets from ground mapping radar (mainly by spoofing with corner reflectors).

The Ho 229 did have a slight pitch instability which died away in a few oscillations but could interfere in aiming, it was eliminated by partial deployment of the air brakes but gunnery trials were undertaken to determined how the air brakes it would be used air to air combat. There may have been an aerodynamic solution but the rate gyroscopic yaw damper that had been developed in Germany in 1942 could have been applied in pitch just as well.

The Me 262 had good handling and an excellent turn rate, it couldn't turn inside many aircraft but it could run around the outside of many aircraft. Any WW2 aircraft had stiff controls over 400mph including Spitfire, Meteor, Mustang. With the Me 262 the complains came in at about 480mph, one temporary solution was a telescoping joystick to give the pilot extra leveredge in the roomy cockpit for high force small deflections. The only true way around it is power controls. You might try spring balance tabs but would then face the danger of flutter and they also take a long time to debug due to flutter and overbalancing at high mach, you also lower the roll rate at low speed. Only the P-38 had these on a combat aircraft. The non combat P-80 had power controls as did the Dornier Do 335.

A small turn radios is only an problem for an opponent if he doesn't have a speed or climb advantage, the Me 262 did.


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## kool kitty89 (Apr 14, 2015)

GregP said:


> 1) The Ho.229 had more than twice the wing area of the Me 262 but the weights weren’t all that different while the thrust was almost the same. The Ho.229 had an empty thrust to weight ratio of 0.39 and a normal thrust to weight ratio of 0.26. The Me 262 had an empty thrust to weight ratio of 0.47 and a normal thrust to weight ratio of 0.28. So they were about the same power wise when at normal weight and every minute they flew the Me 262 got relatively more powerful, thrust-to-weight-wise.


Lift to drag ratio was likely better on the Ho 229 and thrust/weight wasn't much worse, so sustained turn rate and energy lost in maneuvers was likely lower, but (even without considering stall characteristics) the Me 262 might have been able to turn tighter for short periods at the expense of losing more energy. (if G-forces weren't the primary limiting factor, the LE slats would have come into play and even if the CLmax wasn't higher than on the Ho 229, the critical Angle of Attack should have been much higher, good for pulling sharp turns to get a lead on a target or even force a high speed stall without spinning)




> 3) According to Wiki the Ho.229 A had a projected service ceiling of 52,000 feet while the Me 262 A had a servicer ceiling of 37.565 feet. They both used the Junkers Jumo 004 turbojet and I’m not convinced the Jumo 004 could run at 52,000 feet. Maybe … but maybe not. The service ceiling of the Ho.229 should be higher than the Me 262 if only due to wing loading delta, but I’m not sure it would get that high. In the real world, it never did.


52,000 ft might have been closer to the absolute ceiling. It might be worth noting that the absolute ceiling of the XP-59A was just short of 48,000 ft, though I forget which engines it managed that with. Plus it was pressurized. In an unpressurized cockpit, pilots might not have fared well in the 50,000 ft range. (then again a number of other first gen jet fighters managed >40k ft ceilings without cockpit pressurization)



> Everything lese is conjecture and also due to the fact that I know the pilot of our Northrop N9M-B Flying Wing of similar configuration. He would never pull that aircraft into a stalling turn because it would likely tumble like a Maple leaf in a stall. So while the wing loading says it will turn well, the real world situation is it will turn better if the pilot does it and is comfortable with the stall margin. If the Me 262 was making … say … 500 mph and loaded up into a 5 g turn, the Horten could easily out-turn it a similar speed only by turning at a higher g-level. I don’t know the limit strength of the Ho.229, but it might be constrained by airframe strength to be no more maneuverable at higher speeds than the Me 262. At lower speeds it SHOULD have a better maneuvering envelope than the Me 262 since it should have the capability to generate considerably more lift than the Me 262.


Adding leading edge slats or fixed slots near the wing tips might allow for more aggressive maneuvering without fear of dangerous stall+tumbling. (the Me 163 featured slots, I'm not sure if that was one of the reasons, but with such a tailless design, it might have had similar risks without them) The YB-49 had wing-tip slots as well, but I think they were only open for takeoff/landing as with flaps. (not retractable like automatic slats, but they had flaps/doors that could open and close the LE slots -I wonder if some of the YB-49's dangerous stall characteristics would have been aided more if they'd compromised for fixed open slots at the cost of drag)

But as it was, the stall region likely was very dangerous to approach in high speed flight.





GregP said:


> I'm not surprised, I just don't believe it.
> 
> In WWII the Me 262 killed piston fighters mostly from ambush. One cannon hit tended to "slow up" the piston airplane a lot, sometimes in big pieces.


Me 262s would make sense to 'dogfight' using energy tactics, dive boom and zoom-climb and repeat, don't drop to speeds where prop thrust/weight is greater than jet thrust/weight (ie much below 350~400 MPH depending on altitude) and break off before loosing too much energy from successive passes. Turning fights would be no good due to how fast you'd bleed away energy. The thrust to weight ratio was just way too poor with early jets to perform well at low speeds, and with the Me 262 relying on LE slats for peak lift, the L/D ratio would be horrible once you got near stalling. (maybe useful for pulling a split-S while on the cusp of a stall at the peak of a zoom climb, but a really bad idea to try on the level in the thick with piston engine fighters)

That said, that would only make sense if the jets were actually focused on taking on fighters and with limited numbers, resources, and endurance, and the fact they were bomber interceptors, not fighter interceptors. With the high closing speeds, the trajectory and time in flight of the MK-108 might have been more problematic too. (and higher G-forces for tight turns for leading a target -before breaking off to zoom away) 4x MG 151/20s or even 151/15s for their high velocity would have been much better for killing fighters. (a BMW-003 powered variant should have fared better too, especially with overrev)



> It might or might not be that way in a flight simulator. I pretty much quit flying them some time back when I discovered the P-51 in most flight sims usually doesn't mimic a real P-51 very well except near straight and level flight. Get a Microsoft Flight Sim P-51 into a turning fight and it quickly becomes a pile of dung. A real one doesn't.


I remember the old(ish) IL-2 combat sims being fairly faithful as far as reported flight characteristics went with a few exceptions (P-38 comes to mind). I'm pretty sure the rear-tank CoG instability dynamics were included there.

Me 262s were pretty vulnerable to the tactics one would expect and any one caught slow and without an altitude advantage would be an easy kill if it didn't just bug out and dive ... or would be meat if caught slow on the deck with no room to dive away. Engines were really sensitive too, though I think they exaggerated the turbine failures a bit. (getting simple flame-outs were nearly impossible, but throttling up too quickly could easily cause turbine damage or very often engine fires -that may have actually been accurate, but most articles I've read simply note tendency to flame out or possibly overheat the turbine -combustion runs rich/hot by over-throttling, not usually catch fire)









GrauGeist said:


> And yet there's a good number of Luftwaffe pilots that would disagree with your statement.
> 
> Additionally, there were several "Experten" who were successful at engaging and defeating Allied fighters with their Me262.


Short of reaching critical mach (mach .84~.86 depending on reports -latter was Messerschmitt's official figure), the Me 262 was usually repoted in having relatively light and responsive controls. Near critical mach, the elevator tended to stiffen and the nose tucked under, though ailerons remained effective. (I forget about rudder, but the Ailerons make sense given the thin airfoil and distance from the wingroot/fuselage shockwave propagation)


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## stona (Apr 14, 2015)

The Me 262 claimed 85 US fighters though the actual figure is much lower. It's something I looked into a couple of years ago. Tallying with allied losses is quite difficult, but from various sources (Foreman and Harvey's 'Me 262 Combat Diary' is good for one side, my copy is on loan, soon to return) I came to the conclusion that the actual US fighter losses to the Me 262 may have been around a quarter of that number. It's hardly relevant at all. 

The Me 262 was not a dogfighter, nor was it targeting the US escorts. Any Me 262 pilot who slowed down and engaged in a turning fight with a piston engine fighter deserved to get shot down

Cheers

Steve

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## GregP (Apr 14, 2015)

A small turn raduius is a problem whenever you attempt to shoot at anything that turns better than you do. I am assuming the pilot of the thing you are shooting at sees you, of course. If he doesn't, then you get an ambush kill easily.

The slower target can't run away, of cousre but if it is a piston, it probably has MUCH more fuel and loiter time than you do in an early jet.

Where do you get the idea that a plane that turns inside you is easy prey? 

It might be if you have 2 - 4- 6 planes in your formation but, one on one, he can't run away but CAN evade and shoot YOU down if you aren't careful in your attacks.

Do you really belive an Me 262 could shoot down, say, a Red Bull air racer if the pilot SAW the attack coming? If so, we think VERY differently. If so, that's OK, I just don't agree and it isn't a big deal. We already KNOW how the Me 262 did in the war. Me 262 pilots claimed 542 Allied kills after introduction in April 1944. So it had almost exactly ONE year to fight against the Allies. That's 45 klills a month.

The P-51 was introduced in the Merlin-powered variant in Dec 43. That gives it 18 months of combat in which it shot down 4,950 aircraft (and a very similar number on the ground which I discount from aerial combat). That's 275 a month.

How impresive IS the Me 262? To me, from a technological standpoint, VERY. From an effectiveness standpoint, it doesn't rank very high.

I really LIKE the Ta 152, but as a combat aircraft it SUCKED when you look at the effort expended versus the combat results. Can't say the same for the Fw 190 series in general, which was excellent, as was the BF 109, which is probably THE most effective combat fighter aircraft of all times. I'm sure the war situation and the fact that the "production" Ta 152's were really production prototypes with no spare and a LOT of Allied hunters in the sky affected that a lot. The standard was high but the wartime effect was almost nil.

The wartime effect of the Me 262 was similarly very low though respectable, and it DID portend a huge change in aerial warfare in the near future and set the stage for many future fighters. The Ta 152 would doubtlessly have done the same if we had continued with piston fighters, shich we didn't ... and it didn't.

The Me 262 was definitely NOT a dogfighter and EVERYTHING we flew could out-turn it easily. Not outgun, outclimb, or go faster ... just out-turn. It was enough to spell the end of the Me 262.

Captain Eric Brown, Chief Naval Test Pilot and C.O. Captured Enemy Aircraft Flight Royal Aircraft Establishment, who tested the Me 262 noted: "This was a Blitzkrieg aircraft. You whack in at your bomber. It was never meant to be a dogfighter, it was meant to be a destroyer of bombers... The great problem with it was it did not have dive brakes. For example, if you want to fight and destroy a B-17, you come in on a dive. The 30mm cannon were not so accurate beyond 600 meters. So you normally came in at 600 yards and would open fire on your B-17. And your closing speed was still high and since you had to break away at 200 meters to avoid a collision, you only had two seconds firing time. Now, in two seconds, you can't sight. You can fire randomly and hope for the best. If you want to sight and fire, you need to double that time to four seconds. And with dive brakes, you could have done that."[44]

Eventually, German pilots developed new combat tactics to counter Allied bombers' defenses. Me 262s, equipped with R4M rockets, approached from the side of a bomber formation, where their silhouettes were widest, and while still out of range of the bombers' machine guns, fired a salvo of rockets with strongly brisant Hexogen-filled warheads, exactly the same explosive in the shells fired by the Me 262A's quartet of MK 108 cannon. One or two of these rockets could down even the famously rugged B-17 Flying Fortress,[45] from the "metal-shattering" brisant effect of the R4M rockets' explosive warheads, weighing only some 520 grams (17.6 ounces) per projectile out of a total launch weight of 4 kg (8.8 pounds) apiece.

Though this tactic was effective, it came too late to have a real effect on the war, and only small numbers of Me 262s were equipped with the rocket packs.


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## Greyman (Apr 14, 2015)

GregP said:


> Not outgun, outclimb, or go faster ... just out-turn. It was enough to spell the end of the Me 262.



Being outnumbered a billion to one might have had more to do with it.


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## GregP (Apr 14, 2015)

Yup, OBE ... 

Overtaken By Events. Not the fault of the designers, but happened anyway. I believe the Me 262 was a BRILLIANT design that just came at the exact wrong place in time and history. 2 - 3 years earlier and things would have been wildly different, with BOTH sides throwing jets into the war meaning combat with one another.

As it is, the jets didn't really DO much for Germany except cement their technological prowess and ability to cut through red tape when all was lost and desperation set in. If they had done it earlier, jets might have been a WWII meaningful weapon. As it is, they weren't, except as a step forward after the war.

Brilliant foresight. Very bad long-term strategy as a nation. The trick is to do it before you REALLY need it, not as you are being beaten.


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## GregP (Apr 14, 2015)

Yup, OBE ... 

Overtaken By Events. Not the fault of the designers, but happened anyway. I believe the Me 262 was a BRILLIANT design that just came at the exact wrong place in time and history. 2 - 3 years earlier and things would have been wildly different, with BOTH sides throwing jets into the war meaning combat with one another.

As it is, the jets didn't really DO much for Germany except cement their technological prowess and ability to cut through red tape when all was lost and desperation set in. If they had done it earlier, jets might have been a WWII meaningful weapon. As it is, they weren't, except as a step forward after the war.

Brilliant foresight. Very bad long-term strategy as a nation. The trick is to do it before you REALLY need it, not as you are being beaten.


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## thedab (Apr 14, 2015)

Does anyone think shape of the Me 309 look a bit like a 262










put a couple of hoovers under it's wings and you are about there

that German fight test I found is at the back of a Monogram close-up book on the Arado 234


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## GregP (Apr 14, 2015)

Yes, I have always thought they resembled each other and was pretty sure a lot of the Me 262 technology was tried out on the Me 309, but cannot prove it with primary documentation to date. Of course, I haven't looked very hard, either.

Kook Kitty,

The Me 262 is 11% thick at the root and 9% at the tip.

I've seen it written that the Horten had an airfoil that developed most of the lift along the centerline of the airfoil and less at the leading and trailing edges, but have never seen an airfoil number for it, so I have no way to estimate it's stalling characteristics. The writing I saw has also not been verified with any primary sources.

So, why would the critical angle of attack have been much higher for the Ho. 229? Do you have any data supporting that? No agenda and not a real disagreement ... just asking as I don't know much about the airfoil on the Horten.


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## Koopernic (Apr 15, 2015)

thedab said:


> Does anyone think shape of the Me 309 look a bit like a 262
> 
> View attachment 289865
> View attachment 289866
> ...



One of the reasons for the Me 309 was to guarantee the company financially by ensuring it had a state of the art aircraft should the Me 262 project fail, nobody could be sure of the practicality of the Jet engines.

The Me 309 ended up on low priority several times, Wikipedia.de explains this very well. The Me 210 problems (really caused by premature decision to manufacture and untested aircraft), the need to urgently deploy conventional weapons by perfecting their production. The Me 309 flew in June 1942. This was at a time the Me 109G1 was first deploying and 6 months before the Stalingrad disaster and just at the Me 210 problems had been solved technically but were still at their height from the manufacturing point of view.

If it had of been put on higher priority, if the Me 210 issues hadn't have existed to draw away resources, its easy to imagine the first prototype flying 6-9 months earlier. This is at the beginning of Barbarossa (invasion of Soviet Union) but having a flight in say November 1941 and resources not locked up in Me 210 flight testing changes the outlook on this aircraft. There were no fundamental problems with the aircraft. You might need to lengthen the tail a little or increase tail area, even increase wing area etc, strengthen the nose gear leg. There is 6-7 months to do that and in June 1942 Messerschmitt would present a far more refined aircraft.

As far as turning radius, it would be of little consequence of the aircraft is significantly faster. An aircraft with small wings will always be faster than one with large wings so long as other factors in the aircraft are not too retrograde such as engine power. This is especially so for an aircraft such as the Me 309 which had advanced laminar wing profile.


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## GregP (Apr 15, 2015)

How much faster is significantly faster?

I think an F-15 would have a tough time shooting down a Boeing Stearman with a gun if the Stearman saw him coming. It wouldn't be all that hard to get out of his line of flight.

Perhaps I'm wrong. 

If one antgonist is 15% better than the other one it might be tough. But if you are 30%+ better and come in at the full 30%+ difference, you will be shooting at air if the lesser-performing aircraft sees you. 

If he doesn't, you have an ambush easy-kill. Turning radius is NOT irrelevant to a dogfight.

It is to an ambush.

Not to start a fight, just my take on it based on listening to WWII fighter pilots. Many fomer P-40 pilots have said that if the P-36 had 50-cals instead of 30-cals, they would have taken the P-36 for it's better maneuverability if given the choice. Most were NOT given a choice ... when a unit re-equips, it is all or nothing.

I'd have fought VERY hard not to fly an Me 163. It had WONDERFUL performance when the engine was running (several minutes) but only had maybe 120 rounds of ammunition and you had to glide through a hostile sky and belly-land before you could climb out and get away from it. Sounds like suicide even without the volatile fuel issues.


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## stona (Apr 15, 2015)

The Horten wings were not everything their designers claimed for them.
Reimar Horten claimed that he and his brother had come up with the 'bell shaped lift distribution theory' (BSLD). This Reimar finally published in 1981 in 'Soaring' magazine. It also features in his book 'Nurflugel'.

Unfortunately it is yet another *retrospective* claim. Existing Horten drawings show that the H IIIb, H XII and H IX had a linear wing twist not matching the BSLD. Karl Nickel, who did much of the aerodynamic calculations for the Horten designs is on the record stating that none of them had genuine BSLD. Further he said that he never heard of this theory from Reimar before they parted company in 1955. Walter could neither confirm nor deny that he knew of the BSLD theory.

Never trust an old Nazi, especially one that had visited the Sachsenhausen and Nordhausen camps, only to later say that the situation in those camps, as claimed by the allies was _"...a thing of propaganda." _

Cheers

Steve


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## GregP (Apr 15, 2015)

I have heard of the "lift at center span" theory but am not able to verify it was as claimed. I think it was a normal wing but have no corroboration to prove it. look at the pics. I do NOT think it was revolutionary except for being a flying wing to start with at a time when they were relatively unknown.

The real-world performance is in grave doubt, but it was probably quite fast given the design, assuming it survived the test flights.

Some real data would be nice; not propaganda.

The one they have at the NASM is NOT complete and cannot be so since it is missing critical components.


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## stona (Apr 15, 2015)

BSLD theory goes back to Prandtl in the early '30s. The Horten's didn't discover it, but they did claim to have developed it on some of their wings, which they did not. 
The BSLD has considerably less drag than an elliptical lift distribution (the next most theoretically efficient). I've seen the maths but couldn't understand it 
Cheers
Steve


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## stona (Apr 15, 2015)

stona said:


> The Me 262 was not a dogfighter, nor was it targeting the US escorts. Any Me 262 pilot who slowed down and engaged in a turning fight with a piston engine fighter deserved to get shot down



To give some context American fighters claimed 155 Me 262s destroyed and British fighters a further 31. There were many, many more claimed as damaged by both allied air forces, and a few 'probables' in the British system.

A quick excerpt from one of the many combat reports involving Me 262s illustrates the advantage of turning inside the jet's attack. This is from Flt.Lt. HVC Hawker who was flying a 683 Squadron P.R. Spitfire when he had a running 'battle' with a pair of Me 262s.

_"In his last attack he broke to port again and flew about 2,000 yards away parallel to me on my port side. He remained there for about two minutes. I hoped for a moment he had lost me, but I soon realised he was watching me, and probably pacing me, as he was just keeping abreast and must have throttled back. He then pulled over behind and slightly below me and proceeded to overtake me fast. I kept a straight course until he was 600yards astern, then I did the steepest climbing turn that I could make. He followed me for the first quarter of it, and except from the very beginning of the turn he was outside me...as I straightened up on a southerly course, having completed 360 degrees, I saw him at a great distance away, turning to port."_

The Me 262 was a new aircraft and Hawker, an experienced combat pilot, made some notes of _"points that impressed me about the jet aircraft"_ in his combat report. They would be echoed by many of his colleagues, British and American.

_"1. In his first pass at me his speed was 100-150 mph greater than mine.

2. That the jet aircraft was fast enough to attack from below and accelerated rapidly even in a slight climb.

3. His aileron control was remarkably good; he snapped easily into any turn that he made.

4. The actual radius of turn was great, though he might have been able to turn tighter than he did if he had slowed up a bit.

5. The pilot of the second aircraft _[the one involved in the excerpt above] _was very experienced and certainly gave me a feeling of 'mouse and cat'"_

Cheers

Steve


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## kool kitty89 (Apr 15, 2015)

GregP said:


> Captain Eric Brown, Chief Naval Test Pilot and C.O. Captured Enemy Aircraft Flight Royal Aircraft Establishment, who tested the Me 262 noted: "This was a Blitzkrieg aircraft. You whack in at your bomber. It was never meant to be a dogfighter, it was meant to be a destroyer of bombers... The great problem with it was it did not have dive brakes. For example, if you want to fight and destroy a B-17, you come in on a dive. The 30mm cannon were not so accurate beyond 600 meters. So you normally came in at 600 yards and would open fire on your B-17. And your closing speed was still high and since you had to break away at 200 meters to avoid a collision, you only had two seconds firing time. Now, in two seconds, you can't sight. You can fire randomly and hope for the best. If you want to sight and fire, you need to double that time to four seconds. And with dive brakes, you could have done that."[44]


Lack of air brakes seems like a major shortcoming, yes, probably one of the most legitimate complaints regarding the Me 262 that could/should have been addressed. (should have aided landing as well)

They'd also be useful for staying below critical mach in dives and avoiding use of throttles.




> Eventually, German pilots developed new combat tactics to counter Allied bombers' defenses. Me 262s, equipped with R4M rockets, approached from the side of a bomber formation, where their silhouettes were widest, and while still out of range of the bombers' machine guns, fired a salvo of rockets with strongly brisant Hexogen-filled warheads, exactly the same explosive in the shells fired by the Me 262A's quartet of MK 108 cannon. One or two of these rockets could down even the famously rugged B-17 Flying Fortress,[45] from the "metal-shattering" brisant effect of the R4M rockets' explosive warheads, weighing only some 520 grams (17.6 ounces) per projectile out of a total launch weight of 4 kg (8.8 pounds) apiece.


Also one of the technically simpler designs that feasibly could have been developed much earlier had there been greater support/interest.

That said, Delcyros pointed out in a lengthy previous discussion on this topic, that the consumption of explosive filler and (especially) propellant used for those rockets far exceeded that of conventional cannons and would have further hampered the strained logistics. (though the anti-tank version of the R4M would have been more useful than existing ground attack rockets)

Employing a pair of MK-103s on the Me 262 would have been more useful for extending their useful attack range. The rate of fire would be less than half the 108s, but ammo capacity could be higher and firing long bursts starting further out and approaching from the side might have proven very effective.

Aside from that, developing a 37 mm MK-108 or MGFF derived cannon would have been much more useful than the effort they put into 50 mm cannon developments or R4M. (and likely compact and light enough to fit a pair on the Me 262) Using the MG-151 as the basis for larger scale cannons might have been a good idea too, not sure why that wasn't pursued. (the Japanese showed the M2 browning mechanism scaled up well to 20, 30, and 37 mm as well as developing the oerlikon/becker mechanism successfully ... odd the US, UK, or Germany didn't make similar attempts)






GregP said:


> The Me 262 is 11% thick at the root and 9% at the tip.
> 
> I've seen it written that the Horten had an airfoil that developed most of the lift along the centerline of the airfoil and less at the leading and trailing edges, but have never seen an airfoil number for it, so I have no way to estimate it's stalling characteristics. The writing I saw has also not been verified with any primary sources.
> 
> So, why would the critical angle of attack have been much higher for the Ho. 229? Do you have any data supporting that? No agenda and not a real disagreement ... just asking as I don't know much about the airfoil on the Horten.


I may have phrased it poorly, but I meant to say the Me 262's critical AoA would be unusually high due to the characteristics of LE slats (or slots for that matter). Even with the 262's thin, symmetrical airfoil, the use of slats should make the critical AoA higher than pretty much any conventional airfoil in use, especially one without the advantage of prop wash. (P-38 might be an exception due both to airfoil and twin props and especially with maneuvering flaps deployed -not the dive flaps, the trailing edge flaps in maneuvering position -- the P-38 was known for being stable in extreme high-AoA high-speed stalls with a combination of factors -including neutral torque- preventing spinning or tumbling)

Pulling extreme high, stall or near stall maneuvers are going to lose energy FAST though, so limited in practical use. (cases like pulling lead on a deflection shot for a very limited period or intentionally losing speed to make an opponent overshoot -a bad move if there's an enemy wingman or backup around further behind you, so a rarely useful tactic ... more useful on the P-38 given the much better low-speed acceleration)

The Bf 109 technically should have had that advantage as well, except the heavy rudder at high speeds limited the useful range of pulling extreme maneuvers and the torque involved with the single prop should have meant more risk of spinning as well. (I'm not sure of the 109's spin characteristics though)


For landing, the high critical AoA is problematic due to the very nose-high position for managing minimum landing speed, the dangerous stall characteristics of flying wings tend to mostly be present at high speeds as well, so low speed stalls on landing wouldn't be serious (similar to aircraft with snap-roll/spin problems, except without the wing-dropping torque issues at low speed).

The wing area and air breaks should have made the 229 easier to land than the 262, though possibly harder to taxi with the more limited cockpit view.









GrauGeist said:


> Of course, if a better powerplant were available, the U.S. may have re-evaluated the P-59.


The production P-59As and Bs weren't underpowered for their time, no more so than the Meteor I or III, or P-80A. 2x 1650 or 2000 lbf engines should have been fine. The main problems with performance were the very large, somewhat thick wing (slightly larger than the Meteor's and about as thick as the Vampire's) and more so the engine nacelle/fuselage interaction. (possibly the tail surface thickness as well) It appeared to have very similar problems to the early Meteors but a bit more pronounced, and like the Meteor it may have been the nacelle design alone that limited things most, with longer chord, streamlined intake and exhaust ducts improving mach limit and top speed substantially. (likely increasing the already high ceiling as well) Fuel capacity was also somewhat limited, but given the massive space inside the wing, a redesign to expand capacity should have been very possible. (reduced drag from corrected nacelles combined with the already modest fuel expansion in the P-59B should have made it reasonably useful for medium range intrusion and recon -especially at high altitude)

It likely would have remained slower than the Meteor III, but at least should have broken 500 MPH at altitude. The exceptional glide performance and safety record during flight testing and training are the practical stand-out features of the existing P-59s.


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## kool kitty89 (Apr 15, 2015)

Koopernic said:


> The Horton Ho 229 was designed as a fighter or strike bomber. It had a bomb bay. Gotha was involved only so much as providing a manufacturing facility.


Apparently there were plans for bomb bays in the later, unbuilt prototypes, but not in any of the completed aircraft. I'm not quite sure where you'd fit any either, given the thick centerline is pretty well dominated by landing gear ... maybe some space in the wing section. but given the 2000 kg bombload capacity, I'd think most of that would be carried externally. (or maybe with some sort of expendable doped wooden aerodynamic fairings to reduce drag and mask the radar signal of the bombs)




> It was armed with a pair of 30mm canon because it was thought it would be a capable fighter as well. Given its performance it would ideally never meet a Vampire as a bomber: it was far faster due to the Vampire's relatively (to Me 262 and Meteor III/IV) low Mach limit.


Mach limit would be less of a limiting factor below 20,000 ft, more so the limited thrust of the early Vampire and also limited thrust to weight ratio, climb, and acceleration. (though it was faster than the Meteor III, even moderately faster than the Meteor III with long chord nacelles, though possibly slower than with the 2,400 lbf Derwent IV)

Roll rate was probably better than the Me 262 or Ho 229 given the size and weight distribution.

Fuel capacity and range/endurance were also very limited on the earliest production Vampire Mk.Is. (though less of a concern for an interceptor)

If nothing else, the Ho 229 probably would have made a better bomber/fighter-bomber than the Ar 234 or Me 262.



> Dr Kurt Tank conducted an analysis of flying wing versus conventional configuration aircraft. His broad conclusion was that in General that flying wings offer no advantage in speed or other areas of performance but do offer an notable advantage in altitude due to their lower wing loading. He however concluded that due to the extra flight testing required of a flying wing that it would take longer to reach service. I would tend to think range was a little better as well.


I'd think internal capacity for fuel and other stores (bombs at larger scales) would be major advantages, plus a wing large/thick enough to completely bury engines in and still have low drag and high mach number. (granted, all characteristics shared with the delta wing, including thick deltas with buried/blended/nonexistent fuselages)




> Things went slightly wrong in that the aircraft was designed around the BMW 003, then upgraded to the Junkers Jumo 004 which was progressing faster and more powerful. At one point Junkers had moved an accessories gearbox. Unfortunately nobody informed Horton (this is today still and all too common mistake in fast moving tech projects) and this gearbox now went though the spar area and would have forced the spar to be too thin in that area. The short term solution was to thicken the wing/fuselage in the centre area slightly. It was thought this might effect mach limit and the solution was to be a slight scaling up of the aircraft to restore fineness. The first two prototype were to be test beds and the subsequent ones slight scaling ups (about 5%).


I wonder if the project would have been at all accelerated/improved if they'd built at least one airframe still targeting the BMW 003 lest even more problems materialize on the 004 and/or if 003 production materialized soon enough to be useful in parallel with the 004. Given the characteristics of the 003 when it actually reached production quality (and late prototypes actually flight worthy) it seems like it would have still had useful advantages over the 004, and possibly prove less dangerous in testing as well. (on the Me 262 as well -probably better than diverting resources to the He 162)

For that matter, from a practical/material/logistics/training/performance standpoint, making the Me 262 the only production jet aircraft in 1944/45 would probably make the most sense. (including diverting all BMW 003s to Me 262 production and possibly even displacing the Ar 234 with photo recon Me 262 variants)

The Ho 229's is interesting in terms of both performance (projected at least -range included) and wooden construction ... especially assuming they successfully worked around the glue supply issues late war. The more limited armament capacity compared to the Me 262 hurts things somewhat (unless it could have been made to carry 4x Mk 108s as well, though the suggested 2x MK-103s were interesting for their high velocity and more useful deflection shooting performance) though the potential as a night fighter may have been more significant with the lower radar signature and longer endurance.

In terms of pure resources, I do wonder if the Horton Brothers' talent for wooden aircraft engineering might have been better spent (or at least partially spent) on more conventional designs, or perhaps consulting for on other wooden aircraft projects. Gotha seems to have been a bit underutilized given they were one of the most notable wooden aircraft producers pre-war. Be it transports, fighters, bombers, or attack aircraft, developing modern wooden aircraft for the war effort would seem pretty useful. (pressing Kurt Tank into developing a wooden Mosquito killer yet not putting effort into encouraging Gotha's developments earlier in the war seems rather odd)

The Horton brothers seemed to be rather exclusive and uncooperative with outside firms (or at very least modifications to their designs) so earlier cooperation with Gotha might not have been so useful ... or Gotha might have just taken some of their concepts and developed them independently with more conservative or practical alternatives. (if likely 'inferior' stolen ideas in the Hortons' eyes)

Though honestly, having Gotha build a decent wooden replacement for the Ju 52 seems like one of the most practical and useful tasks they could have undertaken early war. (quite off topic, granted, and if it's at all worth continuing, I'd encourage taking it to a dedicated thread ... or at least one of the transport related ones like this: http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviation/transport-aircraft-layout-43039.html )


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 15, 2015)

kool kitty89 said:


> Lack of air brakes seems like a major shortcoming, yes, probably one of the most legitimate complaints regarding the Me 262 that could/should have been addressed. (should have aided landing as well).



This was an after the fact realization as it was discovered that once you built up speed in a jet (even an early jet) it took a lot to slow it down. In jets I’ve flown you used the speed brakes to get you on speed in the pattern, kept them in base to final and deployed them during the roll out to aid in braking.


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## stona (Apr 15, 2015)

The pattern of many combat reports does not show that the jets wanted to slow down. Many combats take the form of the Me 262(s) making a rapid pass at the target(s) which evade by breaking sharply port or starboard. The jets could then use their superior speed to set up another attack in classic 'boom and zoom' tactics. Often this pattern was repeated many times (eight or ten in some reports) with the intended target effectively evading every . Eventually the Me 262s were forced to disengage due to one of the most fundamental shortcomings of the type, a lack of endurance.

Flt.Lt. Jim Rosser tells of attacking a lone Me 262 which simply accelerated away from his Spitfire. Rosser survived the war and remained in the RAF and many years later visited an airfield occupied by the Federal German Luftwaffe. He related his experience to some of the German officers hosting the visit and amazingly one of them remembered a similar incident as he had been flying the Me 262. He told Rosser that he had seen the Spitfire coming.
_"I opened up my engines flat out until I lost you. But if you had kept after me you would have got me for sure, because I had to shut down my speed after a minute or so, as my fuel tanks were all but dry."_
If Rosser had known he might have been the first RAF pilot to down an Me 262. This was precisely how Pilot Officer Bob Cole managed to shoot down Unteroffizier Edmund Delatowski's Me 262 after chasing it for 40 miles in his Tempest.

It seems to me slowing down would expose the Me 262s to a bomber formation's defensive fire for longer (the reason head on attacks were developed) and give the escorting fighters a chance to get at them. They had to exploit the one clear advantage they had which was their speed.

Cheers

Steve


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## davparlr (Apr 15, 2015)

Speed is life and certainly for the early jets, which were slow to accelerate, and especially the German jets who faced a horde of eager Allied aircraft. I am sure the Germans did not want to slow down, even with speed brakes.

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## GregP (Apr 15, 2015)

Sort of makes them useless for fighter V fighter combat, doesn't it? Of course the bombers couldn't maneuver so quickly and so were relatively stationary targets.

But fighter V fighter, the jets would be OK against one another, not so good versus a good piston fighter ... and vice-versa. Good thing the timeline happened as it did.


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## kool kitty89 (Apr 16, 2015)

FLYBOYJ said:


> This was an after the fact realization as it was discovered that once you built up speed in a jet (even an early jet) it took a lot to slow it down. In jets I’ve flown you used the speed brakes to get you on speed in the pattern, kept them in base to final and deployed them during the roll out to aid in braking.


I would have thought it would have been realized during flight testing ... granted, it took a long time before dive flaps were introduced on the P-47 or P-38 (useful as air brakes and countering mach-tuck). For aircraft with serious critical mach performance issues, having air breaks for limiting dive speeds would be useful. (cases where you'd want to actually loose more speed than that would be more limited, but still notable -though without breaks, at moderate speeds, pulling high-G turns or even high-speed stalls to bleed energy is almost as useful)

I'm not sure when the Meteor got airbreaks ... I think the Mk.I had them, I know the Mk.III did. I think the P-80 got the wing-center/belly break in the YP-80A





stona said:


> Eventually the Me 262s were forced to disengage due to one of the most fundamental shortcomings of the type, a lack of endurance.


Compared to the BF 109, I don't think the Me 262's endurance was that poor at all, at least at high altitude (fuel consumption rapidly increases in denser air), but it would still be limited, yes ... and the high consumption at low level would mean more reserve needed for landing.

And yes, Boom and zoom would be the only consistently potent tactics to use against prop fighters. (like the 109 used against the hurricane or 190 vs Spit V or P-40 vs Ki-27 and Ki 43, or F6F and F4U vs A6M)

Basically the same tactics used against bomber formations, just trickier given fighters move around more.

Low speed acceleration is indeed poor. You need to get close to 350-400 MPH (or more or less .5~.6 mach) to have a thrust advantage over typical late war prop fighters, prop efficiency, airframe drag characteristics, and altitude performance depending. (airframes with high transonic drag and top speeds below or near 400 MPH would fall behind at lower speeds) With a loaded thrust/weight ratio close to .4, acceleration would have likely outstripped most piston engine fighters at all but takeoff/landing speeds. (a hypothetical Me 262 with mature HeS-006 engines or 003s using overrev might have gotten close, 004D/Es as well, and certainly BMW 003Ds)




> It seems to me slowing down would expose the Me 262s to a bomber formation's defensive fire for longer (the reason head on attacks were developed) and give the escorting fighters a chance to get at them. They had to exploit the one clear advantage they had which was their speed.


Indeed, using the air brakes for that would seem unwise. Using them to manage steep dives when already well over 500 MPH and risking passing through limiting mach, brakes would be more useful. (more so if they were engineered to be safely operated for emergency use AFTER exceeding limiting mach and getting locked into mach-tuck)

Plus using breaks to moderate speed helps avoid using much throttle. Throttling the engines as little as possible should have improved the engine life and reliability somewhat. (jet engines also loose efficiency at lower throttle settings, so omptimal cruise is usually near max RPM at high altitude)





GregP said:


> Sort of makes them useless for fighter V fighter combat, doesn't it? Of course the bombers couldn't maneuver so quickly and so were relatively stationary targets.
> 
> But fighter V fighter, the jets would be OK against one another, not so good versus a good piston fighter ... and vice-versa. Good thing the timeline happened as it did.


No more useless than the P-51, P-38, P-47, F6F, or F4U were against most Japanese opponents ... and probably better than P-40s and F4Fs vs A6Ms and Ki 43s, perhaps similar to P-40s vs Ki-27s. (armament aside -the MK 108 was useful for dogfights, but overkill and not ideal -the velocity and RoF of MG 151s would be far more useful and plenty devastating)


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## GregP (Apr 16, 2015)

The pistons didn't have quite the disparity in performance between themselves that the jets had with the pistons.

I'll have to say I disagree considerably, Kool Kitty ... but, that's OK. The end result still doesn't change.


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## stona (Apr 16, 2015)

There is also the pilot factor. With the use of the Me 262 as a bomber many pilots were converted bomber pilots who were lacking in the tactical know how of their allied opponents flying their fighters
The original intake for Me 262 fighters was of converted Zerstorer pilots, usually with the instrument qualifications so lacking in S/E fighter pilots, and with experience of T/E types. These guys would be expected to do better.
The lack of endurance of the Me 262 is bemoaned time and time again by the men who flew them. Only the bomber version could use the rearmost tank as this had to be counterbalanced by the external stores. A downside of this is that jettisoning the stores before said tank was exhausted made the aircraft impossible for the average pilot to control.
Cheers
Steve


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## Koopernic (Apr 16, 2015)

"I'm not sure when the Meteor got airbreaks ... I think the Mk.I had them, I know the Mk.III did. I think the P-80 got the wing-center/belly break in the YP-80A"

The Meteor Mk.I didn't have air brakes, the Mk.III did. I would have thought that Me 410 style air brakes would have worked in the Me 262. The bomber versions of the Me 262 were supposed to use the TSA 2D toss bombing sight so they only needed a shallow dive to aim accurately. Bombing results were good compared to the Fw 190 as the jet engines lack of vibration didn't interfere with the gyroscopes and accelerometers that tacked the aircraft during the pull up 'toss'.

The tactical solution was to approach the bombers from below, then conduct a pull-up to wash off speed. Long term they weren't interested in washing of speed as introducing a radar device to inject range into the gyroscopic gun sight for a single pass accurate slashing attack from any angle. The FuG 248 "Elfe" was a ranging radar for jet fighters that calculated a firing solution for the EZ42 or EZ45 gyro sight (moving the gun sight recticle mirror to correct for ballistic fall of and target lead and air density.)

Funkgeräte

https://books.google.com.au/books?i...g&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=FuG 248&f=false

For night fighters the latter German microwave radars (FuG 247) were to incorporate track locking and allow autonomous aiming by injecting the aiming data into the auto pilot via a computer called Oberon. With the ground controller also able to inject interception data via telemetry into the autopilot complete interceptions and firing without forming up becomes possible.

They weren't planning on slowing down to aim at any time of day.

The Me 262 really was only transitional. The Ta 183 (to be produced in 1945) and Blohm Voss P 212 had prototypes under construction and Messerschmitt's P.1011 was also in the running. The latter German projects were obsessional about landing speed and wing loading due to runway considerations.

Post Script:

One of the variants of the bomber version was the Me 262 A-2a/U1. The aircraft featured the TSA 2D flight control system which allowed precision bombing in level flight or in dives. The system was tested in three airframes (W.Nr. 130 164, W.Nr. 130 188 and W.Nr. 170 070), which were later transferred to a frontline unit (JG7)


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## stona (Apr 16, 2015)

Except on introduction the Me 262 bombers of 3./KG 51 / Kommando Schenk who later joined I./KG(J)51 were not fitted with bomb sights. Furthermore they were ordered not to operate below 4,000m in an effort to prevent the Allies realising that an Me 262 bomber was operational (something they soon knew anyway).
The 'bomb aiming' technique was simply to release the bombs as the target disappeared from view under the engine nacelles. Even in September 1944, long after the cat was out of the bag, the aircraft of KG 51 were still attacking the bridge at Nijmegen from an estimated 10,000 ft. They were difficult to shoot down as Gunner LC Betts of 405 Battery, 123rd Light AA Regiment of the Royal Artillery remembers that _"we had 400mph clock sights and we had to be outside the sight to get anywhere near them."_ Again speed was the Me 262s best defence.

There are lots of ifs, buts and what ifs and had any of them been realised in time the Me 262 would have been an even more formidable aircraft than it anyway was, but they weren't.

Cheers

Steve


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 16, 2015)

kool kitty89 said:


> I would have thought it would have been realized during flight testing ... granted, it took a long time before dive flaps were introduced on the P-47 or P-38 (useful as air brakes and countering mach-tuck). For aircraft with serious critical mach performance issues, having air breaks for limiting dive speeds would be useful. (cases where you'd want to actually loose more speed than that would be more limited, but still notable -though without breaks, at moderate speeds, pulling high-G turns or even high-speed stalls to bleed energy is almost as useful)
> 
> I'm not sure when the Meteor got airbreaks ... I think the Mk.I had them, I know the Mk.III did. I think the P-80 got the wing-center/belly break in the YP-80A



To answer that, one of the most critial considerations an aircraft designer has to deal with - WEIGHT. I think speed brakes were a secondary consideration especially during early development.


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## stona (Apr 16, 2015)

I still don't understand why anyone thinks it desirable for the Me 262 to slow down, except possibly to prevent over speeding in a dive. Many of the accounts which I have read show that it could be fatal. Here's another excerpt, this time from an American P-39 pilot, Lieutenant Walt Carper.

_"The pilot _[of the Me 262] _made a mistake when he tried to turn to position his aircraft, because evidently the jet lost speed in the turn and his rate of acceleration could not compare favourably with that of the P-38. Although I could not appreciably close the range, the Me 262 could not pull away and when I broke away I was at the same range as when I started firing."_

Carper too, had some conclusions for the benefit of his Unit Intelligence Officer.

_"The P-38 has a definite advantage over the Me 262 when the '262 attempts to make a tight turn because he must sacrifice the primary advantageof a jet - speed."_

His colleagues in the RAF had reached the same conclusion. They adopted the tactic of firing at extreme range, hoping to make the jet weave, slowing it down and allowing them to catch up. It worked for Wing Commander Wray, flying a Tempest.

_"He started to weave violently, which was not too clever at that altitude, but this allowed me to close to about 300 yards. I was about to fire again when his port wing hit a building on the edge of the Rhine, and he pitched right into the river."_

This was the demise of Leutnant Wolfgang Lubke of II./KG(J)51.

The Me 262 was a formidable machine but it was far from immune to piston engine fighters. By early 1945 the USAAF estimated that it was destroying one Me 262 for every ten missions flown by their Groups. With the adoption of better tactics, better gun sights, g suits and other improvements along with increased numbers of jets to engage this ratio had risen to one Me 262 destroyed for every four Group missions by the end of the war.

Cheers

Steve


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## BiffF15 (Apr 16, 2015)

*


kool kitty89 said:



Lack of air brakes seems like a major shortcoming, yes, probably one of the most legitimate complaints regarding the Me 262 that could/should have been addressed. (should have aided landing as well)

Click to expand...


They'd also be useful for staying below critical mach in dives and avoiding use of throttles.

Pulling extreme high, stall or near stall maneuvers are going to lose energy FAST though, so limited in practical use. (cases like pulling lead on a deflection shot for a very limited period or intentionally losing speed to make an opponent overshoot -a bad move if there's an enemy wingman or backup around further behind you, so a rarely useful tactic ... more useful on the P-38 given the much better low-speed acceleration)*

Kool Kitty,

My first jet was the T-37 and if I remember correctly we landed it with the speed break out, and it had thrust attenuators (things that popped out into the engine blast to cut thrust but keep RPM up). The latter device was used to keep RPM up and thrust down (found on underpowered A/C with slow spooling engines).

The F-16 lands to this day with it's "boards" out, and the Eagle may as well (pilots option).

As for maneuvers that lose energy fast, well they are not limited in practical use, even for the Me-262. If they could get past the escorts, slow down (via a high g pull) to allow for more trigger time on the bombers, then roll over and take it down (continue the boom portion) then all the better. Speed brakes would have made this easier (possibly preventing high AOA induced flameout) while also making it easier to line up / sight in on the bomber streams.

There also needs to be some clarification on "intentionally losing speed to make an opponent overshoot". If you are being shot at the first goal is to survive, period dot. That includes not being hit by anything being fired at you, as well as not hitting the ground, anything attached to said ground, or anything that took off from or will land back there (carriers will be considered ground for the sake of this discussion). The second is neutralize, and the third is to reverse / employ or leave. If making your opponent overshoot is all you have in your bag of tricks or are capable of, then do it. Worry about the next guy when or if he becomes a factor or you have the ability (energy/altitude or maneuvers) to use against him. Just because he is back there doesn't mean he is ready, or will be able to get in range, in plane, and in lead in time. Killing with the gun is difficult, and even more so if the defender is aware and has usable altitude below him.

Cheers,
Biff

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## wiking85 (Apr 16, 2015)

kool kitty89 said:


> That said, Delcyros pointed out in a lengthy previous discussion on this topic, that the consumption of explosive filler and (especially) propellant used for those rockets far exceeded that of conventional cannons and would have further hampered the strained logistics. (though the anti-tank version of the R4M would have been more useful than existing ground attack rockets)



Do you have that thread, I couldn't find it.


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## kool kitty89 (Apr 16, 2015)

wiking85 said:


> Do you have that thread, I couldn't find it.


It seems I was mistaken. I was remembering some more hypothetical criticism Shortround6 had leveled against the R4M here:

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/av...killing-heavy-bombers-34002-5.html#post939642

Still somewhat valid, but not the hard data delcyro's arguments usually are accompanied by. (though I still think lack of development of lighter/compact medium-velocity 37 mm weapons in spite of putting effort into 50 mm ones seems unfortunate, that or lack of higher velocity 30 mm cannons -middle ground between the Mk 108 and 103 more like what the Japanese had)





stona said:


> The lack of endurance of the Me 262 is bemoaned time and time again by the men who flew them. Only the bomber version could use the rearmost tank as this had to be counterbalanced by the external stores. A downside of this is that jettisoning the stores before said tank was exhausted made the aircraft impossible for the average pilot to control.
> Cheers
> Steve


Context is still important, and the same issue is addressed with the huge disparity in range figures for the He 162. Endurance and range varies considerably more dramatically with early jets than with piston engined aircraft to the point of cruising below 10,000 ft could easily be half the range/endurance at 25,000 ft.


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## Koopernic (Apr 17, 2015)

The range figures given for the Me 262 and the Heinkel He 162 both show that they had range equal to most allied fighters and in some cases superior to the shorter anged types e.g. Tempest V or the entire Spitfire series. However endurance, in terms of time in the air, was obviously less.

The Heinkel He 162 with engine at 'full bore' at sea level could give 30 minutes of thrust. However a increase in fuselage tank size and then wing tank size probably took this to 40 minutes. Obviously one doesn't need to run quite 'full bore' even with a war going on.

The specific fuel consumption of the Jumo 004B was approximately 1.39 per hour. At Sea Level when producing 880kg thrust was consuming 1200kg fuel per hour per engine. This would exhaust the two 900L fuel tanks (which would have about 675KG each in 33 minutes. However these figures are somewhat worse case because the thrust and sfc were somewhat less than the sea level static case. Furthermore the thrust at 10000m (33000ft) was 380kg and so the fuel consumption would only be 43% of the above case.

Me 262 pilots had standing orders which forbade them from flying less than about 440mph, presumably this was actually a nice round figure of 700km/h (732mph) or 720kmh which was of course the maximum level speed of the best allied fighters at optimal altitude. Its worth considering that when at sea level and 440mph that the equivalent horse power of the Me 262 was 4576hp and it could go 510mph at sea level while no allied craft could get much above 400mph even with 100/150 fuel. At sea level the Me 262 could wash of 100mph in pulling a turn and still be as fast as the fastest allied piston fighter.

Obviously the Me 262 without the toss bombing sight was limited to intuitive skills of the pilot, however the TSA 2D was slated for many other Luftwaffe fighter bombers, there had been an earlier TSA 2 which the Luftwaffe had eschewed in favour of the more refined 2D. *In other words the bomber version of the Me 262 really doesn't make sense unless the TSA 2D is used.*When Adolph Hitler asked of the Me 262 "Can it carry bombs" he might have expected epistemological honesty and been told "yes, but to deliver them accurately we need the TSA Tief Schleuder Apparatus". With his well known interest in ballistics and weapons he might have inquired further and thrown more priority behind such devices. He might have also realised his best hope for an effective bomber was the Arado Ar 234 which in which prototypes actually fly reconnaissance missions over the Normandy Beach heads and could actually carry two existing and highly effective bomb sights: the Stuvi 5B and the Lotfe 7.

There is a document on the pay site 'cockpitinstrument.de' now renamed that has the accuracy data from the TSA 2D trials. I think they were getting 90% of their bombs inside of a 40m by 60m square but I can't quite remember as they measured lateral and longitudinal dispersion separately. The nice thing about this bomb sight is the toss gives a considerable degree of stand off distance. In anti tank attacks the longitudinal dispersion is more important since the bomb can be relied to slide along the ground. If both the Me 262 and its toss bombing sight had of been operational in numbers the aircraft might have fulfilled its expectation during the Allied invasion.

The Arado 234 due to its forward view could carry the Stuvi 5B dive bombing site with the BZA computer attachment and could thus make slide bombing attacks or even release at low altitude in level flight. RAF Coastal Command Mosquiotos had the Mk.XIV sight mounted in front of the pilots windscreen for anti shipping attacks in a similar fashion. There were plans for an Me 262 with the pilot moved to the far nose which would probably given enough downward view to use the Stuvi 5B in low altitude level bomb attacks.

Luftwaffe single seat fighters could be guided to bomb release via the EGON and also Zyklops blind bombing system, usually over a voice channel for single engine aircraft.

The Mk 103 30mm canon, despite its effectiveness, was a little short ranged. Two guns which might have appeared were the 20mm MG 213 and the 30mm MK 213C which had revolving breaches. These were testing on Fw 190D's at the end of the war. These improved cadence over reciprocating weapons by nearly 50%, should resistant to jamming. The 20mm version offered impressive muzzle velocity and may this have offered a better weapon.


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## stona (Apr 17, 2015)

Hitler is supposed to have seen his 'Blitz Bomber' when he saw the demonstration by Lindner flying the V6 on 26th November 1943. The myth is that he subsequently ordered all Me 262s to be produced as bombers, though this is contradicted by a telegram sent by Hitler to Goering on 5th December asking that it be developed as a fighter bomber. It wasn't until April 1944 that Hitler was told (by Milch or Goering, it's not clear which) that only one of the Me 262s delivered to Erprobungskommando 262 had been equipped to carry bombs. It was after this that he appears to have had a bit of a paddy, as my old grandma would say, and forbidden even the mention of the Me 262 as a fighter and demanded why his orders for a fighter bomber had been ignored. It was on 26th May 1944 that Goering convened a meeting with Galland, Bodenschanz, Korten and Petersen to discuss the future of the Me 262 in light of the Fuhrer's directive. As a result Galland was entrusted with development, but with conditions from Goering.

_"Some of the aircraft are to be allowed for tests in the [fighter] role, as long as this does not affect the development of bomber models turned out. I also suggest that this aircraft be called a 'super speed bomber', not a fighter, in the Fuhrer's presence in future. He is well aware of the fighter potential, but wants the Me 262 to go into action first in the bomber role." _

The very next day the now infamous Fuhrer Befehl was promulgated which ordered initial production to continue as a bomber whilst allowing fighter testing, but.

_"Under no circumstances is bomber production to be delayed while awaiting results of such [fighter] tests. Not until these tests have been concluded will fighter production be permitted to start. Once this point has been reached there is no reason why production capacity cannot be divided between the two."_

Despite this Ekdo 262 kept it's fighters and even gained some more. A photo reconnaissance version was also developed and operated by 'Einsatzkommando Braunegg', commanded by Hauptmann Herward Braunegg, previously of Nahaufklarungsgruppe 9.
As you can see Hitler never banned the production of the Me 262 fighter. Even in the Fuhrer Befehl he allowed that production might be divided between the two versions once fighter testing (by Ekdo 262) was completed. The reasons that there were few fighter versions was the initial preference for the bomber version, but more importantly a lack of parts, notably engines, and the effect of allied bombings, something often ignored today. For example on 12 September bombers of the US 15th Air Force bombed the Messerschmitt plant at Wasserburg, destroying many of the jigs essential for Me 262 airframe construction. That cost production of all types of Me 262.
Later a designated Me 262 bomber was allowed to be produced as a fighter version on a one to one swop with an Ar 234. This again is perfectly reasonable. 

It wasn't until 3rd June 1944 that III KG 51 was ordered to start conversion to the Me 262 at Lechfeld. These pioneers would become operational in August. Given the immediate post Overlord situation in Normandy and the parlous situation of the Eastern Front the use of the Me 262 in a fast bombing role is not as daft as some exercising hindsight would have us believe. 

If there was a standing order that Me 262s not be flown slower than 700 kph I've never seen it or by who and to whom it was issued. Nonetheless it is entirely plausible and a perfectly sensible thing to have done. If such an order was issued it was not followed. Many Me 262s were caught cruising slower than this, as evidenced by allied combat reports, probably trying to preserve their fuel.

Cheers

Steve

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## blueskies (Apr 19, 2015)

iirc, the first suggestion of using the 262 as a bomber came from messerschmitt in 1942.


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## stona (Apr 19, 2015)

blueskies said:


> iirc, the first suggestion of using the 262 as a bomber came from messerschmitt in 1942.



When in 1944? Before the prototype(s) even flew?

On 10th December 1942 Milch accorded the highest priority (code 'Vulkan') to the Me 262 with no mention of a bomber role. Throughout the same month Messerschmitt wrote on several occasions to Georg Pasewaldt, Chief of Development in the Technical Office of the RLM, with all sorts of problems that needed to be solved before the type could enter production. Included was the requirement for armament and other equipment to be brought up to 'current standards', yet again no mention of bombing. If Messerschmitt did suggest the role, it was unofficially.

In April 1944 some of the first two batches of Me 262s completed were delivered to Erprobungskommando 262 and it was at this time that Hitler discovered that none were equipped with bomb racks. At this time it seems Messerschmitt were working on ways of converting the Me 262 to carry bombs, but that is nearly two years after the first prototype flew in July 1942.

Cheers

Steve


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## GrauGeist (Apr 19, 2015)

blueskies said:


> iirc, the first suggestion of using the 262 as a bomber came from messerschmitt in 1942.


Interesting...

If we follow the design of the Me262 from it's inception as P.1065 through the early development stages and initial flight testing, we can see at no time was there provisions or consideration for a bomber concept. Willy was good for taking an airframe and trying a concept and yet there is no indication of a bomber version before 1943.

It wasn't until Hitler saw V6 being tested at Insterburg (26 November 1943), that the notion of a "fast bomber" was considered on the Me262's platform. Unfortunately, those that had the most influence with Hitler did nothing to promote the Ar234 (which was nearing service at this time) as the fast bomber solution and allow the Me262 to continue on as the intended Heavy Fighter.


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 19, 2015)

On June 8, 1944 Hitler ordered (führer befehl)the Me 262 to be used as a bomber.


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## stona (Apr 19, 2015)

FLYBOYJ said:


> On June 8, 1944 Hitler ordered (führer befehl)the Me 262 to be used as a bomber.



He ordered initial production to be fighter bomber variant, but did not order the cancellation of the fighter version, simply it's delay until Erprobungskommando 262 which had received its first fighters in April, less than eight weeks earlier, had finished testing.
In the words of the 'infamous' Fuhrer Befehl:

_"Under no circumstances is bomber production to be delayed while awaiting results of such [fighter] tests. Not until these tests have been concluded will fighter production be permitted to start. Once this point has been reached there is no reason why production capacity cannot be divided between the two."_

It seems to me that the situation in NW Europe in the days following the allied landings and also the state of the Eastern Front persuaded Hitler that this fighter bomber type should be the priority for his new wonder weapon. We have the benefit of hindsight and know that Galland and others were correct in arguing that using the Me 262 against the American (and to a lesser extent British) aerial onslaught would have been better, but hindsight is a wonderful thing. Hitler, not for the first time, made a serious misjudgement, but it was not as unjustified as many have since argued. 

Cheers

Steve


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## kool kitty89 (Apr 20, 2015)

stona said:


> He ordered initial production to be fighter bomber variant, but did not order the cancellation of the fighter version, simply it's delay until Erprobungskommando 262 which had received its first fighters in April, less than eight weeks earlier, had finished testing.
> 
> It seems to me that the situation in NW Europe in the days following the allied landings and also the state of the Eastern Front persuaded Hitler that this fighter bomber type should be the priority for his new wonder weapon. We have the benefit of hindsight and know that Galland and others were correct in arguing that using the Me 262 against the American (and to a lesser extent British) aerial onslaught would have been better, but hindsight is a wonderful thing. Hitler, not for the first time, made a serious misjudgement, but it was not as unjustified as many have since argued.


Even without the same dire situation (albeit more focused use for offensive weapons) early war, I wonder if similar logic could have swayed more favor towards the Fw 187 pre/early war if proposed as a single-seat high speed fighter-bomber. ( and gotten similar priority for DB-600s/601s/Jumo 211s as contemporary fast bombers)

The RLM seemed to want to tack on dive bombing capabilities to every bomber in development, yet adapting a FIGHTER to that role is often more practical (already stressed for relatively high G maneuvers and often needing only the addition of dive breaks to be effective -sometimes not even that).

I believe there were later paper designs based on the Fw 187 aimed at being a fighter-bomber, but those were significantly later (targeting DB-605s iirc) and facing more and different competition. (and had the Me 262 in the picture)


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## GrauGeist (Apr 20, 2015)

Look at how the Fw187 progressed.

It was offered as a high-speed fighter but then was requested that it be configured as a "Zerstorer", so the twin seat was added, then it was pushed in the direction of a night fighter, then a dive bomber (didn't see that coming, did you?), then a multi-role fighter-bomber and just about anything else that they could think of...except leaving is as it was intended: a high speed twin-engine fighter. There were so many cases where the development of good designs were hampered by the RLM's "waffling" and many good opportunities were lost.

If the RLM had seized on the He280 and backed it AND the jet engine development by Junkers, BMW, Porsche and Hirth.
If they had followed through with the Fw187 and the Ar240 and allowed the designs to go to production as intended.
If they had allowed Messerschmitt to develop the Me262 as it was intended: a heavy fighter.
If they kept the high-speed bombing to the Ar234.

And on and on and on...


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## stona (Apr 20, 2015)

kool kitty89 said:


> Even without the same dire situation (albeit more focused use for offensive weapons) early war, I wonder if similar logic could have swayed more favor towards the Fw 187 pre/early war if proposed as a single-seat high speed fighter-bomber.



I think that the problem there is that the fighter-bomber concept, as in modifying a fighter to carry bombs to operate in what we would no call close air support or battlefield interdiction simply didn't exist in the mid 1930s. That's not to say that some adventurous types hadn't lobbed small bombs from the cockpits of their fighters in WW1, but this was developed into the dive bomber (almost every German bomber) or light bomber (Hawker Hart, ideal for cheaply and effectively bringing recalcitrant tribesmen into line, unfortunately the Fairey Battle couldn't do the same to the Germans). These were not fighters. 
The first Bf 110s with bomb racks were not delivered by Messerschmitt until June 1940. 13 of these aircraft went to 1. and 2./Erprobungsgruppe 210. 3 Staffel got Bf 109 E Jabos at the same time. The British adapted the Whirlwind and Hurricane as fighter bombers a year or so later. All fighter bombers were an expedient rather than a design, forced on the various air forces by a tactical requirement their existing types did not fulfil. 
The means to operate such aircraft effectively and the development of the command and control systems needed didn't really start until the British really adopted the fighter bomber in the Desert Air Force in 1942.

The Germans were just as attached to their 'Zerstorer' idea, though they did modify it from time to time, as they were to their obsession for dive bombing. Proposing the Fw 187 as a high speed fighter bomber, something like the British Whirlwind, is not something I think the RLM would have been interested in, nor would it have occurred to Focke-Wulf. The Fw 187s best bet was as an out and out fighter, but that was lost when the RLM wanted a two seat 'zerstorer' version. 


As for the engines, the Bf 110 didn't start life with DB engines, the Bf 110 B-1 was the first to reach operational units, powered by a couple of Jumo 210 Gs. so I doubt any Fw 187 would have been better prioritised. The DB 601 A powered Bf 110 C was to be built from January 1939, a total of 990 by March 1940, according to Production Plan 8. Like all RLM plans this was never realised, though Zerstorer units did have the Bf 110 C by the beginning of the war. 
The Jumo powered Bf 110 B was supposedly withdrawn to training schools in July 1939, though 27 Bf 110 Bs were still on the Luftwaffe's front line inventory as late as 31st August 1939, almost on the eve of war.


Going off at a slight tangent, I'm not sure that the Bf 109 'Jabos' were really used in what we would consider a fighter bomber role in 1940 at all. For reasons unrelated to this thread, I have been looking at the three attacks on London on 15th October 1940, all carried out by Bf 109s. The attackers approached at altitudes estimated at between 26,000 and 33, 000ft. The dropped their bombs from 18,000 to 20,000ft. The bombing was so inaccurate that British reports for the three raids could only assume the actual targets. The first spread bombs in the area around Waterloo and Vauxhaull, Waterloo station was assumed to have been the target though it was not hit. The British could not work out the targets of the second and third raids, bombs falling in the 'area around Tower Bridge' and then 'the Southwark area'.
The Bf 110s of Erprobungkommando 210 did carry out successful low level attacks, particularly on Fighter Command airfields, which look far more like what we would expect fighter bombers to do.

Cheers

Steve


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## Shortround6 (Apr 20, 2015)

stona said:


> I think that the problem there is that the fighter-bomber concept, as in modifying a fighter to carry bombs to operate in what we would no call close air support or battlefield interdiction simply didn't exist in the mid 1930s. That's not to say that some adventurous types hadn't lobbed small bombs from the cockpits of their fighters in WW1, but this was developed into the dive bomber (almost every German bomber) or light bomber (Hawker Hart, ideal for cheaply and effectively bringing recalcitrant tribesmen into line, unfortunately the Fairey Battle couldn't do the same to the Germans). These were not fighters.



Actually the fighter bomber concept dated to WW I and was alive and at least moderately well during the 1920s and 30s. Late 1930s may have seen funding games being played.
Many British fighters in WW I had racks/fittings for a pair of 20lb bombs under each lower wing. Not a lot but hey, what do you want from 130-150hp engines while trying to carry a pair of machine guns? This _capability_ carried on through the 20s and into the early 30s. How often individual aircraft carried the racks/fittings may be another story. Some of the American Bi-plane fighters could carry light bombs under the wings and sometimes up to a 116lb under each wing. Strangely many American Bi-plane fighters could carry external drop-able fuel tanks which seems to have been forgotten by 1940/41??? The P-26 mono-plane could carry up to 200lbs and the P-35 was rated for 350lbs. Commercial Curtiss Hawk 75s (P-36) were rated (and advertised) for _up to_ an 850 pound bomb load with descriptions and photographs in the company brochure although this capability seems unused by the US.
Both the Arado 68 and He 51 biplane fighters could carry six 10kg bombs in some sort of internal bay/magazine/cassette. 

The P-40 was often touted as a ground attack fighter to explain it's lack of altitude performance. Yet it was never rated as having an external bomb load until the C model. Perhaps (personal conjecture here) the Army was afraid that if Congress thought the pursuit planes could carry bombs they would _NOT _fund attack bombers? 
British fighters lost the light bomb racks with the Gladiator and monoplanes. Afraid of being tied to the army ground forces and not being an independent Branch of service? 
I have no idea why the 109 lost light bombing capability. 

As for the Fw 187, In 1937-39 such aircraft as the Do 17 and Ju 88 were viewed as Schnellbombers, and against such things as PZL P11 they were. And if you had enough spare DB601 engines to build Fw 187 "bombers" why not build Do 215s instead?


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## stona (Apr 20, 2015)

In the 1930s a distinction was made between fighters, light bomber/dive bomber/army cooperation aircraft (depending on nationality), and other bombers. The fighter bomber concept was dead at the time the Fw 187 was being touted as a fighter, then zerstorer.
None of the Anglo-American or German fighter bombers of WW2 (from the Bf 109, Fw 190, Bf 110, Hurricane, Whirlwind, Spitfire, Typhoon, P-47,P-51 etc) were designed as such. They were all fighters converted to have a bombing capability. Some (certainly the P-47, Typhoon and Fw 190) were really very good fighter bombers, but more by chance than design.
The fighter bomber of WW1, and I don't really like to apply that term to it, really evolved into the light bomber concept in the RAF which you could argue extended to Army cooperation aircraft like the Lysander. The Germans had a different approach and for them it evolved into ground attack aircraft like the Ju 87. Again, none of these can properly be classed as fighters.

The never ending search for a role for the Fw 187 is just that, without end. Once it was turned down as a fighter it was dead in the water. The argument about what it or any of the other fighters that the Germans did not develop at the time might have done is moot. Had it been developed as a fighter I can easily see a fighter bomber variant being developed. It would just be following the same course as all those listed above. Unfortunately the horse (fighter) always came before the cart (fighter-bomber).

Cheers

Steve


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## Shortround6 (Apr 20, 2015)

A website: Curtiss Goshawk Marketing Brochure

The thing is that the fighter-bomber concept was not new or un-thought of. It may have been out of fashion (and turret fighters in fashion  for a few years in the late 30s. 

Many small countries embraced the fighter bomber concept as they could only afford a very modest number of planes and a lot their use was anticipated against either domestic or poorly equipped enemies. 

The US Navy never gave up on the fighter bomber concept although they may have held on to the pair of 100-116lb bombs a bit too long. Here it may have been a case of having planes do double duty.


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## stona (Apr 20, 2015)

Shortround6 said:


> The thing is that the fighter-bomber concept was not new or un-thought of. It may have been out of fashion (and turret fighters in fashion  for a few years in the late 30s.



No, but that doesn't alter the fact that neither the Anglo-Americans, nor the Germans operated a fighter bomber in WW2 that hadn't previously been designed and in almost all cases operated, as a fighter before being converted to the fighter bomber role.
The idea that either Focke-Wulf would suggest or the RLM would stipulate such a role for the Fw 187 flies in the face of all the evidence, not least the various requirements the RLM wrote for prospective aircraft during this period. It would have needed remarkable prescience, or a crystal ball that worked.
The ONLY way we might ever have seen a Fw 187 fighter bomber would be for it first to have been developed as a fighter or Zerstorer. Since neither happened the fighter bomber didn't. The proposition is yet another example of hindsight in action.
Cheers
Steve


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## Shortround6 (Apr 20, 2015)

The exception that proves the rule 

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/at...265874650-h75a-flight-manual-h75-a_manual.pdf

See pages 16, 20 and 21. 

max bomb load 850lbs, one 500lb bomb, two 100lbs and six 25lb bombs all at once ( marketing man's idea?). 

How much of this ability was "built in", ie, local reinforcement to handle bomb beams/racks etc. and/or allowed for in "G" load ratings I don't know. Granted this is for an export version of the P-36 but how much "legacy" structure/engineering was available for the P-40 when the P-40 was converted to a "fighter bomber"? 

However your idea about a "fighter bomber" version of the Fw 187 also stands up. The early German radios for single seat fighters were crap (so were most other countries). The ability to communicate with base and ground troops was minimal at best at any but short ranges. Pretty much a single frequency set. One reason for the 2nd crewman was to operate the long range radio. This also had multiple frequencies or was tunable to different frequencies. For a close support plane to depend on signal panels laid out on the ground (large arrows made of sheets of cloth) for targeting instructions is hardly the way to go. The guy in the back of the Ju 87 did more than wave that MG 15 around. 

The fact that early P-40s had NO external loads when first produced seems to smell of a deliberate policy ( we need more attack planes) rather than the capabilities of the airframe. Granted the Liquid cooled engine did run the gross weight up.


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## stona (Apr 20, 2015)

Is there one single example of the USAAF using a P-36 in this role? Did any operator, even the Finns do it? It does seem like a marketing ploy rather than a requirement, but then I don't know how the US system worked. 

The point is that nobody really foresaw the need for a dual role aircraft in the period immediately before the war. The British must have been most upset by the inability of the Fairey Battle to survive when pre-war exercises were replaced with the real thing.
Fighters were designed primarily as interceptors to shoot down bombers. Bombers, no matter which category we might like to put them in, were designed primarily as bombers. The fighter bomber was a compromise between the two. No bomber could become a fighter bomber but several fighters could adopt the role. A fighter bomber could bomb and then either fight or run away. 

In a curious way almost every fighter of the US air forces operating in Europe became at the very least a ground attack aircraft, if not a bomber. I very much doubt that as the Merlin engine was being shoe horned into a P-51 anyone envisaged that role. The engine was being fitted for exactly the opposite reason.

Cheers

Steve


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## Shortround6 (Apr 20, 2015)

It may have been a marketing ploy but then the Curtiss 75 was the companies successor to the Curtiss Hawk Biplane fighter series. The Hawk II and retractable landing gear Hawk III fighters not only being used by the Navy but being commercial export success to South America, the mid east and Asia, including China.






The Hawk III could carry a 500lb where the drop tank went. It was a pair of these fixed gear Biplane Hawks that Udent used to demonstrate dive bombing to Luftwaffe officials. The Navy even had a classification BFC-2 where BF stood for bomber-fighter. 

Curtiss did not depend on US Military orders alone and any successor to the Biplane Hawks would be designed with their overseas customers desires and wants in mind. How often their over seas customers used the multi-role capability I don't know but if Curtiss hadn't offered it some other company would have. 

Plenty of people foresaw the need for dual purpose aircraft. They may have also foreseen the tendency of the "bean counters" to seize on dual purpose aircraft as a reason to order fewer aircraft in total. 
The British could be the Masters of multi-role aircraft at times. The Lysander was supposed to do everything from singing and dancing to washing windows. British medium/heavy bombers were supposed to carry 24 fully equipped troops.The British must have been under few illusions about the Fairey Battle as they issued a specification for a 'tactical' bomber in 1934. The resulting Fairey Aircraft was turned into the Fulmar and the Henley was used as a target tug but it is hard to believe they really thought the Battle was a viable tactical/close support bomber. 

I would also note that many Japanese A5M aircraft could carry a pair of 66lb bombs and many Ki-27s could carry up to four 55lb bombs (Japanese army and navy couldn't even standardize on bombs) in place of drop tanks.


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## stona (Apr 20, 2015)

Shortround6 said:


> Plenty of people foresaw the need for dual purpose aircraft.



So where were the fighter bombers when in 1940/41 the European combatants suddenly discovered that they needed them? Why did they have to press their established fighter aircraft and in the German case Zerstorer, into service to fulfil that role?
A little later the Americans also discovered that they needed such aircraft themselves. If the need had been foreseen I would suggest that suitable aircraft would have been available. Instead, once again, fighters were adapted to the role. Both the P-47 and P-51 had been designed for a very different role at a very different altitude.

The Hawk, Lysander etc fall into a broad category, maybe not the literal British one, of Army Cooperation aircraft. They were not viable as fighters in 1939.

I don't know enough about Japanese aircraft, doctrine or tactics to have an opinion about them

Cheers

Steve


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## FLYBOYJ (Apr 20, 2015)

stona said:


> He ordered initial production to be fighter bomber variant, but did not order the cancellation of the fighter version, simply it's delay until Erprobungskommando 262 which had received its first fighters in April, less than eight weeks earlier, had finished testing.
> In the words of the 'infamous' Fuhrer Befehl:
> 
> _"Under no circumstances is bomber production to be delayed while awaiting results of such [fighter] tests. Not until these tests have been concluded will fighter production be permitted to start. Once this point has been reached there is no reason why production capacity cannot be divided between the two."_
> ...



In a twisted way, Hitler actually helped the 262 get fielded but as stated not for the purpose needed. I also believe that engine production was not keeping pace during this period as well, During this period the 262 was still seeing about ~10 hours engine life.


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## Shortround6 (Apr 20, 2015)

stona said:


> So where were the fighter bombers when in 1940/41 the European combatants suddenly discovered that they needed them?



hiding in disguise 



> Why did they have to press their established fighter aircraft and in the German case Zerstorer, into service to fulfil that role?



Because that is what a _fighter-_bomber is, it is a fighter with bomb racks/mounts underneath, it is NOT a special type of aircraft. The bomb racks cause drag and a loss of performance if fitted at all times. Germans were able to fit bomb racks to 109Es and make a creditable fighter bomber for 1940 even if not ideal. 
British, if they hadn't had their thumbs stuck up their bums about constant speed props for so long might have been able to experiment with the fighter bomber concept a bit sooner. Fixed pitch props and throttled back engines for take-off aren't the best recipe for taking off with heavy loads. It is a fair bet that even those 1934 biplane Hawks had at least a variable pitch prop.



> A little later the Americans also discovered that they needed such aircraft themselves. If the need had been foreseen I would suggest that suitable aircraft would have been available. Instead, once again, fighters were adapted to the role. Both the P-47 and P-51 had been designed for a very different role at a very different altitude.



Americans had had such planes right up until 1939/40. The P-26 Peashooter could carry 200lbs and the P-35 could carry 350lbs. The question is why this capability _went away_ with the P-39 and P-40, especially since we KNOW that in the P-40s case the drawing and tooling existed for the racks/bomb mounts, the control runs and the panels/boxes for the cockpit. 
The Army had, during the 1930s bought about 100 fixed landing gear Northrop A-17 attack aircraft and about 100 retractable landing gear A17As, By the start of WW II (1939) it was planed to replace the remnants of these aircraft with twin engine attack bombers (A-20s). The Army had also decided they wanted air cooled engines for ground attack planes. This may explain the deletion of bomb racks from the V-12 powered P-38-P-39-P-40. Once the shooting started the Army, like the British and many other countries, was forced to use what they could get (what was in production) rather than what was on their wish list. 



> The Hawk, Lysander etc fall into a broad category, maybe not the literal British one, of Army Cooperation aircraft. They were not viable as fighters in 1939


.

I am not surprised that the Hawk III Biplane was not a viable fighter in 1939. The Hawk 75 certainly was as shown by it's performance in France in 1940 and by it's use in Finland. The fitting of the bomb racks/controls would have done little to change that. 



> I don't know enough about Japanese aircraft, doctrine or tactics to have an opinion about them



The light bomb loads may not have been very effective (but with 700hp engines heavy loads were out of the question) but the point is that fighters carrying bombs to drop on targets close to bases were certainly not a new or unusual concept in 1939-40-41. Various air forces might argue about doctrine or resource allocation but few professional air forces could claim ignorance of the practice and it it was over 20 years since it was throw a few bombs over the side of the cockpit. Germans had hundreds of Arado 68s and He 51s with their six 10kg bomb installations. in the mid 1930s. Why there was no rack on the 109 I don't know.


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## Koopernic (Apr 20, 2015)

If Hitler can get blamed for seeing the Me 262 as a bomber who gets carries the can for seeing the P-51 as an A-36?


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## GrauGeist (Apr 20, 2015)

Koopernic said:


> If Hitler can get blamed for seeing the Me 262 as a bomber who gets carries the can for seeing the P-51 as an A-36?


The USAAF wanted an attack aircraft and saw the Mustang as a solution based on it's combat performance.

The A-36 was far more successful in it's role as a ground attack/dive bomber platform than the Me262 was as a bomber.

As far as who was responsible, it can be said that General Echols was the one who envisioned the Mustang as a dive bomber.


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## stona (Apr 20, 2015)

I give up
I still maintain that whereas today most if not all fighter aircraft are designed to have a fighter bomber capability from the first time a CAD programme is opened on the designers computer this was not the case in the 1930s when a draughtsman first put pen to paper. The fighter bomber was not a special type of aircraft in 1940 because none existed in the inventories of the Luftwaffe or RAF, they were made by converting fighters which had not had that capability intentionally designed in. Luckily many could be adapted to the role, though some needed considerable modification, again, not the case for the post war equivalents built as fighter bombers from the get go.
To come back to the original premise, Focke-Wulf could not have sold the Fw 187 to the RLM as a fighter bomber because the RLM didn't want such an aircraft. Close air support would be provided by dive bombers and eventually, after a change of role, by Zerstorer. Secondly I doubt such a role would have occurred to Focke-Wulf. As you yourself say, WW2 fighter bombers were fighters with bomb slips attached. In this we agree, but it also means that my original response, that the Fw 187 could only have been developed as a fighter bomber if it had been adopted as a fighter or Zerstorer, is also true. You can't have the chicken before the egg 
Cheers
Steve


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## buffnut453 (Apr 20, 2015)

stona said:


> No bomber could become a fighter bomber



Errr... Mosquito?

Sorry. Just yanking your chain. I know the Mossie wasn't around in the period you're discussing. But it was a bomber that became a successful fighter-bomber.

Reactions: Bacon Bacon:
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## Shortround6 (Apr 20, 2015)

As for your last part, I agree.

I have also found references to a 5 bomb rack for 10kg bombs that was fitted to the 109A model _internally_ behind the pilot and fuel tank. It was electrically operated (?) and somehow could set the fuses electrically (in theory). The Elvemag 5 C X. Since the electric fuses weren't ready the 109As sent to Spain didn't use the rack and no other 109s were fitted. 109As had a 235 liter fuel tank. 109Cs had a 337 liter fuel tank (expanded into space for the bomb rack?). 

Fighter bomber in 1934-36 may NOT have been a special type because at that time many fighters were _expected_ to carry at least a few light bombs. Bristol Bulldogs, Gloster Gauntlets and Hawker Fury's being among them. Again, what you can carry using 600hp engines vs what you can carry using 1200hp engines are not the same thing but it doesn't change the basic concept. I doubt that the passing of 4-6 years really imposed near universal amnesia on air staffs around the world, but rather some people tended to get carried away with specialized aircraft. Interceptors instead of fighters, light day bombers, medium night bombers, heavy night bombers, land based torpedo bombers, heavy fighters, cannon armed fighters as a class unto themselves as opposed to just being a different armament for fighters.


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## tomo pauk (Apr 20, 2015)

Koopernic said:


> If Hitler can get blamed for seeing the Me 262 as a bomber who gets carries the can for seeing the P-51 as an A-36?



The A-36 was born in order to keep the currently-P-51 production line open. Served the purpose, the line begun again producing the P-51A/Mustang II in early 1943. Credit for A-36 goes to the NAA managers and USAF brass. 

Granted, contracting Curtiss to build 500 of 'A-40s' instead of 500 P-40s, while keeping P-51s on the production line in late 1942 should mean stronger Allied AFs in 1943.


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## Shortround6 (Apr 20, 2015)

Problem was money and budgets. The money for fighters was already spent and there was money left in the account for attack aircraft. while it sounds simple transferring the money would have meant going back to Congress and trying to explain to a bunch of failed shirt salesmen and unsuccessful ex-lawyers what you were trying to do and have them argue about it for weeks


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## GregP (Apr 20, 2015)

What does all this have to do with Ho 229 vs. Vampire?

It deserves its own thread. You'll never FIND these data in 2 months because you won't know where to look for it.

Yes, I've been guilty of this same thing many times, too ... before anyone brings it up. So I'm not picking on anyone specific ... general observation.


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## Seawitch (Apr 20, 2015)

buffnut453 said:


> Errr... Mosquito?
> 
> Sorry. Just yanking your chain. I know the Mossie wasn't around in the period you're discussing. But it was a bomber that became a successful fighter-bomber.


Like the Horton....mostly made of wood, but I gather it had seriously better glue, the truth about it's strength, and one of the Horton's weaknesses?


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## GrauGeist (Apr 20, 2015)

Seawitch said:


> Like the Horton....mostly made of wood, but I gather it had seriously better glue, the truth about it's strength, and one of the Horton's weaknesses?


A number of German aircraft had wood construction: He162, Ta154, Me163 for example.
However, the bonding film used after 1943 was acidic because the primary factory that produced the reliable Tego film was bombed and the Germans tried (and failed to a certain degree) to create a comparable replacement.


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## kool kitty89 (Apr 21, 2015)

stona said:


> Only the bomber version could use the rearmost tank as this had to be counterbalanced by the external stores. A downside of this is that jettisoning the stores before said tank was exhausted made the aircraft impossible for the average pilot to control.


I'd failed to consider this before, but wouldn't it make sense to plumb the external racks for drop tanks and use those to counter-balance the rear tank? (rear tanks on a number of aircraft seriously impacted stability and were often best exhausted first -often before drop tanks, or at least partially exhausted before external tanks were used)


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## stona (Apr 21, 2015)

kool kitty89 said:


> I'd failed to consider this before, but wouldn't it make sense to plumb the external racks for drop tanks and use those to counter-balance the rear tank? (rear tanks on a number of aircraft seriously impacted stability and were often best exhausted first -often before drop tanks, or at least partially exhausted before external tanks were used)



The problem doing this on the Me 262, which after all had been designed as a fighter, was that drop tanks occupied the same hard points as bombs. There were no hard points out on the wings, either tanks or bombs could be carried on racks under the fuselage. 

This crosses over with the fighter bomber debate in another thread. As SR pointed out, a WW2 era fighter bomber was just a fighter with bomb racks attached. Where these were and the loads they could bear were subject to the original design constraints of the fighter. Of course some modifications could be made, many fighter bombers had at the very least upgraded wheels or landing gear, but the intention to carry such loads was never explicit in the design, unlike most modern aircraft of the type.

The Me 262 did manage to carry the R4M rockets and associated racks out on the wings outboard of the engines, but about 40Kg of rockets and a wooden rack on each wing do not add up to a useful bomb load. I don't think re-stressing and redesigning the wing on the Me 262 to carry a useful load was an option for the Germans in mid 1944.

Cheers

Steve


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## kool kitty89 (Apr 21, 2015)

GrauGeist said:


> If the RLM had seized on the He280 and backed it AND the jet engine development by Junkers, BMW, Porsche and Hirth.


Wouldn't happen with the historical He 280 ... stronger support or not, it would needed the ability to carry much more fuel and still would have had engine teething problems. (a different development philosophy following on from the less troublesome HeS 6 might have pushed things along sooner, and an aircraft designed to mount the bulkier engines along with enough fuel to manage well enough in the worst case of not improving on the mediocre 1.6 lb/lbf/hr fuel consumption) Further scaling up of the basic HeS 3/6 configuration may have also been worthwhile, at least in the short-term.

Heinkel already had support from the RLM through Udet on the condition the He 280 fly by 1941. (and facilitated the merger with Hirth -prior to which, Heinkel's engine project was on its own) Working with the earlier engine designs likely would have accelerated the He 280's first flight as well.

Encouraging Jumo to retain the independent Junkers gas turbine project (rather than having the teams merged and much of the Junkers staff leave for Heinkel -and take over a year to re-start development) and have the wonderful HeS 006 as a Junkers Jumo project alongside the much larger and heavier conservative 004. (having BMW or Jumo continue centrifugal jet development may have been wise too ... using similar combustion chamber and turbine configuration to their axial counterparts -unlike Ohain's radial turbine)



> If they had followed through with the Fw187 and the Ar240 and allowed the designs to go to production as intended.


The 240 had a lot more problems in development and came much later than the 187, so it's a bit iffier. Derivatives of the Ju 88 itself may have been more practical in leu of either the 240 or Me 210/410. (with heavy fighters like the 187 filling in the higher-speed/performance roles the Ju 88 was ill suited for -and potential late-war Night Fighter)


Beyond that I've moved the fighter-bomber discussion here:
http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviation/fighter-bombers-late-1930s-fw-187-a-43162.html









stona said:


> The problem doing this on the Me 262, which after all had been designed as a fighter, was that drop tanks occupied the same hard points as bombs. There were no hard points out on the wings, either tanks or bombs could be carried on racks under the fuselage.


I'd meant it would have been useful if the fighter variants of the Me 262 had included racks primarily intended for drop tanks, thus extending range with both those tanks and the potential to now fill the rear tank as well.


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## Juha (Apr 21, 2015)

The Project Proposal IV "Me 262 Jäger und Jabo" ("Me 262 fighter and fighter bomber") of Messerchmitt A.G. dated 8 May 1943, according to which the armament would have four or six 30 mm Mk 108 machine guns and larger wheeled landing gear, the possibility of drop tanks, bomb racks for a maximum of 700 kg load and the better the armour and radio equipment. In the first time the fighter-bomber option was mentioned in a Messerschmitt A.G. project proposal dated on 25 March 1943.


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## stona (Apr 21, 2015)

The date of Project Proposal IV is before the Fuhrer Befehl (30th May) but about a month _after _Hitler had discovered that Ekdo 262s aircraft were not being modified as fighter bombers. At that time, in mid April, he had berated Milch and Goering about this 'failure'. It is reasonable to suppose that Milch or one of his minions at the RLM went to Messerschmitt and asked that the company draw up plans for a Jabo asap.

The earlier 25th March (44) proposal may have come as a result of Hitler's comments on seeing the V6 demonstration at Insterburg on November 26th 1943. Prof. Messerschmitt was one of those present and was always eager to please his Fuhrer, particularly if he reckoned that there was some money to be made or contracts to be won.

Cheers

Steve


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## Juha (Apr 21, 2015)

The year for the proposals I mentioned was 1943 not 1944


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## stona (Apr 21, 2015)

Juha said:


> The year for the proposals I mentioned was 1943 not 1944



Yes, my bad. They must both have been part of a series of Messerschmitt proposals then. There are Messerschmitt drawings for the 'Jager u. Jabo', various reconnaissance versions, a dual fuel rocket/jet interceptor, and various 'Schnellbomber' versions, some with an internal bomb bay, all from July 1943. It was all pie in the sky stuff, or should that be 'blue sky thinking' 

All the manufacturers made paper proposals for all sorts of aircraft. They were not necessarily in response to an RLM requirement.

Cheers

Steve


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## Juha (Apr 21, 2015)

Yes, but the Project Proposal IV was that which became the production version of the Me 262 not one of those paper proposals


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## Koopernic (Apr 21, 2015)

kool kitty89 said:


> Wouldn't happen with the historical He 280 ... stronger support or not, it would needed the ability to carry much more fuel and still would have had engine teething problems. (a different development philosophy following on from the less troublesome HeS 6 might have pushed things along sooner, and an aircraft designed to mount the bulkier engines along with enough fuel to manage well enough in the worst case of not improving on the mediocre 1.6 lb/lbf/hr fuel consumption) Further scaling up of the basic HeS 3/6 configuration may have also been worthwhile, at least in the short-term.
> 
> Heinkel already had support from the RLM through Udet on the condition the He 280 fly by 1941. (and facilitated the merger with Hirth -prior to which, Heinkel's engine project was on its own) Working with the earlier engine designs likely would have accelerated the He 280's first flight as well.
> 
> ...



The Me 262 drop tanks came in as useful in the temporary night fighter versions which sacrificed much of the rear fuel tank to allow a second crew member to be carried. The drop tanks compensated. 

The original small He 280, with engines in the 1200lb thurst class was judged to small and short ranged. Heinkel was compelled to use the larger jumo 004 which couldn't fit in the airframe and so the airframe had to be enlarged.

The Heinkel Hirth HeS 006 was based on the Jumo 002 designed by Adolf Müller of the Airframe division of Junkers. The engine division *JU*nkers *MO*toren or *jumo* had nothing to do with developing jet engines, it was the RLM that decided that airframe manufacturers shouldn't develop jet engines so Adolf Müller moved to Heinkel and the Austrian Turbo charger espert Franz Anselm started to develop the Jumo 004. Heinkel, an airframe manufacturer, faced been sidelined as well so he brought the company Hirth Motoren at 50% above market value so that he could claim to be an engine manufacturer and continue to develop the jet engine that had in fact been invented by his companies patronage of von Ohain.

Adolf Müller's Jumo 002 that became the Heinkel Hirth HeS 006 was far more capable than the Jumo 004. It used a 50% reaction compressor that was 10%-15% more efficient and required only 5 stages to achieve the same compression ratio as the jumo 004.

As a result it had 50% of the weight for the same thrust. In fact it wasn't beaten in terms of frontal area vs thrust and weight versus thrust by any engine till 1947 and weighed only 390kg versus the 740kg of the jumo.

It would have been possible to derate the HeS 006 to only 70% and so reduce turbine temperature drastically and still have enough power for the He 280(small). The temperature reduction would have greatly increased turbine life. Sure the fighter had only the range of an Me 109 or He 162 and 3 x 20mm canon but it might have been available earlier despite the more expensive compressor.

Thus type of compressor was developed further by ABB Cie for the BMW 003C and increased thrust from 800 to 900kg with no changes in turbine conditions. The BMW003D even was expected to reach 1100kg thurst but required a new 2 stage turbine.


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## stona (Apr 21, 2015)

Juha said:


> Yes, but the Project Proposal IV was that which became the production version of the Me 262 not one of those paper proposals



Well if you make enough suggestions you might get lucky with one. Messerschmitt got lucky when Hitler decided that he wanted a fighter bomber. Milch's response to Hitler berating him in April 1944 about the lack of such an aircraft was, apparently (Foreman/Harvey), "My Fuhrer, the Me 262 was designed as a fighter in the first instance." This despite work on the fighter bomber variant being prioritised at Messerschmitt in December 1943.
Cheers
Steve


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## Juha (Apr 21, 2015)

stona said:


> Well if you make enough suggestions you might get lucky with one. Messerschmitt got lucky when Hitler decided that he wanted a fighter bomber. Milch's response to Hitler berating him in April 1944 about the lack of such an aircraft was, apparently (Foreman/Harvey), "My Fuhrer, the Me 262 was designed as a fighter in the first instance." This despite work on the fighter bomber variant being prioritised at Messerschmitt in December 1943.
> Cheers
> Steve



It had nothing to do with luck or Hitler's whims, its was a normal upgrading of plans in light of flight testing and because of orderer's (RLM) more define/changing demands. In fact Hitler's demand revealed the embrassing fact that Messerschmitt had promised something that wasn't adequately worked out and the adding of bombs was found out to be clearly more difficult than Messerschmitt A.G. had thought. But the difficulties surprised also Milch and others in RLM's top hierarcy. Or more exactly the way how the bombs were to be carried was worked out but not the way they affected plane's handling.


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## kool kitty89 (Apr 22, 2015)

Edit, reply to Koopernic moved to:
http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/av...compressors-ww2-jets-39511-4.html#post1199931


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## stona (Apr 22, 2015)

Juha said:


> It had nothing to do with luck or Hitler's whims,



Whim? That's one definition of a 'Fuhrerbefehl'. 
Cheers
Steve


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## blueskies (Apr 22, 2015)

stona said:


> When in 1944? Before the prototype(s) even flew?
> 
> On 10th December 1942 Milch accorded the highest priority (code 'Vulkan') to the Me 262 with no mention of a bomber role. Throughout the same month Messerschmitt wrote on several occasions to Georg Pasewaldt, Chief of Development in the Technical Office of the RLM, with all sorts of problems that needed to be solved before the type could enter production. Included was the requirement for armament and other equipment to be brought up to 'current standards', yet again no mention of bombing. If Messerschmitt did suggest the role, it was unofficially.
> 
> ...



Memorandum to the RLM dated 13th September of 1942 signed Willy Messerschmitt.

Willy proposed adapting the aircraft to the bomber role.

Source; Die Illusion der Wunderwaffen, ISBN 978-3-486-55965-1

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## GregP (Apr 22, 2015)

Ha. When I put"Fuhrerbefehl" into a translator, it comes out "Drove printer command!" And computers weren't even in general use at the time!

Well, they DID have the abbacus and the Enigma machine ... no, wait, we captured one of those ... or someone did, probably on U571? Ha, ha ... for those of you who don't get American humor, that's a joke. 

We all know the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor, blamed it on the Japanese, and then started dumping Volkswaggen dealerships all over the country to subvert the U.S. economy, don't we?

Uh ... that was a joke, too ... no takers, so I suppose it wasn't funny.


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## Juha (Apr 23, 2015)

stona said:


> Whim? That's one definition of a 'Fuhrerbefehl'.
> Cheers
> Steve



IMHO a whim is a fairly accurate way to describe the May 44 Führerbefehl. That doesn't mean that I see all or most of the Führerbefehle as whims.

Juha


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## DerGiLLster (May 1, 2015)

I always thought the vampire had terrible handling compared to the horten ho 229. Shouldn't the horten ho 229 have better handling due to the lack of a tail?


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## stona (May 2, 2015)

DerGiLLster said:


> Shouldn't the horten ho 229 have better handling due to the lack of a tail?



Not necessarily! There's a reason why most aircraft at the time, and now, have both a vertical fin and horizontal stabilisers on the tail. It's the most simple solution to a very complex problem. Even Lippish's Me 163had a vertical fin and rudder, unlike some of the gliders from which he had developed it. Turning a 'flying wing' can be very difficult to do without some unpleasant aerodynamic characteristics of this type causing some malicious handling.
Cheers
Steve


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## rochie (May 2, 2015)

DerGiLLster said:


> I always thought the vampire had terrible handling compared to the horten ho 229. Shouldn't the horten ho 229 have better handling due to the lack of a tail?



Did the Vampire have terrible handling ?
Most things I have read describe it as easy and a joy to fly, and as it was used to trial carrier landings for jets surely it can't have been that bad ?


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## fastmongrel (May 2, 2015)

Early models had problems with snaking which seems to have been a common problem with 1st generation jets. Later models got bigger tail fins which might have been a cure for the snaking.


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## Edgar Brooks (May 2, 2015)

DerGiLLster said:


> I always thought the vampire had terrible handling compared to the horten ho 229. Shouldn't the horten ho 229 have better handling due to the lack of a tail?


Not if you look at the results of the DeH 108, whose uncontrollable oscillations killed one test pilot, and would have killed a second if he'd been taller, which was why the idea was abandoned.


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## stona (May 2, 2015)

All three DH 108s crashed killing all three pilots. Maybe that's why the British decided tailless aircraft might be something they could do without for the time being.
Cheers
Steve


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## FLYBOYJ (May 2, 2015)

DerGiLLster said:


> I always thought* the vampire had terrible handling *compared to the horten ho 229. Shouldn't the horten ho 229 have better handling due to the lack of a tail?



Do you have a source for that? I know people who have flown vampires and they say quite the opposite.

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## GrauGeist (May 2, 2015)

Perhaps pointing out that the B-2 had decent handling because modern technologies addressed the problems of tailless flight doesn't apply


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## stona (May 2, 2015)

GrauGeist said:


> Perhaps pointing out that the B-2 had decent handling because modern technologies addressed the problems of tailless flight doesn't apply



It was solved long before that. Think of the Vulcan bomber, though like the Me 163, still a vertical fin.

Cheers

Steve


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## GrauGeist (May 2, 2015)

The Vulcan (and B-58, space shuttle, etc) are more akin to the DFS194 and Me163 as the B-2 was to the HoIX, YB-35 and YB-49 types.


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## stona (May 3, 2015)

GrauGeist said:


> The Vulcan (and B-58, space shuttle, etc) are more akin to the DFS194 and Me163 as the B-2 was to the HoIX, YB-35 and YB-49 types.



Yes, but they are tailless aircraft 

They overcame many of the aerodynamic problems of the type. They did retain a fin, an eminently sensible compromise as Lippisch had discovered years earlier.

Cheers

Steve


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## GrauGeist (May 3, 2015)

And back to my point regarding the B-2, which is a true flying wing...it's stability and performance is possible today because it's design is a refined result of modern engineering and it's avionics is computer assisted, making for optimum performance, where the YB-35 and YB-49 weren't afforded that luxury.

Of course, the HoIX was also without benefit of modern technology, as well.


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## Koopernic (May 3, 2015)

stona said:


> All three DH 108s crashed killing all three pilots. Maybe that's why the British decided tailless aircraft might be something they could do without for the time being.
> Cheers
> Steve




The DeHaviland DH108 might be the source of the myth that tailless designs can't go supersonic or transonic. The fact that the Me 162 was the fastest aircraft of the war and suffered less Mach tuck than most other aircraft with conventional tails and perhaps even the Me 262 should dismiss that idea.

If fact tailless designs were of great interest to early transonic jet designers since the lack of a tail meant the effects of shock impingement of the wing on the tail was eliminated.

The crash of all three DH108 seems to have had nothing to do with their tailless design.

The DH108 had been designed as a test bed for proposed tailless versions of the comet airliner and used the *stubby flat nose* of that companies Vampire jet, a Mach 0.75 aircraft. When the comet went for a conventional layout the DH108 was 'misused' for supersonic research. It's a case of adapting a design for a new purpose it had not been originally considered for, of forcing a square peg into a round hole.

As the aircraft approached the speed of sound the relatively blunt nose experienced a dramatic increase in pressure and pitched the nose up in what was described as a shock stall. Worse, aerodynamic forces were transmitted back from the elevons to the joystick and a severe type of vibration called PCO pilot couple oscillation set in. The whole sequence was so severe it seems to have Brocken DeHaviland's neck before the aircraft pitched up and broke its wing spars.

Eric Brown experienced the same problem but says that as he was shorter he didn't hit his head on the canopy AS DeHaviland likely did.

The solution was to fit a pointy nose from late model vampires and to use fully hydraulic irreversible controls rather than power boosted controls.

Despite the lack of supersonic wind tunnels in Britain compared to Germany and the capture of German data the evolution of the DH108 the genesis of the DH108 as a comet test bed seems to have lead to this somewhat predicable outcome. There was plenty of data from large calibre naval guns in Britain, the German V2 missile had been modelled on an artillery shell, the German Mauser M1898 rifle had had its bullet changed from round tipped to pointy and created the 'spitzer' bullet. The Miles M52 didn't have a blunt nose, nor did the Bell X1.

********

There is only a little truth to the tailless claim. Wings have pressure distribution: much of the upper surface of a wing has a lower pressure than ambient and much of the lower a higher pressure. This generates a wings lift and also its lift distribution (ie pitching moment). As the wing approaches the speed of sound the behaviour of the air becomes non linear, compressible and so the centre of lift moves aft to the shock wave. The aircraft is now nose heavy an may not be able to pull out of a dive. P-38 and P-47's could end up in death dives. The improvised solution was to introduce dive recovery flaps under the leading edges to pitch the wing up.

Modern aircraft use wing sections which don't change their pitching moment much. The wings are thinner and the thickest portion of the wing is already at 50% rather than 20%. Electronics does the rest, simply automatically trimming out the change in pitch.

In theory a tailless design doesn't have as much tail moment arm but in practice if the right airfoil is used and there is sufficient sweep tailless designs work fine. The deltas such as the F101/106, Mirage, Fairey Delta etc work fine.

The* Vought Cutlass *was a tailless supersonic design, Americas first supersonic, after burner equipped, missile carrying fighter was tailless. It had problems but they came from the under powered engines and systems.

************

Some tailless deigns used an auto stable air foil, the Fauvel flying planks for instance. The Northrop designs did not, they used wing sweep, wing twist so that the wing tips were positioned to perform the function of a tail. Northrop also added slats to improve the pitching moment.

The Me 163 used an bit of both, wing sweep and an auto stable air foil as well as slots (similar to slats).

The Horton Ho 229 used an auto stable air foil on the bat like tail but not on the wings. All of the Horton designs handelled well except for one they made using a laminar flow air foil.

These reflexes and wing twists if severe enough can cause shock wave problems but if the sweep is enough they can be moderate.


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## kool kitty89 (May 3, 2015)

GrauGeist said:


> The Vulcan (and B-58, space shuttle, etc) are more akin to the DFS194 and Me163 as the B-2 was to the HoIX, YB-35 and YB-49 types.


The DM-1 or P.13a might be even more applicable given those are all tailless delta wing configurations rather than tailless swept wings. (Northrop's XP-56 is more akin to the swept wing tailless designs used earlier by Lippisch and on the Me 163 -shame Northrop didn't follow that up with a Jet powered aircraft more similar to the XP-56 rather than the more flying-wing-like XP-79)

For that matter, using a much more highly swept delta configuration (with or without fins -but likely some de-facto vertical stabilizers from engine bulges and cockpit) likely would have made for greater stability than the higher aspect ratio and lesser sweep used by the Horten Brothers. Granted, high aspect ratio is critical for good subsonic lift to drag ratio and given the Horten brothers' experience with gliders, it's not surprising they focused more on that.

I wonder if a tailless delta design might have progressed more quickly than the flying wing, especially one with not only fins but proper rudders as well. (with heavy use of wood in construction, the added stealth potential could still be relevant as well -though plenty of other wooden jet designs would allow for that as well, minimizing cockpit cross section for radar visibility would be more significant)






Koopernic said:


> There is only a little truth to the tailless claim. Wings have pressure distribution: much of the upper surface of a wing has a lower pressure than ambient and much of the lower a higher pressure. This generates a wings lift and also its lift distribution (ie pitching moment). As the wing approaches the speed of sound the behaviour of the air becomes non linear, compressible and so the centre of lift moves aft to the shock wave. The aircraft is now nose heavy an may not be able to pull out of a dive. P-38 and P-47's could end up in death dives. The improvised solution was to introduce dive recovery flaps under the leading edges to pitch the wing up.


Spending extended periods within the transonic range above critical mach but below supersonic is one of the biggest problems both for losing control and for stressing the airframe (particularly due to shifts in center of lift that put stress and pressure distribution in ways the airframe was never intended for).

For the few early transsonic aircraft potentially capable of flying through mach one (drag/thrust wise) it was steep (but well short of vertical) near-limiting dives that were most dangerous, 45% dives would be particularly bad. Very shallow dives might allow enough time to slow/correct while in the transsonic range but short of that, getting locked into mach tuck in near level flight could be even worse due to the longer extended period of stress/strain.

Vertical dives are one of the few scenarios where it might be possible to break the sound barrier and regain control long enough to recover, slow down, and ride out the stresses back to sub-critical mach quickly enough to maintain structural integrity. (this was at least theoretically possible on the Me 262 -and there's some pilot accounts that fit well with the expected flight behavior in such situations- and possibly the Me 163 as well)
As far as I know, high-acceleration vertical dives were never attempted on the DH 108, and the potential for it safely breaking Mach 1 rather than tearing itself apart in sustained Mcrit stress was never tested. (likewise vertical dives were avoided during the X-1's testing program ... or even steep unpowered dives it seems -slightly odd as I'd have thought that would have significantly accelerated research prior to the rocket motor being ready, probably capable of breaking mach 1 unpowered too, at least with enough ballast for 'thrust' even with the thicker initial wing - 10% thickeness:chord rather than 8%)

I'm not sure if the De Havilland Venom ever dived through Mach 1, and while it's limiting mach was in the same .84~.86 of the Me 262, it still seems like it should have been able to break the sound barrier and recover under the right conditions. (and it did use a thinner airfoil than the Me 262) 
I know the CF-100 managed it. (not sure if the F-94C or F-89 did)




> The* Vought Cutlass *was a tailless supersonic design, Americas first supersonic, after burner equipped, missile carrying fighter was tailless. It had problems but they came from the under powered engines and systems.


While the tailless delta winged F4D Skyray was well known for its good handling characteristics, or even being a joy to fly.


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## Edgar Brooks (May 4, 2015)

kool kitty89 said:


> As far as I know, high-acceleration vertical dives were never attempted on the DH 108, and the potential for it safely breaking Mach 1 rather than tearing itself apart in sustained Mcrit stress was never tested.
> I'm not sure if the De Havilland Venom ever dived through Mach 1, and while it's limiting mach was in the same .84~.86 of the Me 262, it still seems like it should have been able to break the sound barrier and recover under the right conditions. (and it did use a thinner airfoil than the Me 262)
> I know the CF-100 managed it. (not sure if the F-94C or F-89 did)


Immediately post-war, the then government banned all supersonic flight, and, by the time this order was lifted, the 108 had gone, and the Vampire and Venom were obsolescent.


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## kool kitty89 (May 4, 2015)

Edgar Brooks said:


> Immediately post-war, the then government banned all supersonic flight, and, by the time this order was lifted, the 108 had gone, and the Vampire and Venom were obsolescent.


That wouldn't apply to the suggestion of attempts at unpowered high mach or supersonic dives in the X-1, but yes, the British Government made a lot of odd, unfortunate, and often short-sighted decisions immediately post-war.


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## FLYBOYJ (May 5, 2015)

kool kitty89 said:


> I know the CF-100 managed it. (not sure if the F-94C or F-89 did).



I was told by Tony LeVeir that the F-94 did go supersonic. He told me he once raced Chuck Yeager (who was flying an F-86) in a diving race in an F-94C without the wing tip pods and beat him.

AFAIK the F-89 was not able to go supersonic.

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## Koopernic (May 8, 2015)

FLYBOYJ said:


> I was told by Tony LeVeir that the F-94 did go supersonic. He told me he once raced Chuck Yeager (who was flying an F-86) in a diving race in an F-94C without the wing tip pods and beat him.
> 
> AFAIK the F-89 was not able to go supersonic.



The F-94C had a new thinner wing compared to previous models. One could see that Kelly Johnson was heading down the alternate route of ultra thin wings to achieve supersonic flight, the next aircraft Lockheed produced was the F-104 Starfighter and so the F-94C can be seen as part of the progression to the F-104.

Straight wings are in fact regarded as superior above Mach 2.5, the swept wing has become the province of the transonic airliner. The F-18 has a straight wing.


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## Milosh (May 8, 2015)

Koopernic said:


> The F-18 has a straight wing.



It does?


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## GrauGeist (May 8, 2015)

Koopernic said:


> The F-18 has a straight wing.


The EF-10, F9F and F2H had straight wings, the F/A-18 has a trapezoidal swept wing.


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## kool kitty89 (May 8, 2015)

GrauGeist said:


> The EF-10, F9F and F2H had straight wings, the F/A-18 has a trapezoidal swept wing.


Most modern supersonic aircraft opted for some compromise between full delta wing and low aspect ration tapered (trapezoidal) straight wings, be it tailed, canard, or tailless using elevons. I'm not sure 'swept' would quite apply to the F-16, F-18, or F-5, aside from there technically being some degree of leading-edge sweepback. (the F-16 almost a tailed delta, though, given its greater sweep)

The F-22 and F-15 are more tailed delta in configuration, closer to the F-4 (though the F-22 has a lot of trailing edge taper). F-35 is somewhere in-between.

Wings like the F-104 used were ideal for supersonic flight, but without compromise for the sub and transonic performance range.



But either way I should clarify that my previous comments on straight-winged aircraft was specifically for (relatively) high aspect ratio sub/transonic aircraft capable of controlled supersonic dives.

I believe the F-80 (and T-33, and F-94A/B), Meteor, F-84, F2H, and F9F (straight wing) had critical mach numbers low enough to put too much drag or stress when approaching mach 1 to be able to safely punch through it. The Vampire definitely so, not sure of the Venom.


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## Koopernic (May 9, 2015)

GrauGeist said:


> The EF-10, F9F and F2H had straight wings, the F/A-18 has a trapezoidal swept wing.



Perhaps by that definition a Curtiss P40 and Mirage III BOTH have a trapezoidal sweep wing?

The F18 has no trailing edge sweep, unlike an Su 27 or Thundercheif. You could argue that the trailing edge forward sweep is less than the leading edge backward sweep as what constitutes swept.

Either way, it's hardly swept at all and probably would have been impossible in aeroelastic terms untill the 60s but I grant you enough sweep to require dogtooth leading edges.


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## tyrodtom (May 9, 2015)

This has been one confusing thread.

Horton 229 verses the DH Vampire. 

The Horton, only 3 made, and only how many flights between those 3 ? 3 ? 4? 5?

And the Vampire over 3200 made, maybe 100,000 flights between them at least.

And the Vampire has had only how many remarks in the whole 9 pages of the thread ?


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## GrauGeist (May 9, 2015)

Koopernic said:


> Perhaps by that definition a Curtiss P40 and Mirage III BOTH have a trapezoidal sweep wing?



For someone who "appears" to have a certain amount of knowledge of aicraft, that comment is just stupid. So is saying that the F/A-18 has a straight wing.

Surely you can do better than that.


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## Koopernic (May 9, 2015)

tyrodtom said:


> This has been one confusing thread.
> 
> Horton 229 verses the DH Vampire.
> 
> ...



I'll have a go at that. The Vampire was slow, slower than the Meteor, Slower than the Me 262. If confronted with the Arado 234C hauling bombs or a 'true' bomb hauling Ho 229 (not the Ho IX test beds being restored) it wouldn't have been able to intercept it either.

It apparently was manoeuvrable, more so than the Meteor.

The question would be What would the Vampire be like in September 1944, which I am estimating as a plausible entry into service for the Ho 229 with Bombay. My guess would be that the Vampire would be still too slow. DeHaviland's did apparently make improvements.


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## FLYBOYJ (May 9, 2015)

Koopernic said:


> I'll have a go at that. *The Vampire was slow*, slower than the Meteor, Slower than the Me 262. If confronted with the Arado 234C hauling bombs or a 'true' bomb hauling Ho 229 (not the Ho IX test beds being restored) it wouldn't have been able to intercept it either.
> 
> It apparently was manoeuvrable, more so than the Meteor.
> 
> The question would be What would the Vampire be like in September 1944, which I am estimating as a plausible entry into service for the Ho 229 with Bombay. My guess would be that the Vampire would be still too slow. DeHaviland's did apparently make improvements.


The Vampire was slow when compared to other fighters of the day but consider maneuvering speeds and acceleration during a close in dog fight, that was advantage the Vampire had, sought of like the Zero. Folks I've know who flew them told me they would out accelerate a Meteor and T-33.

This guy has a good story about one flown in private hands, the owner Al Letcher is an old friend.

Model Airplane Memories: Al Letcher's Mojave Meteor and Vampire in 1/48 Scale


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## Koopernic (May 9, 2015)

FLYBOYJ said:


> The Vampire was slow when compared to other fighters of the day but consider maneuvering speeds and acceleration during a close in dog fight, that was advantage the Vampire had, sought of like the Zero. Folks I've know who flew them told me they would out accelerate a Meteor and T-33.
> 
> This guy has a good story about one flown in private hands, the owner Al Letcher is an old friend.
> 
> Model Airplane Memories: Al Letcher's Mojave Meteor and Vampire in 1/48 Scale



Unfortunately there is a tendency to focus purely on top speed as a figure of merit and thence perhaps after turning circle. Yet many factors such as climb rate are just as important and even control harmony factors highly.

If the Ho 229 had of fulfilled its expectation as bomber I suspect the Vampire would not have been the best aircraft to use against it. I don't believe the Ho 229 was seen as a fighter by the Luftwaffe apart from maybe a night fighter. Tailless designs are generally not known for exceptional manoeuvrability since the elevons or ailervators are now acting to reduce lift over the main lifting surfaces. They do have a low wing loading. Deltas such as the F-106 can generate extraordinary high amounts of lift and good tight turns but they soon wash of speed and I suspect that flying wings might be the same.


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## kool kitty89 (May 9, 2015)

Koopernic said:


> Perhaps by that definition a Curtiss P40 and Mirage III BOTH have a trapezoidal sweep wing?
> 
> The F18 has no trailing edge sweep, unlike an Su 27 or Thundercheif. You could argue that the trailing edge forward sweep is less than the leading edge backward sweep as what constitutes swept.
> 
> Either way, it's hardly swept at all and probably would have been impossible in aeroelastic terms untill the 60s but I grant you enough sweep to require dogtooth leading edges.


The Saab J29 was only modestly swept and featured a dogtooth, the Venom (which I'd lumped in with straight wings) used wing fences and was only about as 'swept' as the Me 262. (didn't manage a better critical mach number either, though that may not be a fault of the wing -same for the Me 262, I believe it was the fuselage that brought critical mach down to .86, or possible wing-fuselage interaction; I'm not sure if the wing root extensions of the HG-I increased the mach number or just decreased transonic drag in general)

For that matter, the modest sweep on the DC-3 may have been enough to gain some advantages from wing fences, at least considering the Venom.




Koopernic said:


> I'll have a go at that. The Vampire was slow, slower than the Meteor, Slower than the Me 262. If confronted with the Arado 234C hauling bombs or a 'true' bomb hauling Ho 229 (not the Ho IX test beds being restored) it wouldn't have been able to intercept it either.
> 
> It apparently was manoeuvrable, more so than the Meteor.
> 
> The question would be What would the Vampire be like in September 1944, which I am estimating as a plausible entry into service for the Ho 229 with Bombay. My guess would be that the Vampire would be still too slow. DeHaviland's did apparently make improvements.


In 1944, say the Vampire managed to get into service with the 2,700 lbf Goblin I at similar performance to the initial production Vampire I of 1945 and you've got something considerably faster than the Meteor III, even with the long nacelles, though perhaps slower once the 2,400 lbf Derwent IV is ready. (assuming there's no re-examination of the metrovick engines with the 2,700 lbf F.3 seeming to manage acceptable reliability with the adoption of flame cans).

Acceleration will be poorer due to the lower thrust to weight ratio than anything save the Welland powered Meteor, and range was limited with the initial fuel capacity as well. Wing loading is lower, so stall performance and zoom-climb may be better, and roll rate will probably be better than any jet short of the He 162, and maybe P-80A. (granted, XP-80 development is one of the things that slowed Vampire development in the first place, with diversion of the few working Goblin engines -- had the Goblin itself been higher priority and more heavily funded, this may have been different ... licensed production -and possibly expanded testing/development- though Rolls Royce may have been necessary to really accelerate goblin time to production though)

Roll rate is a big deal to be sure, and with high-speed/energy tactics being the norm for jets (more so than piston engine fighters of the era), roll rate would be more important than sustained turning ability.





Koopernic said:


> Deltas such as the F-106 can generate extraordinary high amounts of lift and good tight turns but they soon wash of speed and I suspect that flying wings might be the same.


The low aspect ratios of delta wings (and extremely poor lift to drag ratio at high AoA -utilizing the wingtip vortex phenomenon) makes for higher drag in these situations than the likes of high aspect ratio flying wings.

Good for high AoA take-off and landing, not so much for turning. (the delta platform itself would have probably been a much more practical design route to persue as aggressively/intensively as the Horton's flying wing concept, even before the supersonic performance advantages were realized -sweep for stability as adopted on earlier tailless designs, but larger area and space for internal stores as well as higher strength and potentially simplified construction)


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