Ace pilot with inferior aircraft vs not-so-ace pilot with superior aircraft?

[Friendly Fire]

I wasn't quite sure where to post this thread, so I apologize if it was in the wrong place.


Anyways, suppose in a hypothetical one-on-one fight where you have a Fokker D.VII or D.VIII (WWI aircraft), pitted against a jet fighter ME 262. The fight starts with the ME 262 being far above the D.VII, but the pilot of the D.VII is well aware of the jet fighter's position. The fight takes place in a cloudy sky over an ocean. A mountainous forest island is nearby, and it has a field of rocky pillars that the D.VII/III can barely navigate at minimal speed, but completely inaccessible to the ME 262 (especially at full speed).

The D.VII/III pilot is very familiar with the ME 262, and is close to Manfred von Richthofen's or Oswald Boelcke's skills and experience.

The ME 262 pilot is inexperienced with his and the opponent's aircraft, extremely impatient, hot tempered, and has a very strong grudge against the D.VII/III pilot. He sees the opposing aircraft as nothing more than an annoying mobile target practice, and prefers to attempt to out-maneuver his opponents. He also often completely disregard the Dicta Boelcke, the list of eight fundamental aerial maneuvers, during his too-frequent rage-mode. Don't ask how he lived long enough for the fight.

 

[Jenisch]

Basically you want to know if the WWI plane would be able to outmaneuver the Me 262 to hit it? If the 262 flies at an speed inside of the WWI acft speed range, yes. But he probably would need to fully deploy his flaps and fly at nearly the flap stall speed, which already represents a problem for the inexperienced and impacient pilot.

 

[wuzak]

No doubtthe Fokker could out turn the 262.

The question is could the wily old fox in his old biplane bring down a Me262?

I think the odds are low. The weapons on the old biplane are a little light to trouble the Me 262 in most instances, and the window for firing upon the jet would be small.

It wouldn't take much for the Me 262 to take down the Fokker (with 20mm and 30mm cannons?), but it may be difficult for him to get a good shot too.

I would think the likely outcome would be a win for the Me 262 or the inexperienced Me 262 pilot would leave the combat after being frustrated and when his fuel supply was running out.

Also, even if he couldn't get his guns to bear on teh Fokker, I think teh Me 262 pilot could use the wake of his aircraft to detabilise the Fokker, maybe even bringing it down.

 

[Jenisch]

The weapons on the old biplane are a little light to trouble the Me 262 in most instances, and the window for firing upon the jet would be small.

If the jet starts a turninfight, typical of inexperience pilots, certainly the pilot in the Fokker woud be able to put some good .30 rounds in the engines of the jet. That would bring it down with relative easy.

 

[Friendly Fire]

Quick question, could a ME 262 continue fighting with one of its engines dead?

 

[wuzak]

If the jet starts a turninfight, typical of inexperience pilots, certainly the pilot in the Fokker woud be able to put some good .30 rounds in the engines of the jet. That would bring it down with relative easy.

Even in a turning fight the Me 262 is going to be much faster, so the Fokker pilot would have to hit the Me 262's engines in the small amount of time that he is within range.

 

[wuzak]

Quick question, could a ME 262 continue fighting with one of its engines dead?

Depends on how difficult it was to control, I suppose. Especially since we are talking about an inexperienced pilot.

It would still hold a speed advantage, however.

 

[Jenisch]

Even in a turning fight the Me 262 is going to be much faster, so the Fokker pilot would have to hit the Me 262's engines in the small amount of time that he is within range.

Assuming he only wants to know if a WWI plane can win a dogfigh against a Me 262, I think he is also assuming the 262 would fly in the Fokker's speed range. Even if that means deploy full flaps.

 

[tyrodtom]

The Me262's stalling speed was 110 mph, which is about the same as the top speed of a Fokker DVII.

It would take more than a inexperienced pilot in a Me262, to try and get to the same speed as a WW1 Fokker, he'd have to be brain dead.
As desparate as Germany was they didn't put many if any inexperienced pilots in Me262s.

 

[Jenisch]

110 was clean speed? (actually with slats). This is what I'm talking about flaps... Not practical to discuss, but just for curiosity of the creator of the topic.

 

[Friendly Fire]

Assuming he only wants to know if a WWI plane can win a dogfigh against a Me 262, I think he is also assuming the 262 would fly in the Fokker's speed range. Even if that means deploy full flaps.

I didn't think of that. I was thinking the ME 262 pilot would attempt to out-maneuver the Fokker at full speed, such as flying in a very large circle around it, hoping to get an opportunity to shoot. Essentially you have two aircraft that can barely hit each other, one out-turn, the other out-speed.

 

[drgondog]

I can image that the wily WWI pilot can judge his breaks but can he always keep the 262 pilot in sight? Secondly the 262 has a clear path to shoot if the Fokker ever flies in a straight line and NEVER has to fly directly in front of the Fokker (or whatever we call him). If say the Fokker breaks left, the 262 just keeps going and regains altitude to the right and the Fokker never really has even a deflection shot with his 7.92's. If the Fokker turns into him for a head on shot - poof.

 

[wuzak]

At speed I would think the only time the Fokker had a shot at the Me 262 was after the Me 262 had made a run and had overshot, there being a small window of opportunity for teh Fokker to fire.

In the 1950s a PR.XIX Spitfire was brought out of retirement to participate in tactical trials with a jet (IIRC the BAC Lightning), which resulted in a resounding victory for the jet.

The turning ability of the Fokker could be used to avoid being shot down, frustrating the Me 262 pilot, but I doubt it could get him a position to fire.

 

[Edgar Brooks]

This was done, around 1959, with the English Electric Lightning pitted against a Spitfire XIX, all because there was a chance of war against Indonesia, whose air force was still using the P-51. It was found that, provided the Lightning pilot kept his speed up, and made slashing attacks across the Mustang, the slower aircraft had no chance. If he slowed, and got into a turning fight, he was in trouble, but could still use reheat for a fast getaway. This also begs the question, who would allow an inexperienced pilot to fly an Me262?

 

[Friendly Fire]

Like I said, it's a hypothetical one-on-one fight. If we were to make it realistic, it would also beg the question of who, especially an ace pilot, would fly such an old biplane against a jet plane?

 

[mikewint]

As I recall the Me was not a very good dogfighter. Flat out fast but that very speed made maneuvers difficult. Modern jets use vectored exhaust to solve this problem. I would think that the Me would have a tough time "getting a bead" on the little Fokker

 

[parsifal]

Like I said, it's a hypothetical one-on-one fight. If we were to make it realistic, it would also beg the question of who, especially an ace pilot, would fly such an old biplane against a jet plane?

Whilst your scenario is extreme to the point of being surreal, a somewhat similar situation developed in the North African TO at the beginning of the war. The italian pilots, were easily the best trained pilots in the ETO at the time, but were flying generally inferior biplanes versus a very few far superior hurricanes. There were losses to the hurricanes, but control of the air easily was achieved by the far smaller numbers of the modern fighters.

As a generalization, 90% of kills are achieved by 105 of the pilots. The rest are essentially targets......fillers designed to take the heat off the true hunters.

what I suspect would happen in this scenario, if the 262 is a filler type pilot, and the biplane a hunter, is a stsndoff, but control of that part of the sky passing easily to the 262. If strike aircraft enter the equation, the 262 can provide effective protection, whilst the biplane cannot. this is certainly what happened in 1940, in the desert.

 

[Njaco]

If the 262 sets its phasers to 'stun', he might be victorious.

 

[Friendly Fire]

The reason why I asked you all is because I'm writing a rough draft of a historical fiction for fun. Although I did lots of research, I'm not confident if the dogfighting scene is realistic.

--------------------------------
Part of the climax's rough draft:

Daniel considered himself lucky that the now-assassinated Generalmajor was obsessed with WWI aircraft, and had pulled strings to haul a Fokker D.VII to the island base. He was extremely lucky because the Fokker was fully operation and that he was allowed to fly it several times, weeks before the base was rocked with assassinations and executions. Had he not got out by the time the RAF dive bombers stopped pounding the base and the Bismarck and Tirpitz, he would've been executed on the false charge of conspiring to assassinate the Generalmajor. He suspected Paul, a fellow Luftwaffe pilot who extremely hated him, was behind the events.

A long hail of shells zipped past him. He pushed the Fokker into a dive and looked behind him, the ME 262 was diving towards him with its cannons firing. However, it was too far away to make any accurate hits with its low-range cannons.

There were only two pilots who were allowed to fly the only 262 at the island base, him, and Anton. But Anton wasn't stupid enough to fire on a target nearly a mile away.

Something clicked inside his mind. Paul had not completed basic training for the ME 262, but he knew Paul had a tendency of being trigger-happy and being too aggressive with acceleration and maneuvering when he was angry. Most likely Paul had "borrowed" the jet plane when the Luftwaffe needed it the most.

He pulled hard to the right, mentally counting how many seconds did the stream of shells last. The ME 262 attempted to also turn to the right at max speed, but overshot and screamed past him, gently rocking the old Fokker. The fighter jet then pulled up and turned right to meet the Fokker, and Daniel continued to turn to the right.

It did not take long for both of them to fly in a circle. There was no way the ME 262 could line up its cannons for a kill, especially at 500 mph, but its cannon occasionally fired short bursts. However, Daniel knew the Fokker would stall before the ME 262 would, and a stalled aircraft was a dead aircraft.

As a risky gamble, he stopped turning to the right and flew in a straight line. If his timing was right, he could pump its right engine full of bullets. If the timing was off, he could either end up directly in the ME 262's cross-hair or get burned by its exhaust.

As he flew closer, he noticed Paul had taken the bait and was not going to stop flying in a circle, but his aircraft was flying too fast for him to nail the ME 262's right engine. He dived gently, took off his jacket, removed a belt of ammunition and tied it to the jacket. Paul also dived as the Fokker neared, but he overcompensated and quickly found himself flying below the Fokker.

Daniel threw the ammunition loaded jacket at the rapidly approaching ME 262 and watched it get inhaled by the left engine. As the Fokker spiraled out of control from being destabilized by the ME 262's wake, he grinned as the ME 262's left engine vomited a fireball and a thick plume of black smoke. He eventually regained control and flew towards a field of rocky pillars next to an island; another few feet of diving and he would've crashed into the water.

Another long hail of shells alerted Daniel of the ME 262 diving towards him as he entered the field. He decelerated close to the Fokker's stall speed and narrowly dodged pillars after pillars, with shells ricocheting around him, while counting how many seconds of fire was wasted. The ME 262 pulled up hard to avoid crashing into the pillars.

After exiting the field, he turned around hard to meet Paul head on. It would be the only time he would ever pull such risky maneuver, only because he knew his opponent had expended all of his ammunition. The ME 262 did not change its course; it was going to ram the Fokker out of the sky.

As the ME 262 rapidly closed the distance gap, Daniel pulled up hard and then pushed back down, lining up his machine guns onto the ME 262's upper side. He open fired as the jet plane screamed past him. The ME 262's wake forced the Fokker to crash into the water at nearly 80 mph, instantly killing Daniel.

"Hah! He missed!" Paul victoriously shouted. He then pulled on the stick to make a U-turn.

No response.

Cursing, he looked behind him.

The tail fin was missing.

 

[Njaco]

Not bad. Could I suggest that maybe you can get familiar with terms used by pilots to make it more realistic. Terms such as 'turned right', 'u-turn' and 'wake' aren't used by pilots and air junkies. Things like 'banked starboard' or 'split-S' or something similar are more common usage.

If you can suspend belief, it might work!