Best Fighter

[lesofprimus]

Things listed on paper always tell a 1 sided story.... Stats are great and I love em.... But they arent everything....

And for the record, I have NEVER met someone who flew in the same airspace as those D9's and felt confident they were unbeatable.... The 4 or 5 guys i talked to who battled the Dora thought the plane superior in performance to their 51D's.....

But that is only 4-5 out of 1000???? But it's 100% of the pilots i talked to.....

Oh. Name one?

Are u implying that we are just making this up for the hell of it????
First of all, I aint no liar and dont appreciate someone behind a computer screen accusing me of being one.....
Secondly, U DONT KNOW EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!
Thirdly, opinions are like assholes....... Everybody's got one.....
And forthly, Colonel Henry Brown of the 355th is one of the men I've spoken to.....

 

[Anonymous]

Why do I have to name one, do you not believe me? Do you know every single pilot who ever flew a P-51 Mustang? Why should I care if you don't believe me? I don't know who you were talking to, but the guys that I have spoken to, and there have been several, (remember, I volunteer at a WWII aviation museum) have stated the the late model 190s were something they dreaded seeing.

Look, I am not going to let this debate drag on, I have heard what I have heard, and I really don't care what you wish to believe.

"have stated the the late model 190s were something they dreaded seeing."

A statement that could easily apply to any plane that posed a serious threat, even if inferior to the one the pilot is flying.

I've met Hannible Lee and others of the Tuskegee Airmen at Mongomery Field Airshows. I've managed to ask a few questions about the P-51 of Chuck Yeager, Henry Brown, Bruce Carr, William Whisner, amoung many others. Always I have asked questions like "was the FW, especially the long-nosed FW, better than the P-51?" and always the answer has been "no". I spoke to "Bud" Anderson in an online interview where questions like this were asked and he indicated none of the German props worried them, but they had some reticence when they first encountered the Me262.

Because out of all the WWII pilots I've met I've never yet met one who spoke of anything like what you say, yes, I would like to know who made this comment. It is totally out of keeping with virtually every pilot I've had the opportunity to speak with.

So, you volunteer at an air-museum. Well, while I was a kid my Dad was a navy pilot. Over the years he had many buddies he flew with in the Korean war and their buddies over for dinner parties and such, including amoung others Pappy Boyington. When I was very young, we spent 18 months in Europe while my dad trained NATO pilots in the use of air-to-air missiles, and I can remember WWII pilot stories told over after dinner drinks (but of course I was not allowed to ask questions or participate, only to listen). My Dad also spent a year assigned to the USAAF, when I was a little older, and I met quite a few WWII fighter pilots and was able to ask some questions and listen to stories at various parties and family activities. I was in fact, considered by my Dad, to be rather annoying sometimes for always wanting to hear WWII fighter stories, but the truth is a lot of those guys loved to be asked. Often, when my Dad and Mom were hosting a party (which was pretty often), I'd drag out my models and ask them if they ever shot down one of these.

Anyway, I've had the opportunity to speak to a lot of pilots over the years, and never have I heard any of them speak of dreading encountering any German plane in WWII, except the Me262 which they didn't know what to make of. For the most part, they were much more afraid of ground fire than the Luftwaffe'.

=S=

Lunatic

 

[evangilder]

How you ask a question or approach a WWII vet can make a big difference in the answer you get to questions. I don't always directly speak to them and often sit quietly back and listen while 2 vets talk about the old days or a vet who is talking to someone else.

If I just came up to someone I had never met or spoke to before that I knew was a WWII vet, that would not be the first question out of my mouth. To be honest, they may have given the answer to you so they wouldn't have to take any more questions. From someone they don't know, if they answered that something else might be better, they could be accused of being unpatriotic, a liar, etc. It's a safe answer.

I see that your vast experiences with aviators is SOOO much better than my volunteer work in a WWII aviation museum and things that I have heard with my own ears as well while there. You see, I don't always get their names, as I don't always engage them directly, nor do I often get told a name of a person that I am giving a tour to. Someone starts telling their story, I am not going to be rude to stop them and ask their name, fighter group, proof of what they did. I just LISTEN. I never asked them what their opinion of what is better, but I have heard it many times that the Mustang was a great plane, but it wasn't always the best in a fight. I heard others chatting about the late Doras and what they thought. I didn't interrupt them, I LISTENED. It is amazing how much you can pick up without ever having to utter a single question.

I treat all of our visitors the same, regardless of who they are or what they have or have not done. I have finished tours and after the gentlemen left, one of the other guys will ask me "Do you know who that was?" I don;t always know. Well, I have given tours to a number of known veterans like David Hackworth, and one of the crewmen from the Tokyo raid, who's name eludes me at the moment. He passed away a couple of years ago. When I saw his picture in the paper, I remembered him from a tour. Some tell stories, some do not. If they want to share, I LISTEN. Otherwise, I give the tour like I normally would.

 

[Anonymous]

How you ask a question or approach a WWII vet can make a big difference in the answer you get to questions. I don't always directly speak to them and often sit quietly back and listen while 2 vets talk about the old days or a vet who is talking to someone else.

If I just came up to someone I had never met or spoke to before that I knew was a WWII vet, that would not be the first question out of my mouth. To be honest, they may have given the answer to you so they wouldn't have to take any more questions. From someone they don't know, if they answered that something else might be better, they could be accused of being unpatriotic, a liar, etc. It's a safe answer.

I see that your vast experiences with aviators is SOOO much better than my volunteer work in a WWII aviation museum and things that I have heard with my own ears as well while there. You see, I don't always get their names, as I don't always engage them directly, nor do I often get told a name of a person that I am giving a tour to. Someone starts telling their story, I am not going to be rude to stop them and ask their name, fighter group, proof of what they did. I just LISTEN. I never asked them what their opinion of what is better, but I have heard it many times that the Mustang was a great plane, but it wasn't always the best in a fight. I heard others chatting about the late Doras and what they thought. I didn't interrupt them, I LISTENED. My opinion and things I have heard is nothing to you, right? That is what you are saying, loud and clear.

Fine, the P-51 was the best thing since sliced bread and night baseball. Do you feel better now???

And often I would just listen at dinner parties. I would ask a question and then they'd all start talking and telling stories. Remember, I was a kid and I got to ask a question or two, maybe, and that was it before my Dad would let me know that was it, or sometimes even send me into the other room or to bed. Alcohol helped a lot too. I can still remember Pappy Boyington (I think it was Boyington - I was maybe 6 or 7 at the time) putting out his cigar on my moms best tablecloth, he was not able to hit the ash tray! I can distinctly remember a discussion between pilots that turned into an argument about who were the more dangerous foes - the Germans or the Japanese, and the USAAF pilots who'd fought both said.... suprise.... THE JAPANESE!

All I'm saying is that your comments are not in line with anything I've ever heard. I don't think most pilots thought that way. They were selected for agressiveness, and trained to be even more aggressive. Every one of them thought they were the best pilot in the sky. And, in general, by the time the P-51 came into the war, they thought they had the best plane in the sky too.

I'm not saying the P-51 was better than the Dora9, I'm saying it was competitive and that each had advantages and disadvantages. However, more often than not, given the way the two planes match up, the P-51 should start in a position to control the fight and use its advantages and avoid those of the Dora9, and that is a huge factor in who wins a fight.

=S=

Lunatic

 

[Anonymous]

PS: It seems we have both spoken with Col. Henry Brown. Are you saying he said he dreaded the late model Dora? I sure don't remember him making that kind of comment when I heard him talking about flying the P-51!

=S=

Lunatic

 

[Archangel]

i dont think u can say what fighter is the best one,.. they are all different, and to make an objective approach, u should ask someone who've flew them all

 

[Erich]

I find this last part of this thread interesting....the Dora against all these US aces.

Fact is in most probability that 9/10th's of the US aces did not come up against the Dora in combat and the comparision is superfulous. ID was probably not correct but that is not surprising as when the Me 163 komet was sighted nearly all US fighter groups started to reprot them in the skies.


the Dora against British Spits and Tempests is another story.

let me remind you gents that only JG 2 and most of JG 26 were outfitted with the type. II./JG 301 in the winter-spring of 45 and much of it was on the ost front. Stab./JG 3 flew on the ost front as well as Stab./JG 4 with Dora's on the ost front. The Würger staffel of JV 44 probably had one instance with P-47's.

The Dora was anexcellent craft in the hands of a skilled pilot but so was a P-51D or K. The Dora like the Ta 152 and the Me 262 could not prove its;ef as it was overwhelmed with Allied numbers, and created to late in the war. A huge what-if.

Gruß

 

[Udet]

Plan_D:

You really are a cyber-bully aren´t you?

Instead of resorting to your low budget insulting remarks, you should try to prove your points.


RG_Lunatic:

With all due respect for some of the veterans you mentioned (Chuck Yeager, Bud Anderson, etc.) I would certainly take some of their arguments with all due reserves. Why?

These USAAF veterans will of course speak about the Luftwaffe in terms very very similar, if not identical, to those Kozhedub and other soviet aces would use. A very normal and unsurprising thing; a standard procedure for any victor of any war.

Chuck Yeager, for instance, appears to speak gladly and fluently on the war sometimes apparently losing the ground.

That their answer to your question "was the Dora better than the P-51" was no, tells very little about the issue.

Yeager should really slow down sometimes for he himself got shot down in combat with German interceptors. In fact, mr. Yeager is as lucky to be alive as many of the top German aces who saw service virtually throughout the entire war.

This means mr Yeager was effectively surpassed in combat and went down. Very lucky to be alive.

Even a soviet lady shot down more planes than he did. Furthermore, Yeager´s total bag was in many cases, a half an hour job for a big number of German experten.

My point is, those famous veterans of the USAAF over Europe are experts at pointing the weak spots of the enemy craft they faced, but curiously tell nothing regarding the weak spots of the aircraft they flew.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Der Adler:

You are right. It appears like some guys here render the Germans uncapable of producing cutting edge tools and equipment.


Lunatic: with all due respect, you appear to have issues with the Ta 152 and, globally speaking, with everything that is German. On what bloody grounds do you affirm the Germans could have not developed more powerful engines?

Thank you someone sees where I am coming from. RG_Lunatic seems to think that everyone but the United States was in the Stone Age. RG please dont take me wrong I respect your patriotism and all. I am a patriot for the United States and Germany. I love both countries and would die for either one. I wear a US flag on my shoulder right now and prepared to lay down my life for it, but I am sorry you make it sound like the Germans and everyone else could not have developed better weapons and engines and such because they were not smart or skilled eneogh and frankly you are dead wrong. Get off the high horse please. And yes there are people that are getting to angry about this topic, it is just a discussion. I know I was guilty of this earlier in the posting with RG_Lunatic but lets try and be more friendlier, unless you can tell it to there face and not safe behind a computer.

They wouldn't have out-done Britain on jet engines. We had the most powerful engine in the world, in the Nene. And we were making more and more powerful engines.

If the war had dragged on the Germans would have developed better jet engines also, dont take me wrong the Brits were very capable aswell and would have kept right up there also.

Charts, graphics and statistics may show one thing, but reality is sometimes completely different. Did you know on paper, a C-130 can't fly? Well then, I don't know what the hell that was that flew my happy ass all over the world for almost 2 years, but it sure was durable,reliable, and ALWAYS got me home.

You are absolutely correct, you can not base your comparison of two aircraft based off of charts and specs. I am sorry RG_Lunatic but you know what sometimes the specs dont tell the truth. Just like evenglider's C-130 an example of this is the British Puma and the Blackhawk. On paper the Puma is better and will outfly a Blackhawk anyday under any conditions. However I personally have proved this wrong. In Kosovo as a friendly wager between a British Puma crew and my crew we outflew, outclimbed, and out turned a Puma (dont ask me why 2 helicopters would need to outturn eachother). The face between Prestina and Camp Bondsteel to see who could fly faster, the Puma accelorated faster but we cought up with it and got there 3 minutes ahead of it. But on paper this was not possible, so I guess I am making this up because paper is always correct, correct RG_Lunatic?

Oh. Name one? I've spoken to lots of WWII aces (and non-aces) over the years, and what I remember them consistantly saying is that there was no German prop fighter that they did not feel the P-51 was better than.

Again man you did not fight the Dora so give it up. I know it was not a US fighter but it was a hell of a fighter and the P-51 was not gods gift to aviation.

I've met Hannible Lee and others of the Tuskegee Airmen at Mongomery Field Airshows. I've managed to ask a few questions about the P-51 of Chuck Yeager, Henry Brown, Bruce Carr, William Whisner, amoung many others. Always I have asked questions like "was the FW, especially the long-nosed FW, better than the P-51?" and always the answer has been "no". I spoke to "Bud" Anderson in an online interview where questions like this were asked and he indicated none of the German props worried them, but they had some reticence when they first encountered the Me262.

Ofcourse they said that. Damn you are naive my friend. If you ask any pilot what they think the best aircraft is they say it is the one that they fly. It is a thing of pride. Whenever someone asks me I tell the best is the Blackhawk because I love my aircraft. Is the Blackhawk the best, more then likely no. You ask a Dora pilot which aircraft he thinks is the best out of pride and love of his aircraft he will say Dora. The same goes for Hurricane and Spitfire pilots. You go tell a Spitfire pilot that your beloved P-51 is better then his Spit and he will spit on you. Get over it please. And yes whats up with these questions of "Who", "What sources" and so what? What do you think we are all liars and stuff. How do we know that you actually have spoken to these pilots, you could be some 8 year old kid sitting behind the computer telling us that you are who you are. You even want to argue with Erich about is soarces and he has researched stuff like this more then any of us and talked with more pilots then you could have ever dreamed of.

For the most part, they were much more afraid of ground fire than the Luftwaffe'.

Of couse you would say this because the Luftwaffe was German. But this is easy for you to say since you never flew against the Luftwaffe. Have you ever flown over hostile lands? I surely have and you know what I take nothing for granted everything is dangerous and everything wants to kill you. But ofcourse when I am sitting back at the local Kneipe in Germany I am going to tell people I was more scared of the Iraqi birds then someone trying to kill me.

And, in general, by the time the P-51 came into the war, they thought they had the best plane in the sky too.

Again please read my post I made earlier. Ofcourse they thought they had the best plane, everyone thought they did and you know what that is still the same today.

Are you saying he said he dreaded the late model Dora? I sure don't remember him making that kind of comment when I heard him talking about flying the P-51!

And again. I guess evenglider is a liar because he did not hear the same thing you did, and again that is what every pilot says about there aircraft.

And just off topic this is coming from the news lately. Airbus came out with the new Airbus A-380 yesterday. What do you think about that RG_Lunatic because it is not Boeing and not a US built aircraft? You probably think it is years behind anything that the US has built. Anyways I have said eneough on this, I need to stop before I go against what I said up top and get angry.

 

[Udet]

Der Adler:

I wholeheartedly agree with all your points.

It is surprising you can find lots of webpages, books and magazine articles when it is affirmed: "The P-51 wholly outclassed the Bf109".

I will always oppose such argument by saying: "You should have asked Erich Hartmann who shot down 7 P-51s flying a Bf109 of the late G series and was never based in the Reich or in the west".

Is Yeager so confident he had nothing to worry about German interceptors? Then, why was he duly surpassed in combat getting shot down? It is either his P-51 was no superior at all, or that he perhaps was not the ultimate fighter pilot of the war.

Der Adler, just like when one is very pissed off and opens his mouth, such state of anger will certainly lead him to say stupid, groundless or offensive things, victory plays kind of a similar effect. Victory has this effect of drunkness on victors, many times having them saying unaccurate or untrue things.

I ve read a good deal of specifications on fighters of WWII. The Bf109G and K, globally speaking, were on equal terms to any fighter fielded by the allies. The same applies exactly to the Fw190 versions.

I do not care how much allied literature devoted to defame the Bf109 has been printed so far; the battlefield facts, even in the final defeat, prove the 109s were in no way inferior to any of the toys of the USAAF.

It is simple, victors want the whole cake in their fridge but most of the times it is not possible.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I dont not want to be taken wrong by anyone I am not saying that the allied technology was not great (it certainly was and in many things was better) and I am not saying that the P-51 was not a good aircraft. It certainly was one of the best but so were the Spitfire, the Me-109G and K (yes they did start to loose on maneuvarability but at high altitudes they were just as good and where were the bombers at high altitudes), the Fw-190A, Fw-190D, Ta-152. Just because it is not made in the US does not make it inferior and the Europeans were not uncapable of technological advances as a certain person likes to believe.

 

[plan_D]

I can assure you, Adler, that the British would have kept ahead of the Germans in jet engine design. They kept ahead of the world for many decades after the war. The Germans were at best achieving 3000 lbs thrust, they were thinking too small. The Nene stayed the most powerful for years after the war, and not only was it powerful it was reliable, durable and economic.

Udet, bully!?!

You find a more powerful engine from the War than the Rolls Royce Nene engine, I'll give you a cookie.

BRITISH JET ENGINE DEVELOPMENT
* Despite Whittle's success, development of the operational G.41 fighter was slow. Power Jets was not in a position to mass-produce the Whittle engine, and trying to find another firm with the resources to do it for them led to a two-year delay in production. As a result, progress of the G.41 project ended up tracking the somewhat convoluted path of early British turbojet development.

By October 1940, the Air Ministry was interested enough in the Whittle engine to arrange for production of the W.2B by Rover. Unfortunately, the term "misarranged" is probably more appropriate, since Power Jets and Rover worked at all times at cross purposes, with the confusion aggravated by contrary instructions from the British Ministry of Production.

The jet engine development effort slowly strangled on its own red tape until 1942, when Rolls-Royce's Ernest Hives took S.B. Wilks of Rover out to lunch and, as the story has it, asked Wilks: "Give us this jet job and we'll give you our tank-engine factory in Nottingham."

Rolls-Royce wanted the jet engine and knew what they wanted to do with it, and indeed, beyond the end of the millennium, still does. In fact, the company's own engineering staff had been working on jet propulsion since 1939, and in making the swap Rover was giving away something they didn't really want, while Rolls-Royce was obtaining a treasure.

A W.2B engine, plugged into the tail of a Vickers Wellington bomber, was test-flown that November, and after further improvements was test-flown in the second G.40 Gloster Whittle in March 1943. The W.2B was providing 7.11 kN (725 kg / 1,600 lb) thrust by this time. Rolls-Royce worked with Whittle to finally get an uprated version of the W.2B engine in production as the "Welland I".

* The Whittle WU, W.1, and W.2B were all "centrifugal-flow" engines, which used a turbine similar to a pump impeller to force air into a set of combustion chambers or "combustors" ringed around the engine. The flow of air went through the combustors from back to front. Such a "reverse flow" scheme helped reduce the length of the engine. These engines had only the most general resemblance to a modern military turbofan engine, but the same design concepts would not be out of place in a modern helicopter turboshaft engine.

Rolls-Royce then reworked the design to feature straight-through air flow through the combustors and better fuel and oil systems, resulting in the "Derwent I", providing 8.83 kN (900 kg / 2,000 lb) thrust. The Derwent was refined in various versions up to the Mark IV, which provided 10.8 kN (1,100 kg / 2,450 lb) thrust.

* Stanley Hooker, who had been in charge of the Rolls-Royce design team that refined the Derwent, visited the US in the spring of 1944, and found that General Electric was developing two turbojet engines with thrust ratings of 17.6 kN (1,800 kg / 4,000 lb) or higher. Hooker, realizing that the British had been thinking small, went back to Britain and initiated a fast track project to build a new, much more powerful centrifugal-flow engine.

The result was the "RB.41 Nene", which was first bench-tested in October 1944 and provided 22.3 kN (2,270 kg / 5,000 lb) thrust. The Nene was the world's most powerful engine at the time, and it was also simple, cheap, and reliable. The Nene was made in large numbers, with versions made in Canada, Australia, France, the US, and the USSR.

The Nene was such a good engine that Rolls-Royce decided to build a scaled-down version, which was designated the "Derwent 5" though it had little direct relationship to earlier Derwent marks. The Derwent 5 was first bench-tested in June 1945, with the test engine providing 11.8 kN (1,200 kg / 2,650 lb) thrust.

* In the meantime, since early 1941 de Havilland had been working on their own centrifugal-flow turbojet engine, derived from earlier Whittle patents and not the W.1 design. The result was the de Havilland "Halford H.1", which was first bench-tested in April 1942. By late 1943, the H.1 had been refined into the "Goblin" engine, which provided 10.2 kN (1,040 kg / 2,300 lb) thrust and would power the de Havilland Vampire fighter.

* British jet engine development was following yet another parallel track at the time. As far back as 1939, Metropolitan-Vickers ("MetroVic"), a Manchester firm that specialized in steam turbines, was working on what would become the first British "axial-flow" turbojet engine, a design that was almost entirely unlike the centrifugal-flow engines being developed by Whittle and others.

Such axial-flow engines featured sets or "stages" of fan blades arranged around a central axle, compressing air into a combustion chamber, which was followed by another set of fan blades that kept the axle spinning. The axial-flow turbojet would prove to be the way of the future for fixed-wing aircraft, though the centrifugal-flow engine would become the basis for modern helicopter turboshaft engines.

The initial MetroVic engine, the "F.2", was first bench-tested in December 1941, and was producing 8 kN (815 kg / 1,800 lb) thrust by November 1942. The MetroVic designs eventually led to the "F.9 Sapphire", which was passed to Armstrong-Whitworth in 1948 and was one of the more prominent jet engines of the 1950s.

http://www.faqs.org/docs/air/avmeteor.html

There you go, there's your proof!

 

[Erich]

Plan not to spoil your fun but have you develed in any of the later spring 1945 high tech Luftwaffe projects concerning futuristic engine/design developments ?

Again I point out that 10:1 many of the US fighter pilots listed probably never ran up against a Dora in combat, and their adversaries were flying the A-8 and A-9 and gving a good show of themselves

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I will not deny the fact that they would stay ahead but I do believe the Germans would have made more powerful ones then they had. As I said before it is a cat and mouse game it goes back and forth, back and forth, each one topping the other.

 

[Erich]

the designs by the Allies cannot even reach the proprotions of what the Luftwaffe techs were accomplishing during 1945. Case in point as the materials and prototypes were so far advanced that the "secrets" have been hidden for over 45 years. why is the old cave-factories at Oberammergau guarded to this day ? sure there are a barracks there but why there ?..........

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

It never made it off of the drawing table but it shows that they were making one.

Jumo 012, Junkers Turbojet engine, developing about 6000lb thrust, planned for the Ju 287. Never left the drawing board
http://www.ww2guide.com/jetrock.shtml#jengines

The Germans were thinking in more powerful engines way more then you think or the allies would not have taken the scientists working on them.

A large number of key technical developments led to the production of the Me-262 which was the first tactical jet fighter. It was developed and used by the Germans during WWII. Over 1,400 had been produced and put into action from 1942 to the end of the war in 1945. The aircraft was powered by two Jumo 004 jet engines developed at Junkers which was also the first engine to use an afterburner. After Germany surrendered, the Allies found a large number of new jet designs of which the Me P1101 was the most advanced. The prototype aircraft was almost finished and scheduled for its maiden flight. Upon finding the jet at Oberammergau in the Bavarian Alps in May 1945, the Americans brought it to the Bell Aircraft Works and quickly built a modified version called the Bell X-5. Ref 1. 650 German scientists who had designed jet engines, rockets were brought to the US under Operation Paperclip. 20,000 scientist were brought to Russia. 7
http://www.aircraftdesigns.com/jets.html

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

The Germans were deffinatly thinking years ahead of the allies in there later designs. There are some great books that you can get through amazon and they are titled Seret Weapons of the Luftwaffe. There are several volumes of it each dedicated to its own type of aircraft such as bombers, ground attack, fighter and so forth. Very good reading. Some of the early US designs were based off of them including the Sabre, F-105, A-10 (that is a shocker isn't it).

 

[evangilder]

I hadn't heard that about the A-10. While I like the airplane, I know little of it's development. I do remember hearing once that the design was built around the vulcan cannon, but that could have been hearsay.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

This will show you how advanced the Messerschmitt P.1011 was:

On July 15, 1944, the RLM submitted Proposal 226/II to Germany's aircraft manufacturers. This "Emergency Fighter Competition" specified the following requirements (although these were later to change several times) for the second-generation of jet-powered fighters for the Third Reich:

powered by a single Heinkel-Hirth He S 011 turbojet
level speed of 1000 km/h (621 mph) at 7000 meters (22966 feet)
fuel capacity of 1000 liters (264 gallons), for 1/2 hour of sea level flying time
operate at altitudes of 14000 meters (45931 feet)
armed with four MK 108 30mm cannon
pilot protection from 12.7mm (.5 inch) from the front
pressurized cockpit
Engineer Hans Hornung, of Messerschmitt, began to create the first of the Me P.1101 single-seat, single jet engine fighter designs. Only nine days after the specification was issued by the RLM (July 24, 1944), the first Me P.1101 had taken shape on paper. The fuselage was short and wide, with two round air intakes on either side of the cockpit, which fed the single He S 011 jet engine which was located in the lower rear fuselage. 710 liters (188 gallons) of fuel could be contained above and below the turbojet. The wings featured two different sweepback angles, a steeper angle (40 degrees) near the fuselage and a shallower angle (26 degrees) outboard. Flaps were located over the entire trailing edge to aid in slow speed operations. Another 170 liters (45 gallons) of fuel could be carried in wing tanks located in each of the inner wing sections, making a total of 1050 liters (277 gallons). The V-tail unit (110 degrees of separation) was mounted on a boom that extended above the jet exhaust, a feature that would be present on all future Me P.1101 designs. A steel plate was used on the underside of the tail boom, to protect the enclosed radio equipment from engine exhaust heat. The nose wheel of the tricycle landing gear retracted to the rear and the two main wheels retracted forwards into the wing roots. A single SC 500 bomb could be carried, partially stowed in a belly recess. The main armament was to consist of two MK 108 30mm cannon, located in the lower forward fuselage sides.
The next Me P.1101 design dated from August 30, 1944. It was basically similar to the first design, but sleeker. The fuselage had a more pointed nose section, and was designed to hold a variety of armament. As in the first design, two circular air intakes, located on either side of the cockpit, fed the single He S 011 jet engine which was located in the rear fuselage. There were two protected fuel tanks above the engine and behind the cockpit that held 830 kg (1830 lbs) of fuel. The wing was "borrowed" from the Me 262 outer wing, was swept back at 40 degrees and mounted mid-fuselage. A V-tail was also to be fitted on this design, with the jet engine exhausting below the tail boom. The nose wheel retracted to the rear and rotated 90 degrees to lie flat beneath the weapons bay in the nose. Both main wheels retracted inwards towards the wing roots. Provisions were made for a drop tank, and even for a towed fuel tank using the V-1 wing! The armament was to be either a MK 112 55mm cannon or two MK 108 30mm cannons, with a possible third MK 108 or MK 103 30mm cannon being able to be squeezed in. One of the more advanced weapon proposals for this design variant of the Me P.1101 was for the upward firing SG 500 "Jagdfaust" (Fighter's Fist). This was basically a thin cased 50mm high explosive rocket propelled shell housed in a vertical tube. Two of these would have been placed in the fuselage nose, and a single SC 500 bomb could also be carried beneath the fuselage.
Even a ramjet powered P.1101 was proposed, the Me P.1101L (L for the Lorin ramjet). The fuselage was enlarged to accept the Lorin ramjet tube, and the undercarriage was kept simplified and low to the ground. Since a ramjet does not operate until a certain speed is reached, eight solid-propellant rockets with 1000 kp thrust each would be ignited to reach the ramjet's operating speed. Only a very short takeoff distance would be needed, but the aircraft's range would be limited, thus the Me P.1101L would have to be deployed near key Allied bombing targets.
After obtaining many differing results from a variety of wing profiles and fuselage shapes from windtunnel testing, Messerschmitt decided to actually build a full-scale, flying test aircraft. Since many of the components were already built (wing assembly, undercarriage, engine and controls), it was felt that the aircraft could be flying and giving more accurate test results in a relatively short time. There was no official backing from the RLM of Luftwaffe High Command for the construction of this test aircraft. On November 10, 1944, Engineer Hans Hornung brought the initial design phase of the final variant to a close by handing over all documents and design data to the Construction Bureau. The selection of the construction materials was begun shortly thereafter on December 4, 1944, with component manufacturing commencing under the direction of Mortiz Asam( who, after the war, helped design the Aero Spacelines "Super Guppy" for the US). A time-saving, yet risky approach was tried on the final version of the Me P.1101: Production was to run parallel with statistical calculations and with detail construction. Despite delays due to the worsening war situation and transportation of some of the components, construction slowly took place at Messerschmitt's Oberammergau complex in the Bavarian mountains of southern Germany. This complex was unknown to the Allies, and never suffered any bombing raids during the war. An experimental testing program was also being devised. It was intended to begin the test flights with the wing sweep set at 35 degrees, and later to try a 45 degree sweep, since the wing was designed to be set at different sweepback angles while on the ground. The first test flight was to take place in June 1945. Also, a combat version was also being developed from the research version then being constructed.
The Me P.1101 V1 was about 80% complete when the Oberammergau complex was discovered by American troops on April 29, 1945, a few days before the war's end. The fuselage was constructed out of duralumin, with space provided beneath the cockpit for the air duct. Located behind the cockpit and above the engine was the fuel supply of 1000 liters (220 gallons). The rear fuselage tapered down to a cone, where the radio equipment, oxygen equipment, directional control and master compass were mounted. The underside of the rear fuselage was covered over with sheet steel, for protection from the heat of the jet exhaust. Although a Jumo 004B jet engine was planned for the first prototype, the more powerful He S 011 could be added on later versions with a minimum of fuss. The wing was basically the same as the Messerschmitt Me 262 wing from the engine (rib 7) to the end cap (rib 21), including the Me 262's aileron and leading edge slats. A second wing assembly was delivered in February 1945, in which the leading edge slots had been enlarged from 13% to 20% of the wing chord. The wing covered in plywood, and could be adjusted on the ground at 35, 40 or 45 degrees of sweepback. Both the vertical and horizontal tails were constructed of wood, and the rudder could be deflected 20 degrees. Also under design was a T-tail unit and a V-tail also. The undercarriage was of a tricycle arrangement. The nose wheel retracted to the rear and was steerable. The main gear retracted to the front, and included brakes. The cockpit was located in the nose, with a bubble canopy giving good vision all around. The canopy was kept clear by warm air which could be drawn from the engine. Cockpit pressurization was to be incorporated in the production model, as was either two or four MK 108 30mm cannon. The production model was also to fitted with cockpit armor, and up to four underwing X-4 air-to-air missiles could be carried.
A few days before the Allied Army was expected to appear, Messerschmitt had all the engineering drawings, calculations and design work placed on microfilm and packed in watertight containers. These containers were then hidden in four locations in surrounding villages. On Sunday, April 29, 1945, an American infantry unit entered the Oberammergau complex, seizes a few documents, and destroyed much of what remained with axes. The Me P.1101 V1 incomplete prototype was also found, and pulled out of a nearby tunnel where it was hidden. Within a few days of the German capitulation, American specialists had arrived to assess the significance of the seized Messerschmitt complex. After questioning some of the Messerschmitt employees, it was learned of the missing documents. When the American team tried to recover these hidden microfilmed documents, they found that the French Army had already recovered some of the documents.
One of the men in the American research team was Robert J. Woods, of the Bell Aircraft Works. He and Messerschmitt chief designer Woldemar Voight lobbied for the completion of the Me P.1101 V1 prototype in June 1945. This proved to be impossible, due to the fact that most of the design documents were now in France (which they refused to share at this point in time), and other key information had been destroyed. The prototype was by now showing damage due to the rough treatment it had been receiving, such as sitting outside in the elements and even as a photographical curiosity for American GIs.
The Me P.1101 V1 was shipped to the Bell Aircraft Works in Buffalo, New York in August 1948. More damage was sustained when the aircraft fell off a freight car, which in effect ruled out any possibility for repair and flight testing. The P.1101 was fitted with an Allison J-35 jet engine, and mock-up weapons (6 x Mg 151 and 4 x MK 108 cannon) were pasted on the fuselage sides. Bell used the Me P.1101 as the basis for the X-5, during which individual parts of the P.1101 were used for static testing. Sometime in the early 1950s, the remainder of the Messerschmitt Me P.1101 V1 was sent to the scrap yard, thus ending this unique and distinctive aircraft's history.
http://www.luft46.com/mess/mep1101.html

Here is some photos of the Oberamergau site that Erich is talking about and some photos of the P.1011 at the Oberamergau and again flying with US colors after the war.

 

[plan_D]

6000 lbs thrust isn't much, when you consider the British soon developed engines more powerful than the Nene. I hate to burst your bubble but the British have always been the leaders in Jet engine technology. 1946 the Rolls Royce Avon 109 was set at 7,500 lb. Then came the Avon 206 11,000 lb thrust in 1951. Along with them the 15, 680 lb thrust Rolls Royce Avon 302 on the Lightning, 1947 design.

You see, the British throughout the 40s, 50s and 60s were well beyond the rest of the world in jet technology. Only in the past two decades has America caught up, even then the JSF engine is a joint-venture between Rolls Royce and General Electric. Most 747s fly with Rolls Royce engines...the best engines are British, and they always have been.