Fw better then Me-262?

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The Me-262 actually turned and maneuvered extremely well at high speeds, however at low speeds it was a sitting duck for the prop fighters.

Like Hans Werner Lerche put it, the biggest mistake made by many Me-262 pilots was to try and dogfight the Allied fighters at slow speed.

At high speeds the Me-262 could comfortably engage in a turn fight, firstly as the reduction of speed in a turn was much lower than for a prop fighter and secondly because the engines produce much more thrust at higher speeds than a propeller, and finally because the airframe was much stronger. However get slow in the Me-262 (or any jet of that period) and you're in trouble, as the jet engines don't accellerate the a/c as fast as a propeller and they don't increase the CLmax of the wing as a propeller either.

The reason the Me-262 wasn't everything that was needed was mostly because of engine reliability, in almost every situation you had to be careful with these engines.
 

That´s entirely the case and also true for the -262, Adler. But still I have to remind that the real advantage the jet´s had over the piston A/C was that they could (and did) keep up max. speed for much longer than did the piston ones.
Once they engaged WEP, they could access this power rating for 2-5 minutes max while a jet engined plane could much longer engage max. thrust setting (just keep an eye on the turbine temp but this has to do with altitude very much), usually in between 8 and 14 minutes for the -262 at 100%. Only the -162 Salamander had brief 115% overrew capabilities (30 sec.).

The ability to use max speed for a longer timeframe was one of the prime reasons why the comparably slow Meteor-MK I was that successful against V-1´s.
 
Thanks for clearing that up, Erich.
When was the Me 262B-2 supposed to enter service?


Good post, Soren. If the pilot was properly instructed on the use of the jet engines, he would not throttle them up and down like with a piston engine. I also recall that's one of the things the first operational pilots of the He 162thought of the plane: it's a completely new way of flying where you have to let the aircraft fly and gently turn it around for a new pass at high speed. (Can't recall who that pilot was but can look it up if someone's interested.)

Kris
 
by fall of 45.

yes Soren is right about high speed turns but nothing tight or the wings would buckle. I've got some stories to tell by P-47 and P-51 pilots of the 356th fg about the 262 just "walking" away from the Allied fighters with the guys just watching without any hope of catching the jets
 
I've read somewhere for the -262 it was 6 minutes - I've been trying to find that reference...

Just for a comparison - the L-29 that I fly -100% for 6 minutes. 96% for 30 minutes and 94% normal operations. On Initial take off and climb I leave 100%, throttle back to 96% and when I leave the pattern I keep the throttle at 94% unless I want to climb, I go to 96% while watching the Turbine Inlet Temp.
 

Hi Flyboy,

the -004B was already a downgraded performance engine. The layout of the engine was 1000 Kp thurst for the Jumo-004A (test benched in 1941 at this power output), altough the high rpm prooved to be problematic esspeccially with lower grade metals such as used in the -004B serial turbine. That´s why the max. thrust could be sustained for a longer period: The 890 Kp of the Jumo-004B3 f.e. were actually be not 100% but instead only 89%.

best regards,
 
speed would be just one variable for the Me 262 at the time introduced. Stopping the bombers and not dogfighting the escorts I believe was the objective. In addition to the engine problems was they whole new style of fighting ... as posted by Cive ...*it's a completely new way of flying*. switching from a prop style to jet combat after years on one would be hard to do, especially if there was no precident. I believe it was Heinz Bar who upon first meeting with B-17s had to try three times before getting hits, and this was on a Fw!

The Me 262 had its problems with engines and relaiblity but pilot inexpierence, even those Experten with hours logged and years fighting, would need to change old habits. Where was Molders when you need him!

Still doesn't answer which was better Fw or Me.
 
Ah he is gone now anyhow. He posted some Bf-109 performance charts in the Bf-109 thread and said theys how something and me, Denniss, and Civetone called him on it and told him what it really means. He than said "Good job you passed the test, Have fun this is my last post here".

Basically he got called on everything he posted, proven he is just a 15 year old kid who does not know what he is talking about and left to find another forum to throw his weight around on newbies that dont know anything.
 
well I guess this silly thread can get locked then. he never answered my question which I posed two times as he does not know. so much for 35 years experience studying ..............yeah what ? never told us who his father was in the war and flying twin engine what unit ?

Adler you're so right, another wanna-be kid. what a wienerschnitzel.
 
That is the thing though. No one at all was saying the Me-262 was a bad aircraft. It was in my opinion the best jet fighter to see service in WW2. It however was not the end all aircraft and super fighter that they wanted it to be.

The engines were crap and would flame out regularly. They only had a life span of 10 to 20 hours and then they had to be overhauled.

It was not the most versatile aircraft as this thread was set up to prove.

Was it a bad aircraft? Absolutely not. It was however not the greatest thing since bread and butter as Wespe thinks it was.
 
and I didn't post here to say if was my favorite. I just think that as a "fighter" is wasn't much but given the time to evolve like the Fw it might have been.

I am trying to keep my like/dislike out of it.

I think the Fw had so much more behind whereas the pilots for the 262 were just staring to work on its abilities and didn't have the time. If it had the same tryouts as the Fw I think it would have been a better aircraft.
 
The Me 262 wasn't the superweapon some claim it to be but that's not so much because of the Me 262s shortcomings but because there's no such thing as a superweapon.

But when the engines held it was the best fighter in the world: it had the best speed and armament of all fighters, and still had good flight characteristics. When the Fw 190 surprised the Brits in 1941, it wasn't ready yet. Yet, even the British called it the best fighter in the world.

Kris
 
I think this is pretty straight forward. The Fw-190 was a mature effective aircraft with a demonstrated lethality and reliability. The Me-262 was, as all the jets were at this, not ready for combat in 1945. It probably needed a good one year of intense development to overcome its flaws, specifically its engines. Good reliability is force multiplier, more planes up more of the time. Poor reliability is a force divider. You would have to choose the Fw-190.

But, once mature, the Me-262 would have obsoleted the Fw-190 as a fighter just as the F-86 obsoleted the F-80 and F-51 as fighters. It would have provided air superiority while the Fw-190 was used in the tacitical interdiction role.
 
No doubt that the 262 was underdeveloped (actually the engines, the airframe was already sound) with all the related maintenance and reliability issues but reading all the recent posts it seems to me that the probable dimension of loss/kill ratio is in the range of about 150 losses vs 350-400 kills.

If so, no matter the lack of development the 262 was better than anything else in the air, at least in his intended role of bomber killer.
There is no other plane that, in the strategic an tactical situation of the last 6 months of war could have dreamed to achieve a 2-3:1 kill ratio.
And if we consider that a good half of the 262 losses happened during take off or landing and that often the 262 was in trouble because had to start the mission with just half of the fuel (fuel shortage cannot be blamed to the aircraft) the results are even more incredible.

I never believed that the 262 was the 'perfect' plane, and I don't believe it now: I think it would not had been as versatile as the 190 or the 88 (to limit the comparison to German planes) and that his development potential was limited.
But acknowledging that kill ratio I have to say 'chapeau and applause' : 2.5:1 with no fuel, airspace completely controlled by the enemy and a numerical proportion of at least 20:1 is just extraordinary.
 
Parmigiano said:
If so, no matter the lack of development the 262 was better than anything else in the air, at least in his intended role of bomber killer.
Click to expand...

True but quantity was a problem exasperted by poor reliability

There is no other plane that, in the strategic an tactical situation of the last 6 months of war could have dreamed to achieve a 2-3:1 kill ratio.
Click to expand...
I suspect this is mostly bombers and not fighters, unless they were jumped.

The P-51 achieved a 2:1 kill ration over the war period. It was probably better during the latter days.

But acknowledging that kill ratio I have to say 'chapeau and applause' : 2.5:1 with no fuel, airspace completely controlled by the enemy and a numerical proportion of at least 20:1 is just extraordinary.
Click to expand...

Certainly a important plane. I picked it as my bomber/interdiction interceptor in my imaginary air force, but I would not pick it as a baseline figther. Not reliable enough and had weaknesses.
 
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