I agree she is definatly a beautiful aircraft. I have seen a 262 a few times at various locations and to me she is one of the best looking aircraft of WW2 and still has a killer looking quality to her.
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Salty environments such as areas near the ocean as well as humid and wet environments would deffinatly speed up the process I would think.
Whenever we flew near the ocean or over the ocean or the aircraft were on boats we had to flush our engines and clean the aircraft due to the corrosive effects of the salt.
We had Ballistic Protection Plates installed in our aircraft when were in Iraq and the screws were made of alluminum. The metal of the screws corroded to the plates and the airframe of the of the aircraft. I had to drill out every one of those damn screws just to get the plates out at the port so we could wash the aircraft and go back home.
And I recently seen a paper where a Japanese fighter pilot complains about the quality of JAAF aircraft...
For the most part the quality of the a/c when leaving the factory was good (except near the end of the war), however like Hunter mentioned servicing of the aircraft in the field was most certainly not always optimal, esp. in the late war period .
I didn't say that. I said the Fw 190 wasn't better than the allied fighters. I AM saying the Me 262 is better (once airborne).The allied aircraft were not really any better.
Ok, that's all I'm saying. I don't agree with the Me 262 being the answer to the German problems. I'm just saying that once airborne and the wings holding it was the best fighter aircraft. If it's not, then another fighter is, and I wouldn't know which one. Which could beat the Me 262 in a one-on-one (theoretically of course, so no surprise attacks, pilot errors, etc)?Obviously the 262 would have an advantage. That has never been argued. I am looking at the overall scheme of things.
I know but I don't see many people saying the same stuff about the Ta 152 as they say about the Me 262. Both had technical problems and weren't ready yet. But yet many consider it to be the best piston engined fighter. That doesn't make sense IMHO.We are not talking about a Ta-152 here. We are talking about the Fw-190.
No, they could have gotten more jet fuel than C3 fuel. They didn't, what makes this is a what-if. But a plausible one. I am making a point that the Germans should have concentrated on Me 262 production sooner than continuing with the Fw 190. So sure this is a what-if. Does that mean one cannot discuss these things?And even less fuel to fly the jets.
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And since this is not a what if thread and could have, should have, would have dont matter because history is history fuel for the 262 was negligable.
In some of the previous posts you'll read that one of the advantages of jet fighters is that they can keep up their maximum speed for a longer period.The 262 was not going to go from 400mph to 500mph in 0.2 sec.
As bigZ pointed out, what's the expected service duration of a German late-war fighter aircraft? And I'll ask you this for the second time, where and how did Me 262s lose fights due to structural problems?Over time if these problems were not corrected on the Me 262 it would have caused structural failures in the Me 262.
Thanks for clearing that out for me!Delcyros said:This was the main limiting factor for the lifetime of the turbine section. Careful accelerating could improve the lifetime of a Jumo-004B by some 80% or even more, rapid throttle changes could result in engines to start suffering at 10 hours and even less.
Was jet fuel really in short supply?And even less fuel to fly the jets.
I didn't say that. I said the Fw 190 wasn't better than the allied fighters. I AM saying the Me 262 is better (once airborne).
Civettone said:I know but I don't see many people saying the same stuff about the Ta 152 as they say about the Me 262. Both had technical problems and weren't ready yet. But yet many consider it to be the best piston engined fighter. That doesn't make sense IMHO.
Civettone said:No, they could have gotten more jet fuel than C3 fuel. They didn't, what makes this is a what-if. But a plausible one. I am making a point that the Germans should have concentrated on Me 262 production sooner than continuing with the Fw 190. So sure this is a what-if. Does that mean one cannot discuss these things?
Civettone said:In some of the previous posts you'll read that one of the advantages of jet fighters is that they can keep up their maximum speed for a longer period.
Civettone said:As bigZ pointed out, what's the expected service duration of a German late-war fighter aircraft?
Civettone said:And I'll ask you this for the second time, where and how did Me 262s lose fights due to structural problems?
Was jet fuel really in short supply?
On April 22 1945 Luftwaffenkommando West reported the following fuel stocks on airfields in Bavaria:
B-4 = 350,000 liters
C-3 = 284,000 liters
J-2 = 1,897,000 liters
That is 5.42 times as much as B4 and 6.7 times as much as C3, at least in Bavaria.
Maybe in peace time but not in war time. In 1944 Germany built some 20,000 se fighters and only had 14-1500 servicable in early Jan 1945. They were not to worried about the longtivety of a combat a/c with such combat losses. Soviet equipement was crudely made because they knew it would not last to old age.I do know one thing though, that when you build an aircraft you try to build it so that it will last. Building an aircraft with disimiliar metals is not going to last...
It says VERY high speeds not high speeds which means near its Mach limit. A/c shake when near their Mach limit.
Morai Milo said:Maybe in peace time but not in war time. In 1944 Germany built some 20,000 se fighters and only had 14-1500 servicable in early Jan 1945. They were not to worried about the longtivety of a combat a/c with such combat losses. Soviet equipement was crudely made because they knew it would not last to old age.
That goes for all fighters. But at least the Me 262 could get away from its enemies. The Fw 190 was slower at all speeds and had less climb rate.Only if it is not overwellmed by enemy fighters. Erich allready touched up on that.
Engine life expectancy was 25 hours.That is because the problems of the Ta-152 were no where near those of the Me-262. Read reports from the people who flew it and they will tell you they did not encounter serious problems.
Yes, that's spot on. It's also my main criticism on the Me 262, and why I think they shouldn't have built a twin engined jet fighter in the first place.Yes but people take that kind of What if as "The Germans would have just gotten more fuel". Well they did not...
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True, but how long can they actually do it? A jet guzzles fuel. It is going to run out very fast at max speed.
C'mon, I was asking a question, how can I be manipulating your words that way?However if you go back and re-read my post (here you go again manipulating words)
It doesn't say much about construction. It's mainly about the metals used in the engines...It will tell you a bit about the problems with construction and the engines and a bit about jet fuel consumption.
It also describes how the Me 262 was not good at low airspeed and at high airspeeds it would vibrate and eventually not be controlable.
That's simply not true! German officials saw the Bf 109 (or Me 262) as an expendable weapon. Read Speer's memoirs in which he writes that he preferred to have built new Bf 109s instead of repairing them. Milch wrote that he complained about the German aircraft industry putting too much effort in quality instead of quantity, and compared it with what the British did. It was bad quality for German standards but good enough for war necessities. He urged a similar philosophy for all German war products (aircraft, tanks, guns, ...) but failed to because of the power of the GermanNo you allways build an aircraft to last. You dont know how long that aircraft is going to be needed. You dont want to assume the aircraft is going to be lost soon and then it is not lost but ends of crashing because of bad construction.
C'mon, I was asking a question, how can I be manipulating your words that way?
That's simply not true! German officials saw the Bf 109 (or Me 262) as an expendable weapon. Read Speer's memoirs in which he writes that he preferred to have built new Bf 109s instead of repairing them. Milch wrote that he complained about the German aircraft industry putting too much effort in quality instead of quantity, and compared it with what the British did. It was bad quality for German standards but good enough for war necessities. He urged a similar philosophy for all German war products (aircraft, tanks, guns, ...) but failed to because of the power of the German
industrials. That was until Speer came along.
Civettone said:From all the things you've said that is really the one is least agree with. I suspect you're writing what you would have done, instead of what you think the Germans did...
Civettone said:But just look at how many aircraft were lost in 1944/1945 and you'll understand that these were not built to last. I suspect the average was three months...
Kris