He 162 v P-80 V Vampire

[KrazyKraut]

Back on topic. was the landing/take off handling of the aircraft compromised unduly? The weight in relation to thrust of the P-80? The short span of the He 162? The t5win boom layout of the Vampire? I don't begin to know this, I'm just wondering out loud in the hope that I will be answered.

IMO all of these three planes were typical intermediate designs which always pop up when a new technology matures. None of the were "dominant designs" and they were never pitted against each other thus its hard to say which would've been better than the other.

 

[delcyros]

The He-162 cannot be described as advanced. It never tried to push the envelope, the way the Messerschmidt jets did.
Altough it was to be modified one way or another. By wars end, a prototype with interchangable swept forward / swept back wing was found beeing half finished. This and the more powerful BMW-003D would likely make the basic airframe competetive through the late 40´s.
Can´t see a Goblin beeing fitted to it, altough the HeS011 no doubt was considered twice for the He-162.

High wingload is not necessarely a disadvantage at high speed maneuvering. It actually is disadvantageous in low speed actions.

 

[Soren]

If the Vampire is underpowered, what does that make the Me 262? The F.1 has a significantly higher power to weight ratio. Thrust to weight ratio is very similar to the He 162. The climb rate is very similar as well. Speed of the F.1 is slightly down at 540mph over 562mph which is the biggest problem. Handling is more difficult to quantify but there were no problems identified with the Vampire. The only real problem was the cockpit framing restricting vision, which was rectified with a single piece type.

Sorry wrong again. Check your sources, the only Vampire available in very late 45 weighed 5620 kg and featured the Goblin I engine providing 10.2 kN of thrust. Thats a T/W value of 550 kg/kN, while the Me-262A-1a of 1943 weighed 6400 kg a featured two Jumo 004B engine providing 17.6 kN of thrust, giving a T/W value of 363 kg/kN!

The Me-262 is again superior.

None of the following fighters were anything like the Me 262 and the Meteor F4 beats the Me 262 hands down in performance whilst being available only months later.

You couldn't be anymore wrong. The Meteor F4 was first in operation a whole 3 years after the Me-262A-1a first saw service! And the first prototype first flew a whole 3 years after the Me262A-1a prototype!

Fact of the matter is that the Meteor performed miserably compared to the Me-262 in every department. And had the war went on then by the time the Meteor F4 would be introduced the Germans would be flying HeS-011 engined Me-262s which greatly outperformed the Meteor F4. Heck even with the Jumo 004E which was ready in early 45 the Me-262 outperforms the Meteor F4.

 

[HellToupee]

Sorry wrong again. Check your sources, the only Vampire available in very late 45 weighed 5620 kg and featured the Goblin I engine providing 10.2 kN of thrust. Thats a T/W value of 550 kg/kN, while the Me-262A-1a of 1943 weighed 6400 kg a featured two Jumo 004B engine providing 17.6 kN of thrust, giving a T/W value of 363 kg/kN!

Only goblin I prototypes had 10.2kn of thrust the production models had 12, after the first 40 vampires they got the goblin 2 at 16.7kn.

Those weights are also way off, 6400kg is way below max take off for a me262, and 5620kg is way above max take off of a Mk.1 vampire, hell its more than a mk.3 vampire, mk.1 max take off was around 4,800kg.

 

[KrazyKraut]

The He-162 cannot be described as advanced. It never tried to push the envelope, the way the Messerschmidt jets did.

Define "push the envelope". It certainly had advanced features like an ejection seat. The projected version pushed the envelope just as much as the projected developments of the Me 262.

 

[Waynos]

the ejector seat and the projected versions do not make the He 162 advanced though, any more than the DH 108 being a supersonic research aircraft would make the Vampire advanced.

 

[red admiral]

Nonsense as usual from Soren

The F.1's maximum take off weight was 4753kg, 2891kg empty. The FB.9's maximum take off weight was 5620kg. 6400kg for the Me 262 just seems to be some random figure you've pulled from nowhere. Apart from the handful of preproduction types with Goblin 1 engines, the rest had 3100lbf Goblin 2s. Even with the Goblin 1, the Vampire has a higher t/w ratio than the Me 262.

The Meteor F4 was not rushed into service postwar, which accounts for the delays. It first flew in late 45 and offered considerably higher speed than the Me 262 along with twice the rate of climb.

Its available far earlier than your fantasy world where the HeS011 actually works - it didn't.

 

[KrazyKraut]

the ejector seat and the projected versions do not make the He 162 advanced though, any more than the DH 108 being a supersonic research aircraft would make the Vampire advanced.

The ejector seat was a reality in the production version and an certainly an advanced feature at the time.

The D.H.108 and the projected versions of the He 162 weren't.

Nonsense as usual from Soren.

You wrote your share of nonsense on this very page, so get off your high horse.

 

[red admiral]

You wrote your share of nonsense on this very page, so get off your high horse.

I am factually accurate.

 

[KrazyKraut]

Yeah, right. And barely later = 12 months. And having a tailless fighter design years after others had it makes you advanced.

 

[Waynos]

The seat was an advanced feature, but that does not make the He 162 an advanced design, just an aeroplane with an advanced escape mechanism.

I was asking what is it about the He 162 itself that was advanced. I think it was Soren on another thread that described it as an advanced jet fighter design, I'm just asking how?

I think it was an ingeneous design, squeezing so much out of such a small plane like than, an attractive design even, but I don't see the 'advanced' in it is all.

Also, (if you were referring to red admiral mentioning the DH 108 - apologies if you were not)

The DH 108 was not a fighter, nor was it ever intended to be. If having the first tailless fighter flying is a measure of being advanced though that would likely be Britain ahead of Germany with the Westland Pterodactyl prototype fighter of the early 30's.

 

[delcyros]

Define "push the envelope". It certainly had advanced features like an ejection seat. The projected version pushed the envelope just as much as the projected developments of the Me 262.

The ejection seat was already in service in other planes like the He-219 and Ar-234 by the time the He-162 still was on the drawing board, so it hardly qualifies for advanced in context of other LW A/C. It was state of the art but nothing fundamentally new by then.
The Me-262 pushed the envelope by several aspects the He-162 didn´t. The He-162 was considered a suboptimum jet by the germans, designed to trade performance for rapid deployment in numbers. It could have been advanced had they used swept wings fromt he beginning, which WAS FULLY UNDERSTOOD to increase performance at high mach fractions. But it was not intended in order to accelerate production and to avoid developmental risks (in turn accelerating production, again). They could have done better at this time, look at the Messerschmidt P 1101, which was a contemporary to the He-162 in both plnes late design stage.
The prototype of the MK IV Meteor flew in july 1945, two months after VE-day. Red Admirals numbers do correlate well with what I have seen wrt weights.
I would also consider it not impossible to install a RR Nene into the Vampire´s fuselage if need is. You can´t install a Nene into a Meteor´s wing easily but You could try to use the Vampire´s wider fuselage for this application. That would give plenty of excess power.

 

[red admiral]

Yeah, right. And barely later = 12 months. And having a tailless fighter design years after others had it makes you advanced.

It wasn't 12 months though. The d.H. 108 was built in winter 45 and delivered for testing in April 46. It had significantly greater wing sweep than the Me 163 and was able to go supersonic. The aircraft gave lots of good trials data on the transsonic region and on the effects of swept wings. If its not advanced then I'm not sure what is, the Miles Gillette Falcon?

 

[red admiral]

I would also consider it not impossible to install a RR Nene into the Vampire´s fuselage if need is. You can´t install a Nene into a Meteor´s wing easily but You could try to use the Vampire´s wider fuselage for this application.

TG276 and TG280 Vampires were fitted with RR Nenes, with TG276 having distinctive dorsal intakes to provide more air for the double sided impeller. I haven't seen any performance figures, but they should be fairly good with 50% more power. It was easier to fit the Ghost instead for greater power as it was only slightly larger and the single intake required less modification.

Nenes were installed in at least one Meteor which was used for thrust vectoring trials. The nacelles were rather larger, even bigger than the Sapphire and Avon Meteor's nacelles.

 

[KrazyKraut]

The seat was an advanced feature, but that does not make the He 162 an advanced design, just an aeroplane with an advanced escape mechanism.

I was asking what is it about the He 162 itself that was advanced. I think it was Soren on another thread that described it as an advanced jet fighter design, I'm just asking how?

I think it was an ingeneous design, squeezing so much out of such a small plane like than, an attractive design even, but I don't see the 'advanced' in it is all.

I don't disagree, I was just referring to delcyros position that Messerschmitt was pushing the envelope where Heinkel wasn't. The He 162 had other features that were novel for fighter aircraft such as the back mounted engines. They were not particularly long lived however and were appropriate only for a rather short period of time. That's why I said i don't see the basic design layout becoming dominant over the next years. However the same can be said about the Me 262 to some degree: While it set the trend considering several features such as wing design, the overall design layout was short lived. This goes for the Meteor and the Vampire aswell.

Also, (if you were referring to red admiral mentioning the DH 108 - apologies if you were not)

The DH 108 was not a fighter, nor was it ever intended to be. If having the first tailless fighter flying is a measure of being advanced though that would likely be Britain ahead of Germany with the Westland Pterodactyl prototype fighter of the early 30's.

I was referring to redadmiral. I don't care who built the first tailless design, I was just stating that a) the D.H.108 was more than a year away and not "barely later" and b) its airframe wasn't particularly innovative.

 

[KrazyKraut]

It wasn't 12 months though. The d.H. 108 was built in winter 45 and delivered for testing in April 46. It had significantly greater wing sweep than the Me 163 and was able to go supersonic.

Bullshit. The first prototype was designed to evaluate low speed flying characteristics and wasn't capable of speeds in excess of 450 km/h. The second flew in June and also wasn't able to go supersonic. Only the third prototype went supersonic and it didn't do so before 1948. Not to even mention that all aircraft crashed killing their pilots. And having more wing sweep than a 1941 design sure is a great feat in 1946. But I'm glad you woke up from your dream that the D.H.108 was anywhere near available in WW2.

 

[Waynos]

I think this is an opportune time to pose another question that has niggled me while reading threads of this kind.

I think it is easy to leap to the conclusion that the Germans were further ahead than they actually were in 1945 by investigationg the various aircraft programmes superficially. The P1101, Ta 183 and other genuinely impressive projects that had moved beyond the paper stage making this an easy assumption to make.

The DH 106 design of 1944 was for a tailless swept wing mail and passenger transport, at least as advanced as anything else being seriously engineered at the time. This being a long term plan for a peace time project after the war was concluded meant there was none of the urgency that was being felt in Germany at the same time though. The fact that the Germans were so hard pressed that they put a highly dangerous and underdeveloped rocket powered fighter that shared the same layout actually into service does not, in itself, prove a more advanced thinking.

The Germans were undoubtedly in front in terms of utilising swept wings for higher speed flight by delaying the onset of drag, despite the fact that none of the designs that were created to make use of this knowledge reached service.

There is more than one way to skin a cat though and the British developments of an ultra thin straight wing and all flying tail for flight and controllability at very high speeds up to and beyond the speed of sound were at least as advanced too, though I fear it is not fashionable to say so. Both the 'German' and 'British' methods were used successfully over many different aircraft types ever since.

This post is not meant to denigrate the ingenuity of the German designers, it was certainly there, but how many of their projects had proceeded further purely because of desperation, which is a powerful motivator, while the allies were less inclined to press on at any costs with this research while victory was in sight with existing forces?

I know that once the captured German material on aerdynamics was made available to the British industry there was a crisis of confidence in our own findings with lots of projects then being launched based directly on German examples (the Gloster P.275 from the Lippisch P.13a for instance) but very few of these materialised either, suggesting that once properly researched they proved not to be all they had been cracked up to be.

Is there truth in this, or do you all think it is cobblers?

 

[red admiral]

But I'm glad you woke up from your dream that the D.H.108 was anywhere near available in WW2.

Its available far sooner than the various Nazi napinwaffe that so many here are enamoured with.

 

[KrazyKraut]

I think this is an opportune time to pose another question that has niggled me while reading threads of this kind.

I think it is easy to leap to the conclusion that the Germans were further ahead than they actually were in 1945 by investigationg the various aircraft programmes superficially. The P1101, Ta 183 and other genuinely impressive projects that had moved beyond the paper stage making this an easy assumption to make.

The DH 106 design of 1944 was for a tailless swept wing mail and passenger transport, at least as advanced as anything else being seriously engineered at the time. This being a long term plan for a peace time project after the war was concluded meant there was none of the urgency that was being felt in Germany at the same time though. The fact that the Germans were so hard pressed that they put a highly dangerous and underdeveloped rocket powered fighter that shared the same layout actually into service does not, in itself, prove a more advanced thinking.

The Me 163 was not at all underdeveloped. The airframe was perfected over a course of several years, there was nothing rushed about its introduction. The propulsion system proved to be a failure, that's the plain truth. But that was only really found out when the type was used in combat.

The Germans were undoubtedly in front in terms of utilising swept wings for higher speed flight by delaying the onset of drag, despite the fact that none of the designs that were created to make use of this knowledge reached service.

There is more than one way to skin a cat though and the British developments of an ultra thin straight wing and all flying tail for flight and controllability at very high speeds up to and beyond the speed of sound were at least as advanced too,

What ultrathin straight wing are you referring too? How many of the fighter jets after World War 2 used straight wings as compared to those that used swept wings?

I know that once the captured German material on aerdynamics was made available to the British industry there was a crisis of confidence in our own findings with lots of projects then being launched based directly on German examples (the Gloster P.275 from the Lippisch P.13a for instance) but very few of these materialised either, suggesting that once properly researched they proved not to be all they had been cracked up to be.

Is there truth in this, or do you all think it is cobblers?

That sounds a lot like typical nationalist excuses. British airframe design somewhat lacked behind their much better engine design progress, simple as that.

Its available far sooner than the various Nazi napinwaffe that so many here are enamoured with.

You've just run completely out of arguments to support your obviously wrong statements made here. In this thread, the only one claiming designs to be available that weren't is you.

 

[davparlr]

IMO all of these three planes were typical intermediate designs which always pop up when a new technology matures. None of the were "dominant designs" and they were never pitted against each other thus its hard to say which would've been better than the other.

Exactly right. There is no reason to believe that these aircraft would not have been competitive with one another any more than piston fighters were competitive. There was just not that much differences in performance. Like the Battle of Britain, and the battles in the south Pacific, circumstance and pilot training and tactics would rule. The Germans had a six to nine month difference in engine technology and operation, but that would close quickly due to more available allied developmental resources.

I don't disagree, I was just referring to delcyros position that Messerschmitt was pushing the envelope where Heinkel wasn't. The He 162 had other features that were novel for fighter aircraft such as the back mounted engines. They were not particularly long lived however and were appropriate only for a rather short period of time. That's why I said i don't see the basic design layout becoming dominant over the next years. However the same can be said about the Me 262 to some degree: While it set the trend considering several features such as wing design, the overall design layout was short lived. This goes for the Meteor and the Vampire aswell.

This is why I believe that the P-80 was the most conceptually advanced design of the four aircraft mentioned here. After the P-80, and as time went by, almost all fighter aircraft adapted its basic concepts of engine buried in the fuselage, exhaust exiting at (below) or behind the tail surfaces, and air inlets mounted on each side of the fuselage, ahead of the wings. The Vampire, He-162, and the Me-262, were all dead end designs. I don't know of any other aircraft that used the Vampire design except follow-on versions. The only possible follow-on to the He-162 design was the F-107, but only the intake was above the aircraft, the engine was still in the fuselage. As for the Me-262 design (and Meteor) it soldiered on a few more years, mainly in the Soviet Air Force, but petered out due to poor concept.

I know that once the captured German material on aerdynamics was made available to the British industry there was a crisis of confidence in our own findings with lots of projects then being launched based directly on German examples (the Gloster P.275 from the Lippisch P.13a for instance) but very few of these materialised either, suggesting that once properly researched they proved not to be all they had been cracked up to be.

The Germans were definitely ahead of the allies in swept wing design although the concept was understood by the allies (US), and, I believe they were very advanced in supersonic aerodynamics. As for aircraft projects, the P1101 could have been the first swept wing fighter, with wings fixed, to be combat ready. Base on Tanks efforts in Argentina, the Ta-183 was several years off (Mig was able to fly in '47). The Go-229 was quite a ways off. Lippisch was certainly brilliant and advanced aerodynamics considerably, but most the fighter design based on his concepts had mediocre success like the F-102 and F-106. Dassault seems to have had the most success. Otherwise they are rare.

However, I don't think we should downplay the role German research added to post-war fighter development. I changed a lot opinions.