He 162 v P-80 V Vampire

[drgondog]

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.

KK - the Me 163 designers knew the Hydrazine was both lethal to handle and sensitive to shock. They experienced the same explosion disasters in development as production and did not solve the 'flying this a/c can be hazardous to your health" issues. The Me 163 is a flight system. If you want to point to the airframe and pose that it is an exceptional (and successful) armed glider - your argument is flawless. When you fold the engine and fuel into the equation and claim it was not rushed into production it leaves room for questions? The YP-80 by comparison could be viewed as 'relatively' safe,

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?

The F-104 is the only supersonic a/c that come to mind, but if you look at F-80, F-84, F-94, and F-89 you will see 'thin' design approach without much sweep. Most modern military aircraft (designedafter 1947) use combination of both. Mission and weight and aeroelastic challenges will always have to be balanced for high speed transonic aircraft

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

What I saw from Waynos postulate was that there were two ways to skin the transonic drag rise 'cat' in WWII. The swept wing was the more elegant approach to delaying transonic wave drag but the thin wing was very successful (as in Spitfire) and deployed well in advance of German designs? Why is his argument 'nationalistic'?

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.

A little overstated?

 

[FLYBOYJ]

How many of the fighter jets after World War 2 used straight wings as compared to those that used swept wings?

Besides the F-104...

F-94, AVRO Canuck, Dassault Ouragan, F9F, Supermarine Attacker, and YaK-23 comes to mind.

The F-94 and the Canuck were able to go supersonic without their tip tanks/ pods.

 

[KrazyKraut]

drgndog, your style of quoting makes it impossible to answer to your points individually. My argumentation regarding the Komet was that the airframe was well matured, i stated in the very same post that the rocket engine was a failure. It was not rushed into production, as the defects were inherent with the propulsion design and could've never been solved completely. It was a deliberately taken risk. Was it a good choice? Certainly not. The point is the aircraft was not rushed into service as for example the Ta 152 or the He 162 were. Mature designs aren't necessarily safe and I have never seen anyone argument that the Me 163's defects were due to it being rushed into service.

Besides the F-104...

F-94, AVRO Canuck, Dassault Ouragan, F9F, Supermarine Attacker, and YaK-23 comes to mind.

The F-94 and the Canuck were able to go supersonic without their tip tanks/ pods.

I am well aware that there are fighter aircraft, even supersonic, that utilize other techniques to overcome the issues transonic speeds. Compared to the number that use a swept-wing they are however few in numbers, especially the further you go down the road after the first jet-to-jet combat experiences. And I am pretty sure the Ouragan had at least a slightly swept leading edge. The Starfighter is the one big exception that comes to mind, but it barely had wings at all.

What I saw from Waynos postulate was that there were two ways to skin the transonic drag rise 'cat' in WWII. The swept wing was the more elegant approach to delaying transonic wave drag but the thin wing was very successful (as in Spitfire) and deployed well in advance of German designs? Why is his argument 'nationalistic'?

How thick was the Me 262 wing? I am just tired of people who don't give credit where credit is due, or try to relativize that credit with "our engineers' designs were at least as great". Airframe-wise there was little competition for the Messerschmitt designs in 1945.

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.

As far as propulsion layout goes, I agree, the P-80 was prety advanced. However the airframe itself was fairly conventional. It has to be said though that major fighters for the coming years had the intake right in the middle, which I assume was the best way to provide the short engines with sufficient air. There were plans for the 262 that would've moved the engines to the fuselage, very similar to the Canuck. In this configuration I think it could've been very competitive until the early 50s.

 

[red admiral]

Swept wings are only one way to reduce drag. Lower aspect ratio and simply having thinner wings is another option, as is detailed consideration of drag. Gloster took their experience with the Meteor and designed a single engine (first Goblin then Nene) aircraft with far less drag and nice thin wings to give a high mach number as the Gloster E.1/44 Ace stemming from 1942. It flew, and at 633mph was pretty fast - but thing had moved on from then to even faster types. No all moving tailplane but most of the high transonic research was being done by Miles.

You've just run completely out of arguments to support your obviously wrong statements made here.

I haven't made any wrong statements. You just keep putting words in my mouth.

 

[KrazyKraut]

So you didn't say that the D.H. 108 delivered in April '46 went supersonic? Don't even try to deny that this wasn't what you were implying with your post.

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.

 

[drgondog]

drgndog, your style of quoting makes it impossible to answer to your points individually. My argumentation regarding the Komet was that the airframe was well matured, i stated in the very same post that the rocket engine was a failure. It was not rushed into production, as the defects were inherent with the propulsion design and could've never been solved completely. It was a deliberately taken risk. Was it a good choice? Certainly not. The point is the aircraft was not rushed into service as for example the Ta 152 or the He 162 were. Mature designs aren't necessarily safe and I have never seen anyone argument that the Me 163's defects were due to it being rushed into service.

>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.<


KK - those (above) are both of your comments. The German engineers Knew about the engine fuel issues before operations and chose to deploy the highly dangerous airplane anyway.

If the war had not been going so badly do you think they would have placed it into service before making the engine safe and reliable? Say, in 1939-1942 when the 109 and 190 were as good or better than anything flying? The simple answer is 'no'.

By this logic the YP-80 was ready for combat in 1944 as the airframe was well developed and tested with no stability issues. The engine/tailpipe combination/fuel pump system, however, were another story. We could say the P-59 was a well developed airframe - but the engines brought it to P-51 level performance. Unfortunately the propulsion system capability is an intrinsic marker for both performance and reliability. The Me 163 aircraft/engine system was 'underdeveloped' by any definition of 'suitable for operations'


I am well aware that there are fighter aircraft, even supersonic, that utilize other techniques to overcome the issues transonic speeds.

The only 'other' techniques available in the aero toolkit is thin wings and Whitcomb area rule.

Compared to the number that use a swept-wing they are however few in numbers, especially the further you go down the road after the first jet-to-jet combat experiences. The Starfighter is the one big exception that comes to mind, but it barely had wings at all.

Virtually all the of the jets were employing straight wings until after the F-86 and MiG 15 were operational.. so even for several years after WWII was over the approach was 'thin wing'. For the US, the first example of area rule was the F-102 modified to become F-106 - mid 50's

How thick was the Me 262 wing? I am just tired of people who don't give credit where credit is due, or try to relativize that credit with "our engineers' designs were at least as great". Airframe-wise there was little competition for the Messerschmitt designs in 1945.

I can understand your sensitivity but don't understand the objectivity.

The Me 262 was a great design, the Jumo was a poor performer that did not maximize the 262 potential. Having said that the deficiencies in the Jumo seem to be more the quality of the materials than comparative design.

The Me 163 was a good airframe design and would have been a very good airplane with a Bede 5 engine (probably) or some derivative. It was not a good Airplane (airframe/engine combination) because the engine/fuel approach killed good pilots - but that doesn't detract from the very good German engineering of the airframe.

 

[HellToupee]

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 don't beleive layout makes a design advanced else one would consider the Gloster E.28 advanced. It does not matter what future designs used but how the design performed with its configuration, vampires layout was pretty much the same as the p80 as well except for the tail to keep the engine pipe short, and it continued on to two follow on types the venom and vixon.

 

[drgondog]

Swept wings are only one way to reduce drag. Lower aspect ratio and simply having thinner wings is another option, as is detailed consideration of drag. .

RA- While technically true, to the extent that reducing AR reduces parasite drag (for exact same airfoil), that approach makes the designer's life miserable relative to range, turn performance, low speed and landing characteristics. That is the reason not many people followed the example of the F-104. For most of the subsonic range, the increase in induced drag will tend to outweigh the transonic capability of a reduced AR.

For the same CL 1/2 the aspect ratio translates to 2x the CDi - so you have to buy back a LOT of parasite drag through the reduction in AR.

 

[delcyros]

There is nothing advanced in having a jet engine mounted on the back of the fuselage. It was done to avoid developmental risks, to ease production and keep maintenance low. It also helped by deleting the intake / exhoust losses which somehow plagued the P-80 and to a lesser degree the Vampire.
The Su-9 (soviet Me-262 inspired plane) was the best soviet first generaltion jet in my mind. It was not abandoned because of poor performance but because of the german inpired design, which wasn´t politically opportune.
The only airforce to field Me-262 in some numbers post war was the czech airforce. They captured assembly lines at Prague and continued to build fourteen Me-262A and three Me-262B under the designation Avia S-92/CS-92.
It is possile that the israeli air force had some Avia S92, too. They bought several Avia S199 but they also appearently got three Avia S92 and spare jet engines. These were assembled and housed in a hanger at the far end of Ekron AFB and kept in secret. To fly these planes, Israel recruited former RAF test pilot Flight Capt. Henry Biggles.
Unfortunately, on the first test flight, one of the other pilots landed too fast and ran off the end of the runway. The plane was cannibalized to keep the other two flying. Due to shortages in fuel and ammo, the planes were seldom used and only achieved one kill against an Egyptian C-47.
It is possible that IAF wanted the -262 to counter egyptian Meteors appearing over the skies at about the same time.

 

[KrazyKraut]

The Me 163 was a good airframe design and would have been a very good airplane with a Bede 5 engine (probably) or some derivative. It was not a good Airplane (airframe/engine combination) because the engine/fuel approach killed good pilots - but that doesn't detract from the very good German engineering of the airframe.

We will not agree on the Me 163 so I'll just leave it at that. The point was that the D.H.108 was no longer very advanced as an airframe in 1946 as the Me 163 (and arguably the Go 229) had all of its distinctive features years before. One might even argue if it had existed in its form at all if it wasn't for the Me 163.

Virtually all the of the jets were employing straight wings until after the F-86 and MiG 15 were operational.. so even for several years after WWII was over the approach was 'thin wing'.

And how many of them saw substantial combat before the Korean war? And what design proved to be dominating in that war? The answer: Swept wing, inline engine, air intake in the middle.

 

[drgondog]

I don't beleive layout makes a design advanced else one would consider the Gloster E.28 advanced. It does not matter what future designs used but how the design performed with its configuration, vampires layout was pretty much the same as the p80 as well except for the tail to keep the engine pipe short, and it continued on to two follow on types the venom and vixon.

If by layout you are contrasting a wing nacelle/imbedded design versus a fuselage embedded design - the fuselage imbedded design for the SAME airframe will always have less parastite drag and Should always have a better performing wing.

If however we are talking about WWII aircraft, the performance of the engine available versus the thrust required for the mission obviously posed 'trade off' issues between elegant/clean and brute force but dirtier.

So, if 'advanced' means cleaner with less drag, then the fuselage imbedded engine(s) offer more options for configuration management and is more 'advanced' from a performance and handling standpoint (maybe NOT maintenance or redundancy position).

 

[drgondog]

We will not agree on the Me 163 so I'll just leave it at that.

OK

And how many of them saw substantial combat before the Korean war? And what design proved to be dominating in that war? The answer: Swept wing, inline engine, air intake in the middle.

How many wars/combats were fought? and for air combats before the MiG crossed the Yalu, how many aircraft engaging had swept wings?

So could we safely say that air battles, with the exception of the Me 163 as a limited value point defense rocket with limited value, were fought with medium to thin wing fighters - non swept -, from 1914- late 1950?

 

[KrazyKraut]

So could we safely say that air battles, with the exception of the Me 163 as a limited value point defense rocket with limited value, were fought with medium to thin wing fighters - non swept -, from 1914- late 1950?

Which just shows that swept wings were very advanced for any mid-40s fighter. And the Me 262 had leading edge sweep if only very little and rather coincidentally.

 

[Graeme]

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.

Nevertheless the Vampire was a very successful post-war aircraft.

TG276 and TG280 Vampires were fitted with RR Nenes, with TG276 having distinctive dorsal intakes to provide more air for the double sided impeller.

G'day Red.The Nene engine wanted more air than the 'normal' Vampire intakes could supply?

Australia and France took up the Nene option but only Australia persisted with the "elephant-ear" intakes (dorsal and eventually ventral) but we did try an alternative intake design (similar to the French Mistral)..





However Vampire production was already well advanced and it was considered to costly to retrofit the design. Performance would have been slightly improved...




From Stewart Wilsons' book - "Vampire, Macchi and Iroquois" - 1994

 

[drgondog]

Which just shows that swept wings were very advanced for any mid-40s fighter. And the Me 262 had leading edge sweep if only very little and rather coincidentally.

So did the P-80, T-33, F-94 - each with basically same trapezoidal planform wing with ~ 10 degrees. The F-84 and 89 had a 'trap' wing but less forward and greater trailing edge sweep.

I would not classify the operational wing of the Me 262 as 'advanced' and maybe not as good as any of the above wings. The sweep represented on the drawing boards Were advanced.

The Me 262 wing was fat by comparison and had huge drag islands represented by the nacelles, heavier structure and, therefore, additional weight to support them.

The Me 163 WAS advanced for two reasons - one to give the pitch stability and two to delay the transonic drag due to its relatively fat wings (compared to Spit and Me 262)

 

[Waynos]

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.

It was landing and refuelling that was the real hazard, nothing to do with combat. Under normal circumstances the Me 163 would have got nowhere near a service pilot.

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?

The wing I am speaking of is the one developed by Miles for the M.52 which was flown and validated on the Gillette Falcon and small scale models, examples of fighters with straight ultra thin wings would include the F-104, F-5, and even today the F-18 and several others. Mikoyan also designed an alternative layout for the MiG 21 with a wing and tail that seemed copied straight off the F-104, but they never flew it. The early straight wing jets like the P-80 to 84, Attacker, Sea Hawk etc used 'slightly thinner than normal' conventional wings are not really the same thing, the F-89 however did use a decidedly thinner section than the rest and I think this was fairly close to the Miles wing in terms of thickness.

The basic point being there was nothing wrong with Miles reasoning and approach.

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

And that is a sweeping generalisation, it was true of quite a few, but by no means all British airframers. As for nationalist excuse, for what?

Davparlr;

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

Oh yes. As I said, in the sphere of swept wing aerodynamics (and Delta's)they had clearly taken it much further than anyone else and all the post war builders benefitted massively from their work. This is indisputable. The only downside was that the German research was so compelling that everything that didn't employ swept wings for high speeds (at least in the UK, not sure about the USA as the X-3 was developed) was canned immediately and this was one of the main reasons given for the M.52 being abandoned while the RAE took to designing swept wing research aircraft with German engineers instead.

Krazy Kraut

How thick was the Me 262 wing? I am just tired of people who don't give credit where credit is due, or try to relativize that credit with "our engineers' designs were at least as great". Airframe-wise there was little competition for the Messerschmitt designs in 1945

pretty thin, and I have been giving credit, in my prev post and this one. I have even mentioned specific Messerschmitt designs as examples of advanced design, are you just ignoring those parts of my posts?

Nevertheless, Miles, during 1944/45 designed and developed an ultra thin supersonic wing profile that worked well at both high and low speeds, with its docile low speed characteristices being demonstrated on the aforementioned Gillette Falcon. If this is not an example of advanced aerodynamics what is?

What is wrong with giving a little credit to non German designers, is it a concept you cannot accept?

There were plans for the 262 that would've moved the engines to the fuselage, very similar to the Canuck. In this configuration I think it could've been very competitive until the early 50s.

Agreed, this model (was it the HG.III?) was very close indeed to the layout for future twinjets like the Buccaneer and A-6 intruder amongst others. All it really needed was to move the cockpit to the nose from midships and I think it would have looked at home in any 1950-1955 air force inventory.

We will not agree on the Me 163 so I'll just leave it at that. The point was that the D.H.108 was no longer very advanced as an airframe in 1946 as the Me 163 (and arguably the Go 229) had all of its distinctive features years before. One might even argue if it had existed in its form at all if it wasn't for the Me 163.

I think it would, due to the fact that it was built as a small scale test vehicle for an airliner that was intended to be produced after the war. I don't think DH would have set out in 1944 to build the DH 106 as a tailless swept wing jetliner based on reports of a secret German fighter.


Delycross;

The Su-9 (soviet Me-262 inspired plane)

It is stunning how much the Su-9 looks like the Me 262 in the famous side view photo of it, however have you looked at the design as a whole? If you take off the engines it looks nothing like the German fighter, this point is emphasised when you see the Su-11, this aircraft has been re-engined (and generally beefed up but not had its outline altered much) and with its 'Meteor' style nacelles looks nothing at all like the Me 262. The Su-9 likeness stems entirely from the engines, a poor reason for the Sov AF to end up flying the execrable MiG 9, I think you'll agree. Good old Uncle Joe

 

[KrazyKraut]

So did the P-80, T-33, F-94 - each with basically same trapezoidal planform wing with ~ 10 degrees. The F-84 and 89 had a 'trap' wing but less forward and greater trailing edge sweep.

I would not classify the operational wing of the Me 262 as 'advanced' and maybe not as good as any of the above wings. The sweep represented on the drawing boards Were advanced.

The Me 262's production wing was pretty advanced for a 1943 design imo. I hope I am not going out on a limb but I seem to remember it was thinner than the P-80 wing. Wasn't the thickness ratio of the P-80's wing something like 9-13% as compared to the Me's 8-11%? And the leading edge sweep was 18 degrees not much but still somewhat more than that of the P-80.

 

[KrazyKraut]

It was landing and refuelling that was the real hazard, nothing to do with combat.

During development, Me 163s could circle forever over airfields, in combat they often had to make a rushed landing due to the danger posed by Allied fighters that followed them. They also ran out of fuel and had to land on fields. Though this was planned from the start, it proved to be a lot more difficult and dangerous in reality. Hence there was a steep increase in accidents once the plane became operational.

 

[KrazyKraut]

I think it would, due to the fact that it was built as a small scale test vehicle for an airliner that was intended to be produced after the war. I don't think DH would have set out in 1944 to build the DH 106 as a tailless swept wing jetliner based on reports of a secret German fighter.

The specification was there but the plane wasn't designed or built until way after the Komet was evaluated. So I think it's a possibility that the designers had a look or two at that plane.

 

[Waynos]

During development, Me 163s could circle forever over airfields, in combat they often had to make a rushed landing due to the danger posed by Allied fighters that followed them. They also ran out of fuel and had to land on fields. Though this was planned from the start, it proved to be a lot more difficult and dangerous in reality. Hence there was a steep increase in accidents once the plane became operational.

Exactly, the system was not fully developed and this is why, without the dire pressing need for a high performance point defence interceptor immediately, the 163 would never have seen service. It was rushed into service when it was known to be lethal to its own crews, the rise in accidents was not a surprise, it was a calculated gamble, and fully developed aircraft are not deployed as a gamble. The 163 was not a rush project like the Bachem Natter for example, Lippisch had been designing it for several years but its deployment was rushed. As he had been waiting for a rocket motor to be delivered from Walther since May 1942 there was even a piston engined version, the Me 334 schemed by Lippisch which was only shelved after the rocket powereed version had finally flown.

Yes the problems of the 163 were entirely the fault of its motor and fuel system, but it was a complete package, you could not have one without the other as all the schemes for a jet powered version of the 163 were still on the drawing board so yes, I do consider that it was rushed into service.

The specification was there but the plane wasn't designed or built until way after the Komet was evaluated. So I think it's a possibility that the designers had a look or two at that plane.

The DH 106 was designed in 1944 and the swept tailless layout (which they obviously chose not to go with ultimately) was one of three being considered, long before the RAE had the chance to fly the 163. Indeed the De Havilland project's existence heightened the RAE's interest in evaluating the Me 163 when one was captured as a chance to fly the layout early (for us). I am sure that once one was available they looked at the 163 very closely indeed, as you say.

There were several previous projects that shared the 163's layout. One was a large Vickers bomber from 1942, another was a Shorts airliner powered by 5 Griffons, also to the Brabazon comittees requirements, but remember also that Prof GTR Hill built and flew his Pterodactyl aircraft with Westland many years earlier and there is the extensive work in the USA of Jack Northrop, none of which takes anything away from the genius of Alexander Lippisch, but it does not necessarily follow that anything resembling a Lippisch design was copied from it, except the X-4 Bantam of course, which SO obviously was.

As a footnote, you may already know this, Professor Hill and Lippisch were well known to each other and at a Lecture on the design and construction of gliders at the Three Choughs Hotel in Yeovil, where Westland are based, on 2nd Feb 1931, Lippisch praised Hills work in England on tailless aircraft, Lippisch was already well known for his own work on tailless aircraft even at this early date.