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I hadnt thought of it before but the question dawned on me hit me. i wonder why they went with that wing design instead of the swept wing? the 163 and 262 had swept wings which dealt with compressability better. if it was to be a small fast attack aircraft wouldnt you want the same characteristic?? i am sure there is a logical reason...just perplexed me. its max speed i saw listed was 562 mph so it would have a decent chance ( if all the bugs were worked out and it flew ) to go well over 600 in a dive.
While its true that swept wings dealt with compressibility well, this was not the reason either 262 or 163 had them, it was purely for other aerodynamic reasons, cg on the 262, stability and control on the 163, therefore the Germans were only just coming round to using swept wings for high speed (P.1101, Ta 183 - both unflown in 1945) so its not that strange that the 162 had straight wings. the shorter straight wing is also lighter.
Hello, newbie here, usually an interested lurker but thought I might have something worthwhile to chip in here.
Just to add something to the WW2 German stealth debate......
if you check out the U-boat side of things you'll find the Germans were indeed developing radar absobant matting/materials to try and reduce the U-boat radar return.
It's referred to here - h**p://w*w.uboat.net/forums/read.php?20,58738,58742,quote=1
Clearly at least the concept was around and being given attention in Germany.
However this is a world away from a methodically developed, properly tested, well understood, fully supported, and properly deployed military 'system'.
This is something which IMHO applies to so many of those late and advanced German aircraft programs that made it to any kind of operational usage, nevermind the large array of paper planes.
Total BS.FBJ, do you recall an incident with an f-117 where rain changed the RAM and allowed radar to see, track and shoot down the plane