Captain Eric Brown, Chief Naval Test Pilot and C.O. Captured Enemy Aircraft Flight Royal Aircraft Establishment, who tested the Me 262 noted: "This was a Blitzkrieg aircraft. You whack in at your bomber. It was never meant to be a dogfighter, it was meant to be a destroyer of bombers... The great problem with it was it did not have dive brakes. For example, if you want to fight and destroy a B-17, you come in on a dive. The 30mm cannon were not so accurate beyond 600 meters. So you normally came in at 600 yards and would open fire on your B-17. And your closing speed was still high and since you had to break away at 200 meters to avoid a collision, you only had two seconds firing time. Now, in two seconds, you can't sight. You can fire randomly and hope for the best. If you want to sight and fire, you need to double that time to four seconds. And with dive brakes, you could have done that."[44]
Lack of air brakes seems like a major shortcoming, yes, probably one of the most legitimate complaints regarding the Me 262 that could/should have been addressed. (should have aided landing as well)
They'd also be useful for staying below critical mach in dives and avoiding use of throttles.
Eventually, German pilots developed new combat tactics to counter Allied bombers' defenses. Me 262s, equipped with R4M rockets, approached from the side of a bomber formation, where their silhouettes were widest, and while still out of range of the bombers' machine guns, fired a salvo of rockets with strongly brisant Hexogen-filled warheads, exactly the same explosive in the shells fired by the Me 262A's quartet of MK 108 cannon. One or two of these rockets could down even the famously rugged B-17 Flying Fortress,[45] from the "metal-shattering" brisant effect of the R4M rockets' explosive warheads, weighing only some 520 grams (17.6 ounces) per projectile out of a total launch weight of 4 kg (8.8 pounds) apiece.
Also one of the technically simpler designs that feasibly could have been developed much earlier had there been greater support/interest.
That said, Delcyros pointed out in a lengthy previous discussion on this topic, that the consumption of explosive filler and (especially) propellant used for those rockets far exceeded that of conventional cannons and would have further hampered the strained logistics. (though the anti-tank version of the R4M would have been more useful than existing ground attack rockets)
Employing a pair of MK-103s on the Me 262 would have been more useful for extending their useful attack range. The rate of fire would be less than half the 108s, but ammo capacity could be higher and firing long bursts starting further out and approaching from the side might have proven very effective.
Aside from that, developing a 37 mm MK-108 or MGFF derived cannon would have been much more useful than the effort they put into 50 mm cannon developments or R4M. (and likely compact and light enough to fit a pair on the Me 262) Using the MG-151 as the basis for larger scale cannons might have been a good idea too, not sure why that wasn't pursued. (the Japanese showed the M2 browning mechanism scaled up well to 20, 30, and 37 mm as well as developing the oerlikon/becker mechanism successfully ... odd the US, UK, or Germany didn't make similar attempts)
The Me 262 is 11% thick at the root and 9% at the tip.
I've seen it written that the Horten had an airfoil that developed most of the lift along the centerline of the airfoil and less at the leading and trailing edges, but have never seen an airfoil number for it, so I have no way to estimate it's stalling characteristics. The writing I saw has also not been verified with any primary sources.
So, why would the critical angle of attack have been much higher for the Ho. 229? Do you have any data supporting that? No agenda and not a real disagreement ... just asking as I don't know much about the airfoil on the Horten.
I may have phrased it poorly, but I meant to say the Me 262's critical AoA would be unusually high due to the characteristics of LE slats (or slots for that matter). Even with the 262's thin, symmetrical airfoil, the use of slats should make the critical AoA higher than pretty much any conventional airfoil in use, especially one without the advantage of prop wash. (P-38 might be an exception due both to airfoil and twin props and especially with maneuvering flaps deployed -not the dive flaps, the trailing edge flaps in maneuvering position -- the P-38 was known for being stable in extreme high-AoA high-speed stalls with a combination of factors -including neutral torque- preventing spinning or tumbling)
Pulling extreme high, stall or near stall maneuvers are going to lose energy FAST though, so limited in practical use. (cases like pulling lead on a deflection shot for a very limited period or intentionally losing speed to make an opponent overshoot -a bad move if there's an enemy wingman or backup around further behind you, so a rarely useful tactic ... more useful on the P-38 given the much better low-speed acceleration)
The Bf 109 technically should have had that advantage as well, except the heavy rudder at high speeds limited the useful range of pulling extreme maneuvers and the torque involved with the single prop should have meant more risk of spinning as well. (I'm not sure of the 109's spin characteristics though)
For landing, the high critical AoA is problematic due to the very nose-high position for managing minimum landing speed, the dangerous stall characteristics of flying wings tend to mostly be present at high speeds as well, so low speed stalls on landing wouldn't be serious (similar to aircraft with snap-roll/spin problems, except without the wing-dropping torque issues at low speed).
The wing area and air breaks should have made the 229 easier to land than the 262, though possibly harder to taxi with the more limited cockpit view.
Of course, if a better powerplant were available, the U.S. may have re-evaluated the P-59.
The production P-59As and Bs weren't underpowered for their time, no more so than the Meteor I or III, or P-80A. 2x 1650 or 2000 lbf engines should have been fine. The main problems with performance were the very large, somewhat thick wing (slightly larger than the Meteor's and about as thick as the Vampire's) and more so the engine nacelle/fuselage interaction. (possibly the tail surface thickness as well) It appeared to have very similar problems to the early Meteors but a bit more pronounced, and like the Meteor it may have been the nacelle design alone that limited things most, with longer chord, streamlined intake and exhaust ducts improving mach limit and top speed substantially. (likely increasing the already high ceiling as well) Fuel capacity was also somewhat limited, but given the massive space inside the wing, a redesign to expand capacity should have been very possible. (reduced drag from corrected nacelles combined with the already modest fuel expansion in the P-59B should have made it reasonably useful for medium range intrusion and recon -especially at high altitude)
It likely would have remained slower than the Meteor III, but at least should have broken 500 MPH at altitude. The exceptional glide performance and safety record during flight testing and training are the practical stand-out features of the existing P-59s.
