Info on Me 262 V1?

[ChaseR83]

Hey guys,

I'm looking for some drawings and info on the Me 262 V1, both with and without the BMW 003 engines. I'm trying to find out just how different the prototype was past the obvious differences of the piston engine and the tail wheel undercarriage.

One area I am unsure about is the wing, one source I have shows the wing of the V1 does not have a constant sweep... the root area is straight and the wings sweep back past the nacelle.

Also, the BMW 003 engines and their cowlings, what was the size/shape of the engines and cowlings vs. the Jumo 004s?

Anybody have a source of pics of the V1? All I can locate is this rather small and unclear pic showing the plane partially disassembled. In this pic the wing sweep appears constant... but they may be an illusion based on the photo angle.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Crimea_River]

I have one pic in Classic Colours Vol 5 Jagdwaffe taken from the rear quarter showing the wing without the nacelles and an apparent step in the sweep. Will post tonight if you're interested.

 

[Colin1]

I'll have a dig around when I get home too

 

[beaupower32]

Although often viewed as a last ditch super-weapon, the Me 262 was already being developed as project P.1065 before the start of WWII. Plans were first drawn up in April 1939, and the original design was very similar to the plane that would eventually enter service. The progression of the original design into service was delayed by a lack of funds, many high ranking officials thought that the war could easily be won with conventional aircraft, and therefore most of the available government funds were used for the production of other aircraft.

Swept wings had been proposed as early as 1935 by Adolph Busemann, and Willy Messerschmitt had researched the topic from 1940. In April 1941, he actually proposed to fit a 35° swept wing (Pfeilflügel II) to the Me 262. Though this suggestion was not implemented, he continued with the projected HG II and HG III high-speed derivatives of the Me 262 in 1944, which were designed with a 35° and 45° wing sweep respectively. The production Me 262 had a leading edge sweep of 18.5° primarily to properly position the center of lift relative to the center of mass and not for the aerodynamic benefit of increasing the critical Mach number of the wing (the sweep was too slight to achieve any significant advantage). The aircraft was originally designed as a tail-dragger which it was built as in the first (Me 262 V1) through fourth (-V4) prototypes, but it was discovered on an early test run that the engines and wings "blanked" the stabilizers, giving almost no control on the ground. Changing to a tricycle landing gear arrangement, firstly as a fixed undercarriage on the fifth prototype aircraft, then a fully retractable one on the sixth and succeeding prototypes, corrected all of these problems immediately.

The first test flights began in April 1941, but since the BMW 003 turbojets were not ready for fitting, a conventional Junkers Jumo 210 engine was mounted in the nose, driving a propeller, to test the Me 262 V1 airframe. When the BMW 003 engines were finally installed the Jumo was retained for safety which proved wise as both 003s failed during the first flight and the pilot had to land using the nose mounted engine alone.

The V3 third prototype airframe became a true jet plane when it flew on July 18, 1942 in Leipheim near Günzburg, Germany, piloted by Fritz Wendel. The 003 engines which were proving unreliable were replaced by the newly available Junkers Jumo 004. The Jumo 004 was more reliable, but it also caused problems since the Me 262 had to compete with the Arado Ar 234 for the engines.

Test flights continued over the next year but the engines continued to be unreliable. The production of the aircraft was slowed mainly by the engine troubles. An order from Hitler that the new Me 262 must also be part bomber played little part in comparison. Although airframe modifications were complete by 1942, production never began until 1944 when the production engines -- which due to the shortage of strategic materials like tungsten and chromium had to be completely redesigned to employ alloys of inferior temperature resistance -- finally started to work.

Jet engines have less thrust at low speed than piston or turboprop engines and due to this, acceleration is relatively poor. It was more noticeable for the Me 262 because all early jet engines (before the invention of afterburners) responded slowly to throttle changes. The introduction of a primitive autothrottle late in the war only helped slightly. Conversely, the higher power of jet engines at higher speeds meant the Me 262 enjoyed a much higher climb speed. Used tactically, this gave the jet fighter an even greater speed advantage than level flight at top speed.

Operationally, the Me 262 had an endurance of 60 to 90 minutes.

Source: Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe / Sturmvogel

 

[Milosh]

ChaseR83, I would suggest you find this book, 'Me262 Vol 1' by Smith and Creek.

The drawings in the book show no difference in the wing plan, with or without, the jet engines.

 

[ChaseR83]

I'd definitely like to see any other photos you guys can dig up.

 

[Crimea_River]

What follows first is a page from Jagdwaffe Volume 5 Seciton 4 "Jet Fighters and Rocket Interceptors 1944-1945" by Smith and Creek.

The top photo is a wind tunnel model of the P1065 project. The middle one shows the V-1 wing without the nacelle. It looks to me as if there is a straight section between the fuselage and where the necelle was to be joined.

Below that page is a profile of V-1 from Squadron Signal Me 262 In Action by Stapfer which shows a definite crank in the wing leading edge. That's all I've got for photos/profiles. Hope this helps.

 

[GrauGeist]

I'll dig around and see if I have any good shots of the V1 model, too...

An interesting fact about the tail-dragger '262...in order to get the tail to rise as it was taking off, the pilot had to hit the brakes to level the machine out...that must have been fun, huh?

 

[Crimea_River]

Yah, especially with the prop up front but I think that was first tried on the V-3 which had jets.

 

[GrauGeist]

The V1 (under jet power) through V4 had that problem

 

[vikingBerserker]

I'll dig around and see if I have any good shots of the V1 model, too...

An interesting fact about the tail-dragger '262...in order to get the tail to rise as it was taking off, the pilot had to hit the brakes to level the machine out...that must have been fun, huh?

Holy fricken gees! Who came up with that bright idea????

 

[wheelsup_cavu]

I've seen video of the tail dragger on the history/military channel
I can't remeber who the test pilot was though.
I've been looking for it on youtube but no luck so far.


Wheels

 

[vikingBerserker]

These are from the book Messerschmitt Me 262 - Development * Testing * Production by Radinger Schick

 

[Crimea_River]

I've seen video of the tail dragger on the history/military channel
I can't remeber who the test pilot was though.
I've been looking for it on youtube but no luck so far.


Wheels

Pilot was Fritz Wendel.

VB, good info there mate!

 

[wheelsup_cavu]

Thanks for the info CR.


Wheels

 

[ChaseR83]

Awesome!

Thank you guys. Although it is a bit difficult to tell at first glance, those photos seem to confirm the sweep on the outer panels only.

I have read, but cannot confirm, that the uniform swept wings was a down and dirty way of correcting the center of gravity with the heavier Jumo 004 engines.

 

[Crimea_River]

Beau's post above talks about the wing sweep. At the subsonic speeds of the 262, the sweep did little to address critical Mach number and was done primarily for CoG reasons. Smith and Creek say the same in my reference above.

 

[riacrato]

The change to the uniformly swept wing was not because of CoG issues (it didn't change anything but add some (very little) additional wing area). The CoG issue was already adressed by the swept outer wing part of V1 through V3.

But the uniformly swept wing improved low speed handling and thus take off and landing procedures.

 

[vikingBerserker]

Page 25 from Messerschmitt Me 262 Arrow To The Future by Boyne

 

[riacrato]

I can't tell are you agreeing or disagreeing with me? Like I said, the outer part was swept to adjust the center of gravity. While testing V1 through V3 it was found the low speed handling was not too great and this could be adjusted for by adding the sweep for the inner part of the wing as well.