Komets in the skies above Germany

[davebender]

425,041. 1944 Germany GDP. In millions of 1990 American dollars.
69,280. 1944 Argentina GDP. 16% of Germany GDP.

Germany was light years ahead of Argentina in scientific and monetary resources. If developed to production status the much better resourced Ta-183 is apt to look a lot different then the Pulqui II. Or else the Ta-183 program might be cancelled in favor of one of the competing German swept wing fighter aircraft designs.

I have read the Me-163 airframe was pretty good. Replace the problem plagued rocket motor with a Jumo 004H turbojet (under development during 1945) and you might have a decent late 1940s jet fighter aircraft.

All we can do is speculate. 8)

 

[Sagittario64]

Where have i seen that before? oh yes. davebender, are you thinking of the Lippisch P.15?
Lippisch P.15 Diana

 

[davebender]

That looks about right.

Is the jet powered P.15 plausible? Wikipedia thinks so but I have no idea what their opinion is based on.

 

[Sagittario64]

I think that the 163's basic design was a high speed airframe. with such little cross section, longitudinal drag, and buried engine, i believe the p.15 could have easily overshot even the he.162 at more than 530mph or even more. but it still would have a short range, due to fuel load limitations. and i imagine the armament would still pretty much be the same as the 163

 

[Gixxerman]

425,041. 1944 Germany GDP. In millions of 1990 American dollars.
69,280. 1944 Argentina GDP. 16% of Germany GDP.

Germany was light years ahead of Argentina in scientific and monetary resources.

I don't understand your point here Dave.
Tank made the Palui II in Argentina years after the war (and that's not counting the Palui I).
As Wiki shows 2 gliding airframes were constructed for aerodynamic testing in '48 '49.
The aircraft itself flew for the first time in 1950.

The plane as it turned out is surely the result of more and better data, a proper testing program (which apparantly found the aircraft far from free of vices unpleasant flight characteristics) and which involved the use of several prototypes in a 'normal' development program.

As a 'prestige' project of the Peron regime in Argentina at the time I don't think it's easy or accurate to imply the plane was poorly funded.

Frankly I think Pulqui II is as good as any of the German jet designs got.

......and like the rest of them (which the Russians especially found) when tried tested they had really had their day and when it came down to it been left behind by the new post-war research, which I'll happily agree they had opened the door to.

Not one of the German designs, regardless of how supposedly adfvanced and ahead of the allies they were thought to be, 'became' an adopted design for the airforces of anybody.
Even the Lippish designs (of which I'd propose the Vought Cutlass as the only one to actually go places) were little more than ideas albeit with potential.....but even then look at how little became of them.

Jumo 004H turbojet?
Come on, a paper design a million miles off of a properly constructed run design.

 

[Sagittario64]

The czechs used and sold german designs after the war. the spanish used their own bf.109 designs for a long time. its somewhat true what you said, but not completely true

 

[Shortround6]

Both countries were poor, both monetarily and in industry ( What the Czechs had pre-war was pretty much gone at the end of WW II), Both had tooling in place to build the OLD German designs. It was more a matter of being forced to use the designs because that was what was available rather than choosing them from a selection of options. Same for the Planes the Czechs sold the Israeli's in 1948. Hardly anybody else would sell them anything let alone sell them first line equipment. Same as their tanks, they got some old Shermans, not because they were good but because they were available in junk/scrap yards.

 

[buffnut453]

The Komet's high closing speed undoubtedly caused problems but the aircraft had a more fundamental issue: it was a one-shot wonder. By the time it was in a position to attack an enemy bomber formation, it had run out of fuel and hence was merely a high-speed glider. Thus, although the closing speeds were great, the Komet couldn't translate that kinetic energy into altitude for re-engagement.

 

[Rivet]

A massive and life-long argument began between Drs. Messerschmitt and Lippish regarding the design path the Me-163 should take apon acceptance by Messerschmitt's for serial production. Lippish was adament that a constant stream gas turbine replace the powerplant designed for the aircraft, a hypergolic fuel reaction turbine. Lippish lost, he left the 163 program in late 1943, taking up residence at DVL labs in Vienna as a researcher. Regards.

The Messerschmitt 163 B-2 was inherently more dangerous than any other aircraft accepted for serial production, it was also the fastest.

 

[nuuumannn]

A massive and life-long argument began between Drs. Messerschmitt and Lippish regarding the design path the Me-163 should take apon acceptance by Messerschmitt's for serial production. Lippish was adament that a constant stream gas turbine replace the powerplant designed for the aircraft, a hypergolic fuel reaction turbine. Lippish lost, he left the 163 program in late 1943, taking up residence at DVL labs in Vienna as a researcher. The Messerschmitt 163 B-2 was inherently more dangerous than any other aircraft accepted for serial production, it was also the fastest.

Rivet, a few things about your post confuse me. As far as I was aware, Lippisch was always keen on a bi-propellant rocket motor for the Me 163. He had carried out research with DFS into tailless designs that led to the DFS 194 rocket powered aircraft. I knew that there was friction between Messerschmitt and Lippisch, but your reason was certainly not why Lippisch left Messerschmitt. He did draw up some ideas for gas turbine aircraft based on the tailless technology, such as the afforementioned P.15 but the '163 was never intended to be powered by a gas turbine of any sort. It was always intended as a rocket powered interceptor.

There was never an Me 163B-2. The next production variant after the 'B-1 was to be the Me 163C, which was proposed as early as 1941, but not acted on until 1943, then the 'D. Junkers, having taken over '163 development from September 1944 designed the Ju 248 that incorporated the best features of these two; a pressurised cabin, conventional undercarriage, a bubble canopy. Messerschmitt protested about the Junkers designation and it was changed to Me 263.

Regarding German scientists influence post war, Lippisch was rounded up under Operation Lusty and went to the USA where he worked at Wright Field, Dayton Ohio, along with other German scientists. His research on supersonic delta winged designs during the war and after directly led to Convair's XF-92A prototype, as well as Convair's Century series fighters and the B-58 Hustler bomber.

 

[Gixxerman]

Both countries were poor, both monetarily and in industry ( What the Czechs had pre-war was pretty much gone at the end of WW II), Both had tooling in place to build the OLD German designs. It was more a matter of being forced to use the designs because that was what was available rather than choosing them from a selection of options. Same for the Planes the Czechs sold the Israeli's in 1948. Hardly anybody else would sell them anything let alone sell them first line equipment. Same as their tanks, they got some old Shermans, not because they were good but because they were available in junk/scrap yards.

That's pretty much my take on it.

I'm not interested in or trying to rubbish anyone's efforts or designs, I just think it's a point worth making before people get too carried away with ideas about those advanced German designs that not one of them was spotted, analysed rushed to production as 'must haves' in anyone's airforce.
(the couple of caveats to that I'd agree to on this would be elsewhere in the area of submarines, it's quite clear that the type 21 was pretty much adopted with little basic design changes, the Mauser MK 213 which became the Aden/Defa cannons.....oh and perhaps the MP44 assault weapon, if you decide Mr Kalashnikov and the Russians have always been a little 'economical with the truth')

Anyway, every one of the aircraft projects might have informed someone else's ideas but surely they merely became the basis of years of additional research design?
The main point being that they all ended up as something very very different and far more capable as military designs fit for years of development service use.
That's about a zillion miles away from a paper design and some numerical calculation....and ditto those proposals for new paths of jet engine development.

(although I always thought the jet designs a real paradox, the most troublesome one of the lot of them - the BMW 003 - going on to become heavily reworked developed refined into a whole family of very powerful French jets, the Atars)

As for the Me163?
Well its very short endurance inability to do much more than a highly limited point defense task coupled with extremely dangerous volitile fuels and not forgetting the whole problem of fighting 200- 300mph planes in a 550 - 600mph one are the very obvious problems.
There are lots of references to a photo-optical recoiless weapon they were working on at the end of the war, the SG 500 Jagdfaust which looked promising, but again a few desperate tests (even if it was credited with 1 kill) hardly make up for a proper testing development program.

 

[riacrato]

You make it sound like you could just decide to produce this or that design once you got the blueprints. You need the tooling to produce hundreds of subassemblies, you need to know the material compositions and you need people who know all those little bits of information that are not written on a sheet of paper, but are in the heads of a qualified engineering staff. The US had problems copying something as "simple" as a machine cannon, how would a country with a less professional industrial base (i. e. 90 per cent of the rest of the world) copy something as complex as an aircraft.

Naturally only the countries that had the jigs in place and the people with the experience continued building what they knew, worked and was of use.

And apart from the countries that were under pressure of a coming conflict only few took the risk of rushing one or more expensive next-generation-fighter projects as long as there was no dominant design for a 'jet fighter' and as long it was clear that jet technology is far from mature.

 

[Gixxerman]

You make it sound like you could just decide to produce this or that design once you got the blueprints. You need the tooling to produce hundreds of subassemblies, you need to know the material compositions and you need people who know all those little bits of information that are not written on a sheet of paper, but are in the heads of a qualified engineering staff. The US had problems copying something as "simple" as a machine cannon, how would a country with a less professional industrial base (i. e. 90 per cent of the rest of the world) copy something as complex as an aircraft.

I don't think that's true riacrato, because that's exactly my point with the Argentine Tank Pulqui II, they had the chief designer ( others) there.
I know Argentina was hardly the world hot-spot for aero-engineering but at the time a lot of kinds of structures and materials used were hardly beyond the abilities of many countries with an industrial base?

(I remember being quite shocked at a close-up look at the sectioned V2 in London, the Me163 a de Havilland Vampire at how much wood was used in them)

 

[riacrato]

The Ta 183 was designed by Multhopp not Tank. He and his right hand emigrated to GB after the war, not Argentine. Before he left Tanks team, everything that existed of the Ta 183 was tons of data and some models. Not even the final layout was fully agreed upon yet. No matter how much of a genius Tank was, he was at the time not nearly as firm in the field of high speed aircraft as the likes of Lippisch, Hornung or other people at Messerschmidt. As far as familiarity goes the Tunnan or MiG-15 can be considered just as much children of the Ta 183 as the Pulqui II: Not much besides the general layout and a probably varying amount of basic data was used.

 

[tomo pauk]

Hi, gixxerman,

Should we take it as truth that a constructor from a country that invented used the 1st automatic rifle is good only to perfect a foreign design? The same designer made the PK/PKT, the mainstay of East Bloc machine guns for more than half a century.
As for Komets flying at 500 mph having trouble to hit a bomber of 74 ft wingspan, flying at 200 mph (speed difference 300 mph), isn't that an easier target then a frontal attack vs. the same B-17 head on by a Fw-190 flying 300 mph (speed difference 500 mph) ? Is the truck traveling on road a easier target for a P-47 doing 250-300 mph?

 

[nuuumannn]

The problem is that we all assume that the Allies should have copied what the Germans did, which they clearly did not. Rather than just their aircraft and submarines and what not, which they collected for evaluation, the Allies were after German technology and research, which was far more important to them than hardware. Remember Britain, the USA and the Soviets had their own scientists and engineers whom they relied on, who were as good as anyone the Germans had, as well as imports like Lippisch and Walther and von Braun post war, so under programmes like Lusty (US) and Medico (British), each country's scientists collected useful material from research institutes.

Another factor was that the German designs were limited within the scope of what was available material wise to the Germans at the time, due to the constraints of war. Post war, Britain and the USA knew that they could do better with German research combined with their own work, rather than copying the Germans outright, not to mention that their focus had changed to beating the Soviets in the technology game. German objectives were very different in scope in 1945 compared to what the Brits and US were faced with post war, therefore copying German hardware would have been counter productive. Improving their knowledge using German research was completely different, however, and aircraft like the Bell X-5 definitely benefitted from German research.

Despite this, here's a little teaser! Perhaps a Russian Ta 183 might have looked like this!

The Lavochkin La 15, built in competition to the MiG-15, although this does not imply that the Soviets copied the Ta 183 in its design, although it does look similar to the Argie Pulqui II!

 

[Airframes]

Just a note on the 'Spanish using their own Bf109 designs'. Not quite true. The original batch of Bf109Gs was despatched to Spain in kit form. Later airframes were Bf109Gs built under licence by CASA. By war's end, a lack of Daimler-Benz engines lead to the fitting of Rolls Royce Merlins to the Bf109G, which gave birth to the name 'Buchon', a deep-chested bird of the pigeon family, due to the large lower cowling/intake.

 

[Sagittario64]

Ok. thanks for the insight on the spanish bf.109s

 

[Airframes]

You're welcome.

 

[mhuxt]

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