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Andrew - thank you very much for the detailed breakdown
Per chance, do you now the likehood of a survival of the pilot if the aircraft was lost due to engine failure, and/or due to the aircraft lost during the non-combat flights?
Me 262 losses due to engine problems?
- Thread starter tomo pauk
- Start date
Andrew - thank you very much for the detailed breakdown
Per chance, do you now the likehood of a survival of the pilot if the aircraft was lost due to engine failure, and/or due to the aircraft lost during the non-combat flights?
The numbers are slightly different by Alfred Price.
Andrew Arthy
Airman 1st Class
Hi,Andrew - thank you very much for the detailed breakdown
Per chance, do you now the likehood of a survival of the pilot if the aircraft was lost due to engine failure, and/or due to the aircraft lost during the non-combat flights?
Happy to help. Of the ten Me 262s lost to engine failure in my sample, four pilots were killed and one wounded.
Fatality rate for aircraft lost for unknown reasons during non-combat flights was around 35-40 per cent.
These are not comprehensive figures, and are based on a random sample of almost 100 Me 262 losses from 1944. I've considered an aircraft loss to be above 60 per cent damage, but most of them in the sample were 100 per cent losses.
Cheers,
Andrew A.
Air War Publications - www.airwarpublications.com/earticles
As an aside That's interesting in that there is a much higher ratio of night to day fighters than I thought there would be at the beginning of 1945.
GregP
Major
OK. Let's say the abandoned aircraft had maintenance / engine issues for 2. Hey, they were abandoned for some reason that made them unable to be flown out to somewhere else. Cause unknown, non-combat flight was likely engine / other issue enough to make it unflyable for 14. I'd say maybe 5 of the combat cause unknowns were engine / maintenance since we had 14 above. Could be 3 or 4; I choose 5. Engine failure for another 5. Forced landing ... I'll guess engine for 1. Crash landing I'll also guess engine for 2. Technical issues is another 5. Maybe engines; maybe not, but enough to ground it or cause it to be a loss.
Your list ads up to 93 aircraft and the list of mine above ads up to 39. That's 42% that have engine / technical issues making them grounded, crashed, or at LEAST a loss.
Since you only did ONE list of 93, we have no idea if the next 93 would be more or less engine-related. We have no way to gauge whether the list above is typical or not. But, 42% engine / technical issues resulting in losses make me wonder how many were simply grounded and unable to take off due to the same issues above. Suppose we are generous and say half as many. That means 63 of (assume we have a population of 93 more aircraft that were the same as the ones above) the next 93 either will not sortie or will be lost due to engine / technical issues resulting in a loss. That leaves 30 airplanes to complete a mission and get home.
Just for the record, the Allies were pretty sure that a 7% loss rate would render the bombers unsupportable. If you start with 100 non-replaced airplanes and a 7% loss rate, you have no airplanes after 30 missions. A 42% loss rate means you have no airplanes after 7 missions.
It's easy to see why the Me 262 didn't have more impact than it did. There are those who say that if they had deployed it earlier, they could have won the war. Let's suppose they DID deploy them earlier and the earlier deployment meant a 50% worse engine / technical issue rate. The 42% just became 63% and we STILL have the grounded planes. If we leave the rate at half, that means were have a non-sortie or loss rate of 100%. So, technically, they could NOT have deployed the Me 262 earlier. When they waited as long as they did, they STILL had a 42% loss rate due to engines / technical issues that resulted in a loss, and you'd wipe out 100 of them in 7 missions.
The numbers just don't look very good for the Me 262. Since it was a last-ditch effort to deploy a technology leap forward, that doesn't seem to be unreasonable, to me. New leaps ahead generally don't have wonder early success.
OK. Let's say I am too pessimistic and the real engine issue rate was NOT 42%, but was half of that. That's 21%. If we don't count the grounded, non-sortieable planes, we sill would lose 100 airplanes in only 13 missions. That's just not sustainable by anyone and the aircraft would NEVER be deployed with that many issues had the war not been going so badly in the first place. The Me 262 was a desperate gamble because the Germans WERE desperate.
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33k in the air
Staff Sergeant
- 1,356
- Jan 31, 2021
Even a sustained 5% loss rate is substantial. If you start with 100 aircraft, at a 5% loss rate, that force is down to 63 aircraft after just 9 missions.
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
Only sustainable if you can immediately replace the losses
The good thing was the distance from the factory to the front line was, well, short. Little flying time put on the engines prior to combat.
But that means you are fighting over your airfield and not theirs.
Agree, Greg. when the Allies first found out about the Me 262 in 1943 - the Brits had discovered the Me 163 beforehand, there was an overestimation of the collective German jets' impact. In late 1943, a British intelligence document stated the belief that the Germans could have around 1,000 jet fighters by mid 1944, but this proved to be unrealistic for the Germans and the numbers that the British in particular had encountered in combat by mid-1944 over Europe allayed their fears somewhat. The capture of the wreck of a crashed example in France and examination of the wreckage by British scientists including Whittle enabled a fair assessment of its performance, which the British claimed would only be marginally superior to the Gloster Meteor, which had also already entered service. This provided a good assessment of what the Allies were up against. The jet was introduced too soon as it was; introducing it into service any sooner would not have aided its usefulness.
ww2restorer
Airman 1st Class
- 239
- May 28, 2011
All of you speculators and what-if's , you all forget the 262 was a new aircraft, new technology, new flight requirements. There will be, always will be these problems even with new aircraft built today. You cannot state the aircraft of 80 years ago compare to today, the metallurgy was there, the manufacturing processes were not there. Also the 262 were axial where the meteor was centrifugal. Just a side note, its amazing the number of aviation experts that don't know the early jets were started by cartridge or 2 stroke motors
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
Before you start shooting your mouth off, maybe you should explore the background of some of the "speculators" making these comments!
I think it's quite evident that "You cannot state the aircraft of 80 years ago compare to today" and I also think most of the contributors on this thread know the developmental issues with the -262 and difference between a centrifugal and axial flow turbine engine! And yes, we are well aware of cartridge starters and are also aware how the -262 started!!!
So please, spare us the rhetoric, if you don't like the thread, move on. If someone makes an inaccurate statement, prove them wrong, but unless you have some all encompassing aeronautical superpower, I suggest if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all!
ww2restorer
Airman 1st Class
- 239
- May 28, 2011
Thank you for your input
33k in the air
Staff Sergeant
- 1,356
- Jan 31, 2021
The cost in aircraft would be high enough, but for crews it would be grim. Assuming a constant 5% loss rate, the chances of a bomber crew surviving 10 missions was about 60%; surviving 20 missions, about 36%; surviving 30 missions, about 22%.
Snautzer01
Marshal
- 46,292
- Mar 26, 2007
Darn... you could have flown the thing they new build if you realley had wanted to .
Admiral Beez
Major
I wonder if the Brits lost any Meteors due to engine failure. Could the Meteor fly straight and level on just one engine?
Not a typical case, as the running engine was throttled back, but this is nasty luck Accident Gloster Meteor T Mk 7 WH231, 11 Mar 1965
"EPTS (Empire Pilot Test School) Meteor crashed and destroyed whilst making a simulated asymmetric approach to Farnborough, Hampshire, with the port engine throttled back, when the starboard engine failed. The Meteor yawed badly then rolled inverted and dived into the ground killing the only occupant, a pilot of the Indian Air Force. The engine failure was attributed to a foreign object no bigger than a grain of salt which had held a ball valve off its seat and bled off the servo pressure"
Not a typical case, as the running engine was throttled back, but this is nasty luck Accident Gloster Meteor T Mk 7 WH231, 11 Mar 1965
"EPTS (Empire Pilot Test School) Meteor crashed and destroyed whilst making a simulated asymmetric approach to Farnborough, Hampshire, with the port engine throttled back, when the starboard engine failed. The Meteor yawed badly then rolled inverted and dived into the ground killing the only occupant, a pilot of the Indian Air Force. The engine failure was attributed to a foreign object no bigger than a grain of salt which had held a ball valve off its seat and bled off the servo pressure"
Shortround6
Lieutenant General
Actually the Meteor was rather notorious for crashing after an engine failure, or in training.
Some accounts claim more pilots were killed training for an engine-out situation than were ever killed in actual engine-out situations.
One account claims about 490 fatal crashes in peace time from all causes.
Not trying to pick on the British here, a lot of the early jets had horrendous accident rates in a number of air forces.
It took a number of years in the 1940s for the jets to get as reliable as the piston engines. However in some cases they made nearly a ten fold improvement in just few years in the early 50s (often in later models of existing aircraft).
One account flying a Meteor says that the plane was flown off at 125kts. Landing gear braked at quickly retracted ( had to be done by 175 kts) but safe speed for one engine was 165kts.
Since the rudder was manual (leg muscles) things got very hairy very quick.
The early training had to modified from actually shutting down the engine to just throttling it back. The person giving the account says he got 5 hours of dual before going solo.
Person writing the account was coming off of Harvard's so one can see where some of the accident rate was coming from.
All the pilots had to at least practice (at least throttled back) flying on one engine in order to graduate but even in 1949-50 the Meteor's engines could "blow out" with rough throttle handling at altitude and learning to relight them was part of the course, at least early on.
Some accounts claim more pilots were killed training for an engine-out situation than were ever killed in actual engine-out situations.
One account claims about 490 fatal crashes in peace time from all causes.
Not trying to pick on the British here, a lot of the early jets had horrendous accident rates in a number of air forces.
It took a number of years in the 1940s for the jets to get as reliable as the piston engines. However in some cases they made nearly a ten fold improvement in just few years in the early 50s (often in later models of existing aircraft).
One account flying a Meteor says that the plane was flown off at 125kts. Landing gear braked at quickly retracted ( had to be done by 175 kts) but safe speed for one engine was 165kts.
Since the rudder was manual (leg muscles) things got very hairy very quick.
The early training had to modified from actually shutting down the engine to just throttling it back. The person giving the account says he got 5 hours of dual before going solo.
Person writing the account was coming off of Harvard's so one can see where some of the accident rate was coming from.
All the pilots had to at least practice (at least throttled back) flying on one engine in order to graduate but even in 1949-50 the Meteor's engines could "blow out" with rough throttle handling at altitude and learning to relight them was part of the course, at least early on.
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
IIRC, it was either the Meteor or Canberra, more pilots were killed practicing engine out emergency procedures than the actual situation happening.
The Meat Box suffered from directional snaking, which can't have helped its engine off situation and at low speeds was very difficult to control in an engine off situation, which might explain a high rate of accidents in this regime. A rudder servo was added to combat the snaking, but Eric Brown said that it was like "using a sledgehammer to crack an egg". The following is from an article on flying the Meteor T.7 powered by Derwents, rather than the Wellands of the earliest Meat Boxes and it paints a different picture than expected. Written by former Mosquito and Meteor pilot David Ogilvy in Aeroplane magazine back in 2008:
"With regard to asymmetric handling, the performance "on one" was excellent. In this condition a level speed of more than 300 kt could be attained, but at low speeds the rudder load was almost intolerable. The rudder trim control was a small knurled wheel on the left of the pilot's seat, and it was neither sufficiently easy to turn very quickly nor adequate in effect; it was one of the Meteor's few weak features. It revealed its shortcomings to the full on asymmetric overshoot, when only a locked leg could withstand the load, but this problem was partly offset by the Meteor's remarkable willingness to climb away happily and rapidly, with ample reserve of power. Never before had I met a machine that offered more than a marginal climb performance in this configuration."
"With regard to asymmetric handling, the performance "on one" was excellent. In this condition a level speed of more than 300 kt could be attained, but at low speeds the rudder load was almost intolerable. The rudder trim control was a small knurled wheel on the left of the pilot's seat, and it was neither sufficiently easy to turn very quickly nor adequate in effect; it was one of the Meteor's few weak features. It revealed its shortcomings to the full on asymmetric overshoot, when only a locked leg could withstand the load, but this problem was partly offset by the Meteor's remarkable willingness to climb away happily and rapidly, with ample reserve of power. Never before had I met a machine that offered more than a marginal climb performance in this configuration."
GregP
Major
One of our volunteers who flew Meteors with the Dutch AF said it was a very nice airplane with two fans turning, but would happily kill you if one of them gave up the ghost and your technique wasn't exactly correct when you were the least bit slow. It wasn't an issue if you were at 300+ knots.
Hey nuuumannn, nice to hear from someone else who flew one! Thank you for your service.
My friend also flew F-86Ks and F-104's.
He said the F-104 was a very nice airplane when the engine was running, and you were gentle instead of being stupid, but it had the glide ratio of a falling safe when it was engine-out and was not tolerant of ham-fisted stick and rudder use unless you were going decently fast (450+ kts). The emergency checklist saw something like 65% of all emergencies ending up in "EJECT!" He said that one time, he zoom-climbed it to 65,000 feet and then realized that if the pressurization failed, his blood would boil and he would die. He very gently went back down to 35,000 feet and never did that again.
He said it did everything well except turn when slow. He also said that slow was relative and might well be considered fast in other airplanes, including some other jets.
His best story was when he got an F-104 started and got almost all the way to the active runway before discovering he had a stowaway in the form of a cat in the cockpit. His description of getting back to the parking spot was as priceless as it was funny. Suffice to say the g-suit and his leg both had a small population of claw holes and the cat was not exactly in a friendly mood.
His taxi course back to parking was not very straight nor very near the centerline of the taxiway or the runway.
I almost spit beer and pizza on him at the time, trying to avoid choking. That would have been a waste, but it was very narrowly avoided with some difficulty.
Hey nuuumannn, nice to hear from someone else who flew one! Thank you for your service.
My friend also flew F-86Ks and F-104's.
He said the F-104 was a very nice airplane when the engine was running, and you were gentle instead of being stupid, but it had the glide ratio of a falling safe when it was engine-out and was not tolerant of ham-fisted stick and rudder use unless you were going decently fast (450+ kts). The emergency checklist saw something like 65% of all emergencies ending up in "EJECT!" He said that one time, he zoom-climbed it to 65,000 feet and then realized that if the pressurization failed, his blood would boil and he would die. He very gently went back down to 35,000 feet and never did that again.
He said it did everything well except turn when slow. He also said that slow was relative and might well be considered fast in other airplanes, including some other jets.
His best story was when he got an F-104 started and got almost all the way to the active runway before discovering he had a stowaway in the form of a cat in the cockpit. His description of getting back to the parking spot was as priceless as it was funny. Suffice to say the g-suit and his leg both had a small population of claw holes and the cat was not exactly in a friendly mood.
His taxi course back to parking was not very straight nor very near the centerline of the taxiway or the runway.
I almost spit beer and pizza on him at the time, trying to avoid choking. That would have been a waste, but it was very narrowly avoided with some difficulty.
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Canberra Boys
Fascinating Accounts from the Operators of an English Electric Classic
Andrew Brookes
Grub Street 2017
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Terrible FAA Rule
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