p-80 V Me 262

[delcyros]

I very much agree in what GregP already said. He pointed it down as it should be seen other than "what if´s".
Am not sure about Mutke´s claim. I too used to believe he was subsonic but recent analysis of the structural airframe done by aeronautical institute of the TU-Munich (which also contributes to Desa efforts, they are professionals) showed that it is not impossible for the -262 to reach Mach 1 from point of drag and structural issues (altough a "Verwindungsbruch" could be expected in a prolonged event) in the circumstances as described by Mutke. However, the paper closes with the conclusion that all things have to fit to make it through, which in turn makes it improbable that it really did happen.

 

[Parmigiano]

Greg, I think your post is valid and sound, some points are in my view debatable but your position is absolutely sustainable.

except for this part, that seems completely nonsense:

"Historically, I'd say the Lockheeds blew away the Messerschmitt easily as a much more produced design (about 6,500 more Lockheeds than Messerschmitts). The Lockheed had a longer service life than the Messerschmitt by over 50 years and is still flown regularly today.

The only flyable Me 262 is a new-build machine, made here in the U.S.A. as a labor of love. It has modern engines and main landing gear from a Grumman S2F, and is a good machine, but there are only 5 that will be flyable.

LOTS of T-33's around. I volunteer every Saturday at a Museum that regularly flies one and uses it to start the U.S.A. Reno Air Races every year. It is reliable and going strong.

No Messerschmitts do the same.

The Lockheed has proven itself over time and continues to do so. No Me 262 can make that claim.

Need I elaborate any further? Lockheed all the way!"

It is nonsense because it's like to compare 2 persons of which one died in the infancy: what does it means that the one who survived became taller than the other?

And don't go back to the usual agument 'but the P80 was on the winner side': the P80 has absolutely nothing to do with the victory, and the 262 has nothing to do with the defeat of Germany.

The only comparison that can be made historically is up to May 1945: and by then it was the 262 who was 'blewing away' the P80, that was way behind in development.

Speculations then can be made 'IF' the P80 could have been developed before and 'IF' the 262 could have been developed after 1945.
And also about how much the learning of the 262 (and in general of German technology) contributed to the development of the P80 and other jets.

 

[delcyros]

Does anybody has access to the results of the flyoffs between P-80 and -262? I know that one flyoff resulted in equality while another showed -262 advances. Rumors say the latter was with an early YP80-prototype with an engine not rated to full power. Can anyone verify?

Thanks in advance,
delc

 

[GregP]

Hi Parmigiano,

You are, of course, entitled to your opinion, and I see you have one. This thread is an exercise in "What if." Anyone engaging in "what if" can postulate whatever he or she wants.

I happen to believe that if the U.S.A. had seen a real advantage in producing the P-80A, they would have done so in massive numbers, rather quickly. I believe this because they actually DID it with the P-51, P-47, B-17, B-24, etc.

Messerschmitt never had anything like enough resources and he didn't ever have anything like enough engines. If he HAD the engines, he'd have fielded only half as many Me 262's as P-80A's since they each took two engines to the Lockheed's one.

You think what you like. I say the Lockheed was the marginally better aircraft, even though the Me 262 was first into operational service. I also say the Vampire and Meteor weren't exactly worthless.

The Vampire would have out-maneuvered the Me 262, but I do not claim it was ever as good or better than the Me 262. The Meat Box was a neat exercise, but was not up to the Me 262 either.

Let's say that we agree to disagree. Since there aren't entire squadrons of operational Me 262's ready to do battle with hordes of operational P-80A's, we will never really know, will we? Still, the Lockheed T-33 flies regularly and performs very well today ... in real time.

The only Me 262 that flies was made in U.S.A., uses US engines, US instruments, and Grumman landing gear.

You go ahead and tout the Me 262. I understand "favorites," I have them, too. The P-80A isn't really one of them, but it IS better than the Me 262 in my opinion.

 

[Parmigiano]

Hi Greg,

I think that 'we agree AND disagree' rather than 'we agree TO disagree'...

Hi Parmigiano,

You are, of course, entitled to your opinion, and I see you have one. This thread is an exercise in "What if." Anyone engaging in "what if" can postulate whatever he or she wants..

Yes and not. Comparing the career of an aircraft developed for 30 years to an aircraft whose development stopped after two is not a fair 'what if' (unless, of course, if the development stop was decided because of unacceptable performances, but that was not the case for the 262)

I happen to believe that if the U.S.A. had seen a real advantage in producing the P-80A, they would have done so in massive numbers, rather quickly. I believe this because they actually DID it with the P-51, P-47, B-17, B-24, etc.

I agree on this, if war would had continued in 1946 probably US would had mass produced the P80.
But in 1944-45 the development of P80 was quite behind the 262, and US had no reason to fast-forward it because the war was already won.

Messerschmitt never had anything like enough resources and he didn't ever have anything like enough engines. If he HAD the engines, he'd have fielded only half as many Me 262's as P-80A's since they each took two engines to the Lockheed's one.

You think what you like. I say the Lockheed was the marginally better aircraft, even though the Me 262 was first into operational service. I also say the Vampire and Meteor weren't exactly worthless.

The Vampire would have out-maneuvered the Me 262, but I do not claim it was ever as good or better than the Me 262. The Meat Box was a neat exercise, but was not up to the Me 262 either.

Again, I agree that the 262 was more expensive to build than the P80. I would add that even if the necessary number of engines was the same, the US would had likely produced far more units than Germany could.

I agree on the Vampire, that was a pretty neat aircraft. I disagree on the Meteor: the machine was designed for the Welland, had already ballast problems when they had to delete 2 guns, when the engine was replaced with the Derwent the higher weight of the engine required even more ballast and as a result the machine was restricted for aerobatics: not a good business card for a fighter. The first decent Meteor was the 1947 F4

Again, too easy to say that a 1947 or 1950 Meteor was better than a 1944 Me262.
The 'what if' should be ' is a 1947 Meteor F4 better than the planned upgrades of Me262 in 1947 ?'

The 'is' is that the 1944-45 Me262 was better than the contemporary Meteor.

The Vampire, for me, is already part of a next generation and I believe it would had outperformed the 262 as a dogfighter.

Let's say that we agree to disagree. Since there aren't entire squadrons of operational Me 262's ready to do battle with hordes of operational P-80A's, we will never really know, will we? Still, the Lockheed T-33 flies regularly and performs very well today ... in real time.

The only Me 262 that flies was made in U.S.A., uses US engines, US instruments, and Grumman landing gear.

You go ahead and tout the Me 262. I understand "favorites," I have them, too. The P-80A isn't really one of them, but it IS better than the Me 262 in my opinion.

Look, it is not a matter of 'favorites', it is a matter of 'general rules'
I believe it is flawed logic to use the P80-T33 development in 30+ years as reason to state that it was better than the 1944 vintage 262.
It may be, but we can't compare how the 262 could have been in 30+ years of development.

As example, it is said that the French Dewoitine 520 was equal or better than the contemporary (1940) Bf109E.
Maybe true, maybe not (I confess my ignorance about this), but for me it would be unacceptable to say 'the Bf109 was better because the 1945 109K4 (or the 1943 109G6) was outperforming the De520' : the Dewoitine did not had the chance to be developed further, the 109 did.

Nothing to say against the P80-T33: it was a great aircraft, maybe in 1946 it would have been better than the hypotetical 1946 version of the Me 262, but to say that it was better because the development continued after 1945 while the 262 was stopped just makes no sense.

This logic would be perfect if we want to compare P80 vs Meteor, since both aircrafts had similar opportunities to continue development after 1945.

 

[Bullockracing]

To narrow this down - the question is really which aircraft is the better performer? You must eliminate all the variables to get down to the nitty-gritty of which is the better aircraft - airframe, engines, design attributes flaws, ease of maintenance, unit cost, cost of operation, etc. You must also keep this apples to apples and oranges to oranges. If the US built the 262 instead of the Germans, the design would have been simpler, cheaper, and of slightly lower quality, but there would have been a lot more of them. If the P80 was built by the Germans, it would have been more refined, into production sooner, and in far fewer numbers, and then inevitably shot out of the sky by the insurmountable Allied air superiority.

My two cents: The 262 was a better design, easier to maintain (keep in mind all other things equal), and better armored armed. At any point in time while the 262 was flying operationally, it would have whipped whatever version of the P-80 that was flying.

 

[royal744]

I wonder why there doesn't seem to be much mention of the Gloster Meteor on this site? All the ballyhoo about the Me262 and how "advanced" the Germans were..... well, it is true that they saw combat service.... but the British Meteor was ready for combat duty (againstV-1s) in 1944 and the American rather poor Airacomet was coming along. So there was never going to be much of a competiive advantage in Germany's favor for long, especially as when they were very low on jet feul, and their factories and runways were being mercilessly pounded. One wonders if the relative tardiness of the British was due to an overabundance of caution which they could afford, and the rushing of the Me262 was due to an overabundance of urgent need which was irresistible. INteresting...

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

The early Meteors would not have been much of a match for the Me 262 anyhow. The 262 outperformed the Meteor and was an overall better aircraft. The later Meteors turned out to be great aircraft but by then (what if scenerio the war last longer) the Luftwaffe and the USAAF would have better jets still than the Meteor.

Besides this thread was about the P-80 and the Me 262 not the Meteor...

 

[kool kitty89]

I think the major drawback to the 262 would be its engines. The 32"x152" 1,980 lbf thrust Jumo 004 weighed 1,585 lb compared to the 1321 lbf thrust 837 lb HeS-8 (centrifugal but 1.5" dia. less than 004 and less than half the length at 30.5"x63") or more powerful the axial 24.4"x107" 859 lb 2004 lbf thrust HeS-30 which both could have entered production around the same time had the government not cancelled them. The originally planned BMW 003
would have also been better at 27"x139" 1240lb with 1760 lbf had it not run into design problems. The Me 262 might have actually been faster and lighter than the p-80 had better engines been used. (The 262 weighs ~5300 lb w/out engines while the P-80 weighs ~6600 lb w/out it's engine)

Most early production quality centrifugal turbojets had a much better thrust to weight ratio than theiraxial counterparts except the above mentioned HeS-30. The larger diameter (especialy in Whittle's misguided reverse-flow design) was the only major drawback, but even this wasn't seen so much in the HeS-8. A big production plus is that the welland,inspite of it's chunky reverse flow design, could easily be produced by existing turbocharger manufactures. GE managed to get it's whittle based 850 lb ~47"x70" I-16 (J31) engine up to 2000 lbf from it's original 1650 lbf by the time the P-59B entered production. (as a side note this gave the Airacomet a thrust/weight ratio of ~0.35 with standard load and ~0.31 with a max load but due to it's poor aerodynamics with thick wing and wing-root mounted engines it performed worse than the F1 meteor and the P-51.)

The Germans and americans both could have had working jets sooner but both airforce commands were uninterested in early developments:

The germans weren't swayed untill a mock dogfight was staged between the HeS-8 powered He-280 and the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 and even that came after multiple attemptsby Heinkel to intrest the Luftwaffe.
Wikipedia: "Had the German government given support to production, the He-280s could conceivably have gone into production earlier in the war and reached the Luftwaffe earlier than was ultimately the case with the Me 262. But it was not to be, as Udet, on that March day in 1941, could not see a need for a plane without propellers, no matter what its future might be." About the He-178: " On November 1, 1939, Heinkel arranged a demonstration of the jet for the Reichsluftfahrtministerium ("Reich Aviation Ministry", RLM), where both Ernst Udet and Erhard Milch watched the aircraft perform. However, due to the conservative approach to aircraft design then favoured by both men, no official interest in the concept was shown."

The US wasn't interested until the british designs were almost ready for production. The L-1000 axial-flow engine, the United States's first jet design could have been ready for production around the same time had they shown intrest. Wikipedia: "The J37, known inside Lockheed as the L-1000, was the first turbojet engine designed in the United States. It was not considered important at first, and by the time it was British designs were already entering production. The design was built to the extent of testbed examples, but never entered production.Work on the design started in 1939 as part of their L133 fighter design, and was presented to the US Army Air Corps in 1940. The Air Corps proved uninterested and declined to fund development."

Personally I think the Me-262 would have been ahead of the P-80 with alternative engines and guns mached for dogfighting rather than anti-bomber
the He-280 could have been quite formidable had the Luftwaffe thaken earlier intrest, and who knows what the L133 would have been like.

Also Czechoslovakia had the 262 in service untill 1957. I think the P-59 should have done better than it did and would have, even with the thick wings, if the engines had been mounted under mid-wing instead of at the wing roots, or maby if they were mounted in interwing nacelles like the Meteor but still aganst the fusilage, but then the tailplane would have probably had to be rased too. Would have been better than their AiracommetII, yuck.

Pictured is Hall Hibbard with a model of the Lockheed Model 133, the precursor to the P-80 that was designed around Lockheed's L-1000 jet engine.

 

[Konigstiger205]

I have to go with the Me262...although it had its bugs it saw combat in WW2 and it was an excellent bomber destroyer.

 

[drgondog]

so Greg you spoke with Guido Mütke first hand to deny his reported dive ? do not be so sure. I interviewed the man about 10 years ago primarily for JG 7 research the unit he was part of. In cases like these it is best to remain neutral and hear the stories and then put into perspective. Outright denial of something like this since we were not alive nor present is not a wise thing .......... ~

E ~

Erich - there were at least three major factors that would almost certainly keep the 262 from going supersonic..

Number one is that the Mcr was somewhere between .83 and .86 with transonic flow starting either over it's fat little wings or fuselage or both. It's a LOOOOOONG way to climb over the resultant drag rise

Number two is that the little sucker was way too underpowered to push it through the drag rise... and I'm very doubtful of the intake nacelle design - thinkin that any premature local shock there could yield an immediate compressor stall.

Number three is that it started it's pitch down phase at the .86 range which according to test pilots would a render the stick immovable plus continue nose down pitch until destruction - if not slowed. This was probably due to transonic effect and shock wave over wing starting to blank the elevators

The fuselage was not designed with area rule in mind so doubtful that even with much better engines, a thinner wing and more sweep - that it could punch through the drag rise past .9.

I have no idea what stability would result as transonic flow moved the center of lift further back - and would the continued shock wave disrupt elevators effectiveness as it seemed to in un altered design, but also change the static margin between Cl and Cg - have to see the wind tunnel results to understand if it is even controllable after .86-.90. assuming NO disruption of flow over elevators

Instrument readings from a pitot tube would be totally unreliable in 1945 as the stagnant pressure readings would be unreliable well before Mach 1 - they would be in compressibility range - which is why so many pilots stated they were going "600 mph" when in fact they were closer to 500 TAS.

I suspect the last factor to be the one leading Mutke to believe he punched through

Helluva airplane though.

 

[Erich]

Guido did say several times that he thought was going to die, the 262 was rattling and vibrating apart. Now if we take into consideration that this was all recorded from him to ground crews and whom may have confirmed and tested the results is probably another matter and continues even in Germany to be under investigation

 

[kool kitty89]

I just found some more data about the airacomet: it's designers were largely restricted from wind-tunnel use to optimise the airframe and the little time they were allowed use of one was with a low speed wind-tunnel. Also the large wing was used to allow high altitude flight, (which it did, and in one test made a new altitude record of 47,600 ft!) but the large wing area and span restricted top speed and roll. So even though the better version(P-59B) had a thrust to weight ratio almost 13% better than the P-80 shooting star it only had a top level-flight speed of 413mph. Still the government plan was basicly the armed and operational equivelent of a testbed or proof of concept aircraft, so I guess a radical design like the L113, even if it had been converted to use GE's engines instead of the incomplete L-1000s, would not have been the most attractive for a shurefire--we don't care as long as it's safe and shure-to-fly (ie. foolproof) new technology aircraft design. And that's one thing the P-59 was, though not the best performing.

P.S. The engine placement probably wasn't the biggest problem; the wing, as aformentioned, with both the largest area and span of any of the first jet-fighter designs. (ie. Meteor, Me-262, He-240, and probably the L113)

 

[SoD Stitch]

Does anybody has access to the results of the flyoffs between P-80 and -262? I know that one flyoff resulted in equality while another showed -262 advances. Rumors say the latter was with an early YP80-prototype with an engine not rated to full power. Can anyone verify?

Thanks in advance,
delc

I don't know about combat comparisons, but I did read that the Me-262 was actually faster than the P-80 by quite a bit; but the results were unpopular with "those in power", so they were suppressed.

"Postwar tests were conducted at Wright Field comparing performance of the Messerschmitt Me 262 and the Lockheed P-80A. The late Al Boyd ran the test, and the comparison was so favorable to the Me 262 that the results were suppressed. The author found a copy only recently. The tests were not combat maneuvers, but comparisons of speed, rates of climb at different altitudes, and turning radius. The Messerschmitt had better speed and acceleration and an equal climb; the P 80 was easier to handle and had far better visibility." From Messerschmitt Me 262: Arrow To The Future, by Walter J. Boyne

 

[kool kitty89]

The 262 only had the speed advantage at medium altitudes as its speed dropped once above a certain point. At the P-80A was faster but by less than 10mph more than the 262's optimum. The 262 had lower roll characteristics due to its long engine nacelles while the P-80's wings were unobstructed. There was a chart that compares their peformance on the first page of this thread. Also the P-80 had quite an altitude advantage (~1000ft).

 

[Kurfürst]

The 262 only had the speed advantage at medium altitudes as its speed dropped once above a certain point. At the P-80A was faster but by less than 10mph more than the 262's optimum. The 262 had lower roll characteristics due to its long engine nacelles while the P-80's wings were unobstructed. There was a chart that compares their peformance on the first page of this thread. Also the P-80 had quite an altitude advantage (~1000ft).

I am not sure of this, but I haven't seen an actual speed chart for any P-80 variant so far. Common sense though tells me that since the P-80s maximum speed of nearly 900 kph was reached at SL, it means that at all altitudes it was slower than that. The 262 peaked out at 6000m.

I'd love to see that 262/80 Wright Field tests, too. Heard about it so many times..

 

[kool kitty89]

Did you see the chart on page 1? It compares both plane's capabillities as well as top speeds at various altitudes.
Also I think the P-80's better low altitude performance is due to the 800lb thrust water-alcohol boost. From wikipedia: "The J33 was a US-produced development of Frank Whittle's early Rolls-Royce Derwent, enlarged to produce dramatically more thrust, starting at 4,000 lbf and ending at 4,600 lbf with an additional low-altitude boost to 5,400 lbf with water-alcohol injection." Without this the top speed is substancially lower.

 

[Kurfürst]

Yes, but I am cautious with charts with limited background information.

The thrust used is simply not known. Correct me if I am wrong, but P-80A is a later and powerful version than the YP-80 that saw some flights towards the end of the war. It's not known wheter these results for the P-80 are measured or early calculations, wheter they are for a single plane or an avarage of production planes.

The Me 262 figures, for example, appear to be coming from a mass-measurement of serial production Me 262s, involving some 120 plane's avaraged data IIRC !

 

[drgondog]

Kurfurst - the first P-80A deliveries started in late Februart 1945. I believe both the GE and Allison J-33's (GE-9 and -11, Allison A9) had 3850 pounds of thrust.

I've seen teo references that stated the higher SL speed which is curious to me as a jet engine is more efficient when the temperature difference between intake and exhaust is greater - and it is a lot colder at 40,000 feet!

I'm still looking for different data on the P-80C delivered with 25 Allison with 5400 pounds of thrust to see the best altitude for TAS.

curious..

 

[JoeB]

I've seen teo references that stated the higher SL speed which is curious to me as a jet engine is more efficient when the temperature difference between intake and exhaust is greater - and it is a lot colder at 40,000 feet!

I'm still looking for different data on the P-80C delivered with 25 Allison with 5400 pounds of thrust to see the best altitude for TAS.

The temperature effect is dominant at constant pressure. So for example the s/l thrust of an turbine engine decreases noticeably at higher ambient temperature, important everyday effect for takeoff.

But, when increasing altitude you're decreasing air density a lot and thus mass flow, so the max thrust declines. The drag on the airplane is also tending to decline with altitude, but the combination of those offsetting effects was that early jets had flatter characteristics of speed v altitude than props usually did and some jets did max out at s/l. A slightly later plane more or less comparable to the F-80C is the F9F-2: this link shows its complete speed/altitude curves, it's either max at s/l or almost completely flat depending on configuration, see pg 6.
http://www.history.navy.mil/branches/hist-ac/f9f.pdf

This tendency increased as fighter performance increased and planes got closer to the Mach drag rise in level flight. The lower the altitude the lower the Mach for a given speed so the drag rise is delayed. So, for example the F-86 and MiG-15 both maxed out at s/l.

This changed for supersonic afterburning fighters because the turbine inlet temp no longer limited mass flow, the afterburner did, plus drag characteristics change in supersonic flight. Their max TAS often occurred as high as the tropopause, where air temp stops falling (ca. 50k ft). I don't know the speed/altitude characteristic of plane like the F-22 which can well exceed M1 at high altitude w/o afterburner, but that's getting pretty far OT.

Another example back in WWII was the Meteor I. It didn't max at s/l but the difference in max speed w/ altitude was smaller than for props, so it was faster than most prop fighters at low altitude, but slower the best props at medium altitude. Hence its combat niche as V1 interceptor at low altitude.

Joe