p-80 V Me 262

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I agree with this. However, both design concepts quickly became obsolete as the jet fighter evolved.
 
Yes here was a test between the 262 and P-80, but they don't specify which model the 262 was and the engine drag would have affected roll and turning more than level flight or dives, though it was still fairly manuverable.

It also doesn't mention the altitudes they were tested at. As the P-80A's top level speed of 562 mph was reached near sea level using W/A injection compared to the 262's top speed of 560 mph at 20,000 ft(6000 m) at which altitude the P-80 was slightly slower but above this point the 262's speed drops more rapidly than the P-80 and above 33,000 ft the P-80 is again ahead.

Either way there was no manuverabillity compasison stated between the two so it's hard to tell wich would be better, though the P-80 was lighter and had more thrust output.(I also think the He-280 would have been more maneuverable than either of these, though its short range woulg have been a problem this could have been remedied with external tanks.)

The P-80 also had more range and the capibility of drop tanks but this was more important for the US fighters than Germany's. The P-80A also had a significant altitude advantage as its flight ceiling was more than 7000 ft higher than the 262's.

Also on the meteor due to the realitive shortness of its centrifugal engines a good part of the wing can fit ahead of the engine and if you look into its nacelle the wing splits the air intake on the front side.

And the 262's original engine mountigs were also mid-wing (using BMW's 003 engines) but the added weight and size of the 004s forced Meschersmit to redesign the wing, I think this is also when the <20 degree "swept" wing was added (more for weight centering reasons than speed) The mistake is often made that the "swept" wing of the production 262 gave it a major aerodynamic advantage, but at such a slight sweep the thickness and slotting of the wing as well as the overall design contributed mostly to its good aerodynamics, and the large engines probably muted any small gain the "sweep" made.

On the other hand Meshersmit did design some true swept wing variations with the HG II and III (high speed) while the HG I's were mostly the same its other improvements (lower profile and V-tail) gave it a Mach limit of .96!

Cool, flyboy, chasing eachother around the Mojave in a Meteor and a Vampire, sounds like crazy-fun; just who are these people?

And also, though it didn't have a bubble canopy, the He 280 still had a good vision range and probably offered 300 degree view, or at least a 280 view . Take a look at this site's pics: Heinkel He 280 archive file

PS: Doesnt the FW-187 on the cover page look like it has jet engines. =)
 

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With respect - range is ALWAYs important unles you have no other mission in life but point defense (like a SAM 2 or Me 163).. With range you can disperse making it harder to find you, but still concentrate dispersed forces far away from your field.

If the Luftwaffe had decided to centralize their Fighters in Central Germany they would have had more options regarding where to concentrate mass against USAAF bombers, and many more opportunities to attain local superiority..
 
davparlr said:
Off subject comment. I was just coming in from a walk and I saw what looked like an F6F (to far to be sure, but most likely) flying formation on a B-25. They were probably out of Torrance. It is always a thrill to see and hear those birds flying.
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Growing up around airbases for my first 15 years had inculated me with extreme nostalgia for the drone of the B-36/C-124 and their 4360's or the roar of the Merlins in the 51s and P-82s and R-2800s in the A-26s.

I first lived away from the base when I was 10 when my father was attending Air War College at Maxwell and it took me six months to learn to sleep in quiet environment.
 
I totally agree with the structural argument of the Meteor however I'm still confident that the configuration of Me-262's engine mount provides for a stronger platform - however like drgondog pointed out the Meteor's engine mount might very well be as strong and just heavier, it is possible to keep the strenght of a straight wing if you reinforce the area.

Kitty89,

The mounting of the engines on/in the wings doesn't reduce turn performance at all, however roll rate will suffer.

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Anyway as to the performance of the Me-262, again the actual service ceiling is higher than 11.5 km, according graphs it was around 12.5 - 13 km. Climb rate 'am boden' (sea level) was 20 m/s (3,937 ft/min) at 6,897 kg and 25 m/s (4,921 ft/min) at 5,700 kg.

And as to range, without droptanks the Me-262 could fly just as long as the P-80A, and the Me-262 could certainly carry drop tanks and did as-well.
 
I just meant it was less critical than the US forces range because they generaly had more long range work. Still, for a shor-range fighter or interceptor, range is less important and most British fighters of the time had only about a 600 mi range compared to over 2000 mi on the P-38, P-47, and P-51.
And from what some sourses say the He-280 could have had a range of about 600 mi even with its smaller fuel capasity than the 262 (possibly due to its lower weight and more powerful and efficient HeS-30 engines which, thanks to their greater thrust, which would probably raise the max take-off weight and thus capasity to load.) Though the prototype using HeS-8 engines had a range of only 230 miles.
Here's a cool vid. View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF2WsyKOZOE and another View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSwsZMiDKFw
 
To truly compare these two aircraft on the basis of strength around the wings and engine mounts, one should look at the g loading limitations of each aircraft - Although the configuration concepts are different, I could almost bet that in both aircraft the engines are held on by 4 to 6 bolts per side along with a rubberized engine mount taking up calculated loads. Personally I think there won't be much difference between the aircraft. I know I have a cut away of both aircraft - I'm going to try to dig it out and compare the two.
 
It's probably lucky for the allies that the RLM wasn't interested in the He-280 (or jet propultion for that matter) early enough in the war to be of use. Had the 280 and the related engine projects had full government backing in 1940 the plane could have been in service in 1942 and this would have been verry bad for the allies, especialy England. But if the allies had intercepted or recieved information on such a design they would have put moch more work tward countering these planes with jets of their own. The Brits would have been interested in Whittle's design earlier and the US could have supported the various jet engine designs in development, particularly those of Westinghouse and Lockheed and the airforce might have even favored lockheed's L133 design if they were facing enemy jets.

Had Heinkel's engine designs not been cancelled or if BMW's 003 had used flame cans instead of an anular combustor, as it was the 280 could have entered production in early 1943 and in service before the end of '43 IMHO. Hell the 262 could have been in service in '43 had the fighter-bomber modifications not been made.
 
I see You have a favourite in the He-280, KoolKitty.
However, I am not going to destroy the bubble but a few comments need to be made. The RLM was VERY interested in jet propulsion technology, probably more than any other nation in ww2. Unlike the UK or the US, the german jet turbine program had comparably strong support in the RLM. That doesn´t preclude that questionable decisions are to be made but in retrospect I find them adeaquate. The He-280 had several advantages noted by Yourselfe but she also sticked to the old fighter age with a thick, unsweeped airfoil, optimized for low to medium speed handling (no wonder she outmaneuvered a Fw-190A, a fighter plane not notoriously famous for a tight turning radious). In this respect, the He-280 was little different form the Meteor. Her engines were to be radial He-S08 -the more advanced He-S30 was never intended for this airframe. The short and thick nacelles gave her a lower crit Mach number than the -262. This figure, however, is absolutely critical when comparing jet fighters. Messerschmidt designed his jet around a thin and more advanced wing, giving his jet a higher tactical speed to exploit. In a mock combat between -262 and -280 I assume that a low grade pilot in a -262 would loose (just as Galland in his He-51 biplane outmaneuvered a Messerschmidt test pilot in his brand new Me-109B, who was unaware to exploit the advantages of this plane). Heinkel himselfe considered the He-280 in 1943 an interims solution -should she went into production- because her low critical Mach speed (0.79) would require a major redesign.
Add the lower fuel buncerage of this plane and the problem with fuel consumption at low altitudes and You will at best get an interceptor but no aerial superiority fighter as the Me-262. The -262 not only had a substantially better high speed handling (thanks to swept back wings and tail), a higher tactical speed and more endurance, she also was much more redundancy designed and modifyable. There is photographic evidence showing two MK 108 30mm short barreled guns, two MK 103 30mm long barreled high velocity guns and two MG-151/20 in the nose of a -262 variant! She could carry bombs or drop tanks, rocktes or recon equipment and enjoied a reasonable cockpit armour (182 Kg). The -280 is only valid as a fighter plane with the nose section beeing cramped by nose wheel and 3 MG 151/20, already. Perhaps she could carry few bombs or R4M, too. But as soon as You would want to improve the basic design massive problems will be encountered: Adding more powerful jet engines is possible but the wing design would eat up to much of the increased power and the internal fuel buncerage couldn´t be improved at all. Adding the He-S30 helps a lot but this engine would benefit the -262 even more in comparison.
The -262 was more likely to be modified in future time with success, something the HG-variants or the B-2 nightfighter modification prooved.
 
I know the RLM was the first to take intreat in jet propultion I just meant that they weren't interested in the first couple years of development surrounding the development of the He-178. They didn't take a strong intrest (with funding) until after 1941. Maby I should have said the jet program was lacking government funding, more than intrest. The HeS-30 was considdered as an alternate (and superior) powerplant, as was the BMW 003, but neither was fitted for trial (the 30 due to cancellation and the 003 due to production problems).

The .79 (not sur of accuracy) crit-mach would still allow significantly high speeds, though dive performance would suffer, and fitting the narrower HeS-30s would have improved, though not cured, this problem.

The production model 262's sweep was too slight to have a significant effect on the crit-mach number and the tailplane, though it did have a slight (at most 25 degree) leading edge sweep, had no trailing sweep, though these features probably improved performance elsewhere more significantly, they were only small contributions to the overall speed aerodynamics of the plane.(the thickness of the wing and tail surfaces contributed more as did the realitively low drag area)

Also my opinion of "favorite" in this aircraft is affected by the fact that the 280 didn't make it to production and wasn't given the outside intrest it could have used. Symilarly I was interested by the Lockheed L133. The airacomet fits in there too, to an extent, though Bell had production problems and was restricted in streamling by their contract, and Lockheed Produced the P-80 in an even shorter time.. I tend to root for the underdog. But still I think the 280 still had the most production and performance potential than any other of the underdeveloped early jets. Either way it was the world's first jet fighter.

The 262 was a superior aircraft in any case and with lighter/smaller engines it would have performed better as a dogfighter, but the 280's airframe was ready in 1941, and with proper funding for engine development it could have entered production by late 1942 IMHO.

I agree the 262 would have benefitted more from the HeS-30 (and to a lesser extent the BMW 003) and in retrospect the RLM should have dropped the 003 in favor of the HeS-30 since it probably would have been ready for production early enough to be useful, unlike the 003 which apeared to be farther along but actualy would have fallen behind due to problems with the anular combustor. (an anular combustor was proposed for the HeS-30, and while sucessful in the HeS-8, flame cans were chosen due to the higher reliabillity, simple construction, and ease of matenence.)
 
kool kitty89 said:
They didn't take a strong intrest (with funding) until after 1941. Maby I should have said the jet program was lacking government funding, more than intrest.
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There actually were so many projects operating with rockets, jets or strange things like death rays, rail guns , etc. that the gouvernment hardly could differ between good and poor ideas. By 1941 jet engines were still basically developmental ideas as was rocketry. Nobody expected a serious breakthrough in within the expected brief timespan of this conflict. this estimation is wrong but we enjoi hindsight 20/20.

Agreed 100%. The He-S030 was the best of all class I jet engines well into the mid fifties with regards to frontal diameter, specific fuel consumption, thrust-weight ratio and spool up time. It probably would have required less strategic ressources as well and definetely was easier to produce compared to the BMW-003, which needed to be "harmonized" with help of a professional musician prior to assembly of the compressor stages.
 
On the He-178 and HeS-3:

"A second engine was completed just after completion of the He 178 airframe, so it was decided to move directly to full flight tests. A short hop was made on 24 August during high-speed taxi tests, followed by full flight on 27 August, the first aircraft to fly solely under jet power. Testing continued and in November the aircraft was demonstrated to RLM officials in hopes of receiving funding for the development of a larger engine, but nothing seemed forthcoming.

Hans Mauch later told von Ohain the RLM was in fact extremely impressed, but he was concerned that Heinkel's airframe team did not have the knowledge to undertake engine development. Instead he and Helmut Schelp secretly visited a number of aircraft engine manufacturers to try to start programs there. Mauch left his position in 1939 leaving Schelp in command. Schelp was not as concerned about where development was taking place, and immediately started funding Heinkel to produce a more powerful engine.

Work on a larger version, the HeS 6, started immediately, and was tested under a Heinkel He 111 late in 1939. While successful, notably in terms of vastly improved fuel economy, the weight was considered excessive and the design was abandoned in favour of the more advanced Heinkel HeS 8."

Also a neat thing about the HeS-8 (001) is that it not only used a radial compressor but also a radial turbine which would be more durrable than its axial counterpart, and less efected by high temp damage due to flow properties of this design, an since its compressor was radial the extra diameter of a radial turbine would not be detrimental to size. I have only seen this configuration on generator turbines an nowhere else in engines, which makes considerable contrast to whittl's engines which used high-temp axial turbines.

There were many adaptations to the HeS-8 engine including adding an axial compressor behind the radial one and even a turbofan arrangement: quote "Several modifications of the basic HeS 8 design were also explored over the project's lifetime. The HeS 9 appears to be a modification adding a second axial compressor stage, and replacing the full centrifugal stage with a new "diagonal compressor" that Schelp favoured. Little is known about this design other than the fact that RLM ordered ten of them, and none were built. It appears it was this layout that was used to develop the 011. Another modification, the HeS 10, placed a complete HeS 8 engine inside a larger nacelle, and expanded the intake impellor to be larger than the engine. The HeS 10 appears to be the first example of what would today be called a turbofan engine. In order to extract more power from the exhaust to drive the fan, an additional single axial-stage turbine was added behind the HeS 8's existing centrifugal one. The only real difference between the HeS 10 and a modern turbofan engine was that the fan was not powered independently of the core, although given the separate axial turbine stage, this would not have been difficult to arrange."

But they never tried multi-stage radial compession, though this is probably due to Ohain turning in favor of the axial compressor (though , not his design he favored the HeS-30 over his HeS-8 ), but he did like the diagonal compressor which make a good comlement to aditional axial stages like in the HeS-011.

Personally I think the HeS-8 should have been dropped for the HeS-9 rather than the 011 (which was basicly a scaled-up version) this design probably would have progressed faster and might have been useful before the war's end. (it might have even outclassed the HeS-30, though it would have entered production later)

The only multistage centrifugal compressor in a turbojet engine is in the Russian RDT-1/VDR-2 from 1943 designed by Lyul'ka see: EnginesUSSR

The plane the engine was soposed to be used in was also quite interesting: Gu-VRD It migh have entered combat had it's engine not been canceled to work on more advanced designs (just like Heinkel's engines were)

Also I've seen a line drawing of the early version of Meshersmit's prototype the P1065 (a precurser to the 262) and it had tapered wings symilar to the P-80. overall they were the same wings as those wich were used in the final version of the 262 except they were bent foreward (actually they were normal, as the prodiction model had the wings bent back, mostly for trim reasons) if the wings were simply pivoted back and not fundamentally altered this would explain why ther is no trailing-edge sweep.
see: Translated version of http://www.afwing.com/intro/me262/new/1.htm

THough I like the 280, the 262 is simply a better airframe, with its small, thin wings and a fusalage that was sleek, but wide enough to allow a good fuel load and it had excelent high-speed manuverabillity. The 262 with mid-mounted engines would have been awsome, if slightly less practical, and though the engines used turned out to bee too large for this, the HeS-30 (006) engine would have been perfect, and would have allowed the craft to reach its full potential! Of course the 004 could serve as an intrim measure as it was ready earlier.
 

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Actually the P1065's narrow fusalage is more like akin to the 280's, but the buldged body that was chosen made more room for fuel and internal components without having a major efect on performance.

As I've said the major disadvantage to the 262 was its heavy, large engines and I think with smaller, lighter engines and fighter guns to replace its destroyer ones (20mm or .50 cal) it would have beaten the production P-80A, it also had a higher mach number (which may have been even higher with smaller engines). Just look at the performance of the reproductions with J85 engines: I think the top speed a SL is over 650mph.

I think the speeds would have been closer in the YP-80 as its engines were less powereful, had no low altitude boost, and were verry unreliable, still they had exelent maneuverabillity, and wingtip tanks improved roll rate, though I suspect speed was decreased.
 
Agreed, what the -262 needed were more powerful, less fuel gulping and more reliable engines. Though the Jumo-004 had the BIG advantage to be the first mass produced jet engine, avaiable a good 1 1/2 years before the BMW-003. The Jumo is still a better choice for nacelles than any radial (mostly due to the inherent advantage of axial type compressors: a lower frontal area diameter and resulting higher crit Mach figures in external nacelles) avaiable in Germany or the UK for this plane but it is virtually an inferior engine in every other aspect. The BMW-003 could give the plane superior acceleration (due to the 20% overrew figure and the much lighter weight), reliability (less sensitive to rapid throttle changes due to a different speed gouvenor design) and longivity (200 hours service lifetime of the turbine section). Arguably also a slightly better fuel consumption but this engine just entered mass production (and those delivered were urgently needed for the Ar-234C and He-162 programs).
What the -262 really needed for the multi purpose role are different main armements. The 30mm MK108 is an awesome weapon against bombers but I suspect that the 30mm MK 103 would be more useful in all regards. Even if only three could be installed in the nose (due to weight and recoil issues), this weapon has extreme range, flat trajectory and a damage potential beyond good and evil. I run a discussion with RG_Lunatic years ago about this which ended in concerns about recoil issues in such an arrangement. A serious concern but the recoil, while more pointed and stronger, may be still acceptable as some 262 mods showed (50mm BK-5 or 6 30mm guns modified nose section).
 
The Me-262 was a very stable a/c, so mounting two or three 30mm MK103's would've proven no problem at all. And the recoil, although heavy, I think the Me-262 would handle easily.

As to the Me-262s Jumo 004 engines, well yeah they weren't flawless, but they were ahead of their time and more efficient than any of those produced by any other country. Remember the reliability issue was mainly caused by the lack of the right metals, had they been available the Jumo 004 not only would've become a reliable engine, but also a much better performing one. As is evident different batches of engines performed very differently from each other, forcing Messerschmidt AG to release very conservative official performance figures as-well as maintenance operating manuals fit for an over-paranoid mechanic.

A good example of how much performance varied is the RAF's test flights where the Me-262 went beyond 900 km/h in straight level flight.
 
I think the flame-out problems were even worse on the YP-80 and it also had fuel pump problems, though these glitches were rectified in the production version.

Yes radial compressor engines made for bad outboard engines but made fairly good fusalge-borne engines for single-engine craft, like in the Vampire, P-80, and later in the F9F Panther/Couger, Mig-15, and Hawker-Hunter (centrifugal engines' large diameters were made worse since all production models were single-stage, though whittle based designs used a 2-sided rotor, a prototype russian engine used a 2-stage centrifugal compressor, and dirivatives of the HeS-8 added axial stages behind the centrifugal one.)
 
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