E ~ and the only thing going for a 262 over the Stang is it's flat out speed
No it climbed faster and retained speed in tight turns much better, something which is made quite clear by both Allied German pilots who flew it.
From Me-262 A-1 Pilot's Handbook, put together by US UK test pilots:
"(2) The airplane holds its speed in tight turns much longer than conventional types."
Luftwaffe test pilot, Hans fey:
"The Me-262 will turn much better at high than at low speeds, and due to its clean design, will keep its speed in tight turns much longer than the conventional type aircraft"
And according to flight tests the max climb rate at SL was 19.5 m/s (3,838 ft/min) at ~7,000 kg, the normal take off weight was 6,400 kg and empty weight was 3,900 kg;
Me-262 A-1a Lesitung charts:
Soren - I am now through the histories of the 352, 357 and 355FG awards on 262's. I am sorry but two things happened when a 262 started the turn 100mph faster and turned in the horizontal with a Mustang. a.) it lost a lost of energy, and b.) the Mustang could cut the circle and get a nice deflection 'head shot'.
Bill as you have just demonstrated it depends entirely on the situation, and you don't know the story of the Allied fighter pilots shot down by the Me-262.
It is highly likely a P-51 seeing a Me-262 in his tail took the fight to the horizontal as-well only to be cut off in the turn and recieve a stream of 30mm HE projectile to his cockpit. Its not hard to cut off a turn and get a deflection shot, even against a better turning a/c, and esp. not if you have fast and flat firing guns.
In short it was by no means a mistake for a Me-262 pilot to engage in the horizontal with a Mustang as long as he knew what he was doing and didn't let speed drop too low. He had to keep the speed up, which he could do by dropping his nose down.
We know that the Me-262 was considerably faster, climbed faster and maintains speed in tight turns considerably better than any piston engined fighter. And we know the approx. Clmax of the wing as-well, so we know that above 450 km/h a Me-262 will black out the average pilot in its tighest turn. Now on top of this we know the Me-262 mostly flew at speeds higher than 600 km/h, at which speed a whole lot of G's could be pulled.
The absolute no no in any of the early jets was however getting into a low speed turning fight as acceleration was very sluggish at slow speeds.
I'm sure you both agree.