The German arrow!

[wuzak]

I think you need to review some combat reports W, & watch a few gun-cam films then,
If the Wingco Flying of the Tempest outfit, R. Beamont, ( & who was also a Hawker test pilot)
put it in his official combat reports, as well as in his memoirs, he's confident about it.

Addit: The mph noted is IAS, per the ASI, & some of those combat reports note
dives 'going off the clock' & ' well past the ASI redline.'

600mph IAS - I call bollocks. Or faulty equipment. Or that is 600mph IAS = 600mph TAS - ie at sea level. Just before the aircraft augured in.

The ASI was in those instances, most likely,faulty. There were similar claims from P-47 pilots which would have had them doing speeds approaching 700mph TAS.

8,000ft would be, in my mind, about the time you would want to be pulling out from a high speed dive, not initiating one.

 

[wuzak]

Guess these RAF officers were full of "bollocks" in their reports, do ya reckon, eh, W?

No, just reading the ASI, but who knows how accurate they were at high speeds.

We have a documented, instrumented, Spitfire diving beyond 600mph TAS.

But, as far as I am aware, there isn't for the case of the Tempest.

 

[wuzak]

Fair enough James.

What altitude did he start his descent from?

 

[mikewint]

Not sure what all this dive speed discussion is about as anything with weight will "dive" when dropped. Felix Baumgartner jumping from an altitude of 24 miles reached a maximum speed of 833.9 mph. That amounts to Mach 1.24 thus well beyond the "speed of sound" which, by the by, is NOT a fixed number as it varies with temperature and pressure, i.e.: 5000m it is 717mph; 8000m it is 689mph; and 12000m it is 660mph.
On 9 April 1945, Fähnrich Mutke, part of the Ergänzungs-Jagdgeschwader 2 (EJG 2) conversion squadron, 3rd flight, took off from Lagerlechfeld in his Messerschmitt Me 262, marked Weiße 9, for a planned high-altitude flight. He was climbing through at an altitude of 12,000 m (36,000 ft) in near perfect weather.
Mutke went into a steep 40° dive with full engine power. While passing through the altitude of 12,000 m, his Me 262 started to vibrate and began swinging from side to side. The speedometer was stuck against its limit of 1,100 km/h (682 mph). The speed of sound is 660 -670 mph at an altitude of 12,000 m, depending on the environmental variables. The shaking intensified, and Mutke temporarily lost control of his plane. He reported that with the speedometer still off the scale he attempted to recover from the uncontrollable dive by adjusting the main tailplane incidence angle. Rather than just having an elevator flap, the Me 262 could change the angle of incidence of the whole tailplane, a design feature that was later added to the Bell X1. Suddenly, the buffeting stopped, and control resumed for a few seconds. Mutke throttled back and his engines flamed out, and after the short period of smooth flight, the buffeting resumed and the aircraft began shaking violently again. He fought to regain control and re-light the engines eventually reducing the speed below 500 km/h. After a difficult landing, it was found that his plane was missing many rivets and also had distorted wings.
Mutke claimed to have overcome the ever steepening dive by adjustment of the 262's tailplane incidence. This is the same technique employed by Chuck Yeager in the Bell X-1 to avoid what is known as Mach tuck. Furthermore, Mutke's observation that he briefly regained control of the aircraft, while still accelerating, corresponds with later accounts of supersonic flight. Aircraft such as the Bell X-1, F-86 Sabre and Convair F2Y Sea Dart, like the Me-262, did not have area ruled fuselages yet are acknowledged to have flown at supersonic speeds — here the engine thrust in combination with the pull of gravity during a dive, supplies enough force to accelerate the airplane to supersonic speed. A number of other Me 262 experienced similar strange accidents, or breaking apart in the sky because of buffeting and the different aerodynamics at the sound barrier.

 

[mikewint]

Understood, point being that reaching high dive speeds is easy and does not even require power. Terminal velocity is determined by the objects shape and air density. Terminal velocity can be exceeded if the object is powered and jets have a decided advantage here as prop planes introduce the prop's drag.
Vne (often called simply "limiting speed" in WWII by designers and factories) is set by the critical flutter speed, a speed past which something in the aircraft will flex aeroelastically, or flutter, and fail catastrophically. Vne is the same for all altitudes if it is defined as indicate airspeed (IAS) and a chart must be supplied if Vne is defined as true airspeed (TAS). IAS is MUCH easier for the pilot and is mostly used, but not exclusively. Sometimes the factory doesn't think much about the pilot.
In WWII, the fighters were strong enough so that most could dive until either flutter speed or until things started tearing off, like fabric, and it WASN'T always fabric that departed first. Vne was usually set at 90% of the demonstrated safe diving speed. That was pretty standard around the world.
Vne is NOT the speed the aircraft can attain in level flight and is only capable of being approached in a relative steep dive. Combat speed in WWII for piston fighters was 180 – 320 mph or so and, if you were traveling at 450+ mph, you were diving to run or to get somewhere, but you certainly weren't fighting. None of the WWII piston planes could roll or pitch worth a damn at very high speeds … but they COULD close on a victim or a target, slow down, and attack. If the target was an Me 262, then it wasn't rolling or pitching very well either, so they could fight a bit, after a fashion, but it could hardly be called a dogfight since they were both probably getting very close to being out of control going downward … not the best place to be by long shot, and the ground doesn't run away from you ... it only gets closer as you descend.

 

[pinehilljoe]

I always thought the 335 was one of the coolest planes in the War. I remember an article in Wings magazine back in 1976. What made it cool also was it wasn't a wonder weapon. It didn't require jet engine or rocket development to deploy and go into production. All the technology was there. Bureaucracy kept it out of production. It could have made a big difference in the Air War in 1944.

 

[Airframes]

You may be right, but I always felt that the big difference would have been an increase in Allied claims, with the '335 added to the claims lists !

 

[drgondog]

My perspective is that the 235 was an interesting, big fast, potentially lethal bomber destroyer with about the same marginal top speed advantage in a straight line (when all systems running 100%) over Tempest and P-47M and P-51B/D as all the ships had over Bf 109G-6 and running away from a fight was the only viable option. I also speculate that like the P-38 in ETO, the two engines were a liability - offering twice as much vulnerability to 50 cal and 20mm fire as a Bf 109 or FW 190D in line systems.

IMO the Ta 152 and FW 190D-9 in skilled hands were a.) much better value, b.) much farther along the design to production cycle than the 235.

It needed to show up in volume in late 1943 to have an impact on daylight operations, ditto the Me 262.