The sound barrier

Soren said:

I still say the Me-262 came the closest, although there is a possibility the Me-163 could go faster and infact went supersonic. But structurally the Me-262 is the soundest of any of the a/c who came close, the problem is the pitching down above Mach 0.86 and the possible stall of the engines.

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drgondog said:

While I don't disagree any point, what makes you say the 262 is structurally 'sounder' than say the 163?

The shorter wingspan and deeper chord of the 163 certainly gave it a possibility of a much stronger wing, and the lack of horizontal stabililzer removes loads from the tail.

Getting rid of landing gear and associated cut outs of skin and structure adds even more probability of being stiffer and stonger.

Lack of sustained input at high frequency from a jet engine takes out every harmonic input except flutter and I don't recall that was a problem..

So why would the 262 be deemed 'sounder structurally'??

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Soren said:

All valid points Bill and I agree, the only reason for my comment is the knowledge that the Me-163 was constructed partly of wood and that the Me-262 was all metal and features one of the strongest wing structures of all a/c of WW2. The Me-262's wings were purposely built extremely strong because of the fact that they needed to support the engines and the fact that the a/c was going to be flying much faster than any previous a/c, so the G-loads in maneuvers were logically going to be much higher. So although thin the Me-262's wings were among the strongest put on any a/c during the war.

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