was the me 262 delay only hitler fault?

[GrauGeist]

lmao...spectacular thread-drift going on here.

Great info being posted...but still

 

[aurelien wolff]

what about the jumo? Sometimes I heard that's the ause of the delay(well the engine developement whas pretty long I think).

 

[ThomasP]

Hey tomo pauk,

re: V-1710 at 60"Hg
I stand corrected. Thanks for the chart.


re: DB 601N at 1.53 ata.
I stand corrected again. 1.35 ata. is correct. Don't know if it was my typo or an error in the source. This changes the following:

The DB 601N with a CR of 8.2 was eventually cleared for (and reliable at?) 1.35 ata. (+ 5.145 lbs) for a possible peak cylinder pressure of 162.7 lb/in^2


re: BMW 801D at 1.65 ata. and DB 605D at 1.8 ata.
I stand corrected again, again. The late-war BMW 801D and very late-war DB 605DB engines apparently were capable of using the full potential of the C3 fuel. This changes the following:

The DB 605DB had a CR of 7.3/7.5 and was eventually cleared for (and reliable at?) 1.80 ata. (+11.76 lbs) for a possible peak cylinder pressure of 195.8 lb/in^2.
The BMW 801D had a CR of 7.2 and was eventually cleared for (and reliable at?) 1.65 ata. (+9.555 lbs) for a possible peak cylinder pressure of 174.6 lb/in^2.

The late-war 801DB and 605DB peak cylinder pressures compare well with the late-war Allied engines.

Thanks tomo pauk.

Does anyone know if the German C3 fuel specification changed significantly from early- to late-war? Maybe in a similar manner to the UK '100 octane' specification?

 

[Timppa]

lmao...spectacular thread-drift going on here.

To make sure I post a picture of my car

 

[tomo pauk]

...
Does anyone know if the German C3 fuel specification changed significantly from early- to late-war? Maybe in a similar manner to the UK '100 octane' specification?

IIRC the rich mixture value of theC3 fuel somewhat increased during the war. It would've took some reading at fischer-tropsch archives to make a good analysis of it, unfortunately the archive is temporarily unavailable on the 'net.

 

[fliger747]

Yes, the thread has drifted enough to need a new thread.

US aircraft manuals usually gave engine operating parameters for the fuel available. The essence being that the higher fuel grades were prioritized operational necessitiy.

The Luftwaffe during the later war suffered from general fuel shortages of any kind impacting aircraft performance even down to training hours.

The Jumo 004 though a brilliant idea, just wasn't ready for prime time. Besides the lack of best materials for the critical turbine blades a more curable lack was a workable fuel control unit. Temperature was the biggest enemy of the primitive turbines and preserving a best temperature range was quite problematical without a fuel control. Despite many hours driving turbines about I don't know I could have made one last very long, or even kept it running.

Planes, especially early models are made or broken by it's power plant.

 

[GrauGeist]

The Bell P-59 first flew in October 1941, five months after the Me262 first flew (under piston power).

Given the fact that the P-59 was only a year behind the He280, it held a great deal of promise save for the fact that it's GE J31 engines were troublesome and underpowered...which was a plague on nearly all the first generation jet fighters.

The big *if* here, is if GE had managed to stabilize the early J31 (I-A) and if the P-59's development moved foreward without complications, it *could have* been the Me262's adversary in the skies over Europe.
Armed with a formidable 37mm cannon and three .50 MGs, it would have been capable of considerable damage to anything in it's sights.

 

[Shortround6]

Luckily for the US pilots the P-59 was never put into combat.

It's aerodynamics were, shall we say, less than best? It's wing made a Hellcat look small. You were going to need some much more powerful engines than the J-31s to get this thing up to combat speed.
The 37mm gun is also a bit of a problem, yes the Russian did fairly well with theirs(and the ones in P-39s) but by Korea the 37mm gun in the Mig 15, which fired over twice as fast as the US gun and had about 10% more velocity (shorter time of flight) scored very few hits in air to air combat. US 37mm in late war high speed air to air???

 

[fliger747]

P59 was never a serious candidate for a combat aircraft but an experiment to explore the technology of jet flight. The P80 a more serious effort!

 

[swampyankee]

The one thing in favor of the V-2, was it's ability to strike any target without warning and without any countermeasures.
It is truly fortunate for the Allies that the A4 (and related) program really never advanced beyond the point of where they were at by war's end.

It's also truly fortunate that the German A-bomb program was such as failure (possibly deliberately; there's some stories that the German science community wanted it to fail).

 

[yulzari]

Throw the numbers and dates around as you will but the Luftwaffe leadership failed in 1939 to get an effective pilot training system in place. No matter what wuderwaffen the Luftwaffe gets they do not have the skilled pilot force to use them. The most important part of the system is the user. This was affecting the Luftwaffe even in 1940 yet they did nothing about it.

 

[aurelien wolff]

they would've still lose the war regardless what weapon they make,the ally could've devellop countermeasure/counterweapon or just bomb the factory/taking it and that's all.
+the ally have far more ressources than the german+when you see the lack of cooperation concernning the A bomb programm,the lack of priority and the lack of ressources,I don't think they would've have an atome bomb like the ameriacan one in 1945 or before that date.

 

[swampyankee]

Were Germany to delay losing, the Eighth Air Force gets to deliver the first atomic bombs.

 

[GrauGeist]

Were Germany to delay losing, the Eighth Air Force gets to deliver the first atomic bombs.

Pretty sure that if the need for using Atomic Weapons against Germany were approved, the 509th CG would remain as an element of the 20th AF for security reasons.

 

[llemon]

When the He178 fist flew in August 1939, there was literally no interest from the RLM - even though it was achieving speeds over 375mph.
When Heinkel arranged for the high-command to have a demonstration of the He178 in November, Göering didn't even attand.

So had the RLM prioritized the jet program from the start, by: provided funding for accelerated development, provided the much needed exotic metals, supported the He280 and Me262 development (both by being objective in their design and not interfering with the design) than there would have been jets over Europe at a time when the Luftwaffe held air superiority and it would have changed the face of the airwar (but not the outcome).

The RLM didn't care about Heinkels jet engine program because they had already directed BMW and Junkers to develop turbojets. Heinkel at that time was an airframe maker with no experience in engines. Why invest big $ in a company that has a jet program consisting of a shack, one PHD a couple engineers/draftsmen and a very clever sheet metal worker?

What does "completely debugged" really mean?
1 failure in 10 hours, 1 in 25 hours, 1 in hundred?

or "by the end of 1942, the 006's basic problems had been solved. "

Ok, what were the basic problems and what are the advanced or secondary problems?

The biggest issue with the 262s engines is that, in 1943, they performed to spec at low altitudes. But up around 20k their performance rapidly fell off the advertised mark. What is one to do with a jet aircraft that offers little advantage over piston aircraft at the heights American bombers are cruising at?

Contrary to what has been written about Hitler alone insisting the 262 should be used as a bomber this was actually a heated debate within the RLM. And it pretty much boiled down to who thought the alt issues would be fixed and who thought they couldn't be.

The problem of conventional gear wasn't aparent until V3 was test-flown under pure jet power in July 1942, V5 (first flight June '43) and V6 (first flight October '43) had the nose gear installed - V5's nose gear was fixed-forward, V6's was fully retractable.

However, by summer of '43, they were still having teething problems with the 004A and the nose gear issue was accomplished while the engine problem was being worked on.

Minor quibble; the 262 was originally envisioned with tricycle landing gear. This idea was dropped on the basis of risk. With an aircraft that had several new features earmarked for it, why complicate things further with a landing gear that Messerschmitt had little experience with? Of course flight testing proved that initial intuition correct.

I would say that any engineering team that could not figure out a couple of bomb racks on a high powered fighter plane in 6 months should not try working on anything more complicated than a one speed bicycle.

Does anybody know of any other fighter plane that took 6 months to fit a couple of bomb racks on?

Good thing Hitler asked for the bomb racks, it gave them time to get get the engines up to bad from truly deplorable.

Goering visited Messerschmitt in, I want to say late 42, and inquired about progress on the bomb racks. Willy replied something to the effect of "all thats left to do is paint them". I get the impression that the bomb rack issues was more of an excuse than anything else. Yes there are issues with putting racks on the 262 that makes it more difficult than other aircraft - but it doesnt seem like Mess invested much in solving them.

However, Grant, the fact remains that the He280 and Me262 were in the pipeline before 1942.

There was nothing but a collective yawn from the RLM between 1939 and 1943 and as soon as the situation became dire, the RLM made the jets a priority.
Just like the German aircraft manufacturing didn't hit a true wartime footing until 1944, long after their ass was hanging in the breeze.

I should also point out, that *had* the RLM made the jet program a priority early on, then all the resources that were squandered later on trying to develop the various high-output piston engines would have not happened...

In 1939(!!!!) when Messerschmitt started tackling jet engine fighters, including the design that lead to the 262 (P1065), it was widely known that new fighter aircraft took around 3-4 years to reach front-line service. Messerschmitt estimated that a new jet engine fighter, because of all the risks involved and new issues that needed to be solved, would take more like 5-6 years of development. This is why the program was not given higher priority until later on, when it became apparent that the design was actually very sound and fairly bug free (the airframe that is). The development of the 262 went faster than anyone expected during the early part of the war and it is a testament to the work of Bölkow and many other overlooked engineers at Mess.

 

[GrauGeist]

The RLM didn't care about Heinkels jet engine program because they had already directed BMW and Junkers to develop turbojets. Heinkel at that time was an airframe maker with no experience in engines. Why invest big $ in a company that has a jet program consisting of a shack, one PHD a couple engineers/draftsmen and a very clever sheet metal worker?

The He178 flew with Von Ohain's third engine design (HeS3) at a time when the Jumo 004 and BMW 003 hadn't even started serious development.

Additionally, Heinkel's "shack" at Rostock consisted of several manufacturing buildings, offices and R&D labs...it also had a full airfield complete with hangars and support buildings - well before the war started.

And just curious...how many engines did Messerschmitt manufacture?

 

[llemon]

The He178 flew with Von Ohain's third engine design (HeS3) at a time when the Jumo 004 and BMW 003 hadn't even started serious development.

Additionally, Heinkel's "shack" at Rostock consisted of several manufacturing buildings, offices and R&D labs...it also had a full airfield complete with hangars and support buildings - well before the war started.

And just curious...how many engines did Messerschmitt manufacture?

Ohain's development office was literally a small shed out the way near the edge of Heinkels factory grounds. His staff on hand was a couple dozen individuals, several of whom were allocated as part time.

But you really have to look at things in context. Both BMW and Junkers had been in talks regarding jets for a couple of years by the time the 178 first flew. Junkers had already been awarded the contract for what became the 109-004 and BMW had been given the contract for what became the 109-002 almost a year prior. They were offering axial compression engines vs Heinkels centrifugal compressor type which had already been recognized as theoretically inferior. Junkers and BMW had also built several test articles by the time of the 178s first flight, to varying degrees of success, but they were far from purely paper studies.

On top of that they were two of the largest engine makers in Germany with a proven track record of being able to deliver production engines. They had a sizeable staff of engine specialists and a lot of expertise with high temp alloys, compressors, ect. Heinkel had zero engine experience and no engine specialists until some Junkers engineers "defected" to Heinkel.

So its hard for me to see how the RLMs decision is foolish or some sort of wasted opportunity. Sure, you can say that they should have spent money on it, but one of the big stumbling blocks for Germany during the war was a lack of engineering manpower. Throwing money at Heinkel wont create engineers out of thin air, it will just mean they will leave someone like Junkers and dilute their turbojet program (which is what did happen, mind you).

Plus looking at things in hindsight its hard to see how this was a big mistake as well. Heinkels TL program was starved for manpower throughout the war, even with a cadre of Junkers specialist and the injection of Hirth engineers. They allocated what manpower they did have on too many engine projects leading to lots of possibly promising developments that simply stalled out. And on top of that they lagged behind Junkers and BMW in one very important area - the use of air cooling. Although they did try that with the 109-006 that project was quickly abandoned.

Lastly the 011, the great white hope of late war German jet engines, was given a very scathing review by BMW when they were asked to assist Heinkel. That engine may have been the most powerful TL that had a chance of production but it needed a very substantial rework to turn it into a practical engine with a half way passable lifespan. And I mean passable lifespan in context of late war Germany. An 11hr run and that engine was nearly toasted.

 

[Conslaw]

Pre-war through about 1942, what was in the popular press (I'm talking about things like Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, and other publications internationally)concerning the potential for airplanes with jet engines?

 

[aurelien wolff]

what do you think of that one? Messerchmitt's fault in delay of Me 262? - Axis History Forum

Also,how many time did the conversion to a fighters bomber take considering that messerschmitt already planned these "Schnellbomber I/II" variant.