Which jet was better, the Me 262 or the Gloster Meteor?

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

The "CAF" doesn't have nukes, surely?

No but surely you are aware, that all NATO aircraft are "Nuke" capable. They would use the stockpiles of the Nuke carrying countries. Even the German Luftwaffe aircraft are equiped to carry Nukes. They train for the mission and are capable of it. Same thing for the Canadians.

Magnon - you are hanging your thesis that the Me 262 was a.) 'specialist interceptor' and b.) a failure at that because it had 'wide turns'?

The Me 163 was a succcess because it didn't have wide turns? The F-4 was a failure because it couldn't fight a MiG 21 in the horizontal? The Spit was a failure because it couldn't out turn a Zero?

Who are referring to relative to 'fail to learn from their mistakes'?? The only 'mistake' I see so far is that the people debating you keep doing so when it is clearly a waste of time.

And that Magnon, is why you will not change anyones mind. Nothing is as black and white as you make it out as your agenda makes it out to be.

 

[riacrato]

It is to me rather simple: Does the specification to which both the He 280 and the Me 262 were designed ask for an interceptor? I'd have to check again but I'm pretty sure it asked for a multirole fighter. And considering the Me 262 A-1a is apart from the swept wing very similar to the very first drawings I doubt they re-designed it as an interceptor either. That it ended up a lot in that role, well which German '45 fighter didn't?

Rather they were very aware of the fact that any twin engined jetfighter would never be competitive with the single-engine prop jobs when it comes to maneuverability or acceleration thus they emphasized its strengths, which are cruise and top speed and dive.

 

[Magnon]

Magnon - you are hanging your thesis that the Me 262 was a.) 'specialist interceptor' and b.) a failure at that because it had 'wide turns'?

The Me 163 was a succcess because it didn't have wide turns? The F-4 was a failure because it couldn't fight a MiG 21 in the horizontal? The Spit was a failure because it couldn't out turn a Zero?

Who are referring to relative to 'fail to learn from their mistakes'?? The only 'mistake' I see so far is that the people debating you keep doing so when it is clearly a waste of time.

DragonDog, I'm not at all criticising the Me 262 for its lack of manoeuvrability in the interceptor role. On the contrary. If you are optimising an aircraft for a role, you often have to trade off one quality which is good to have, but not absolutely necessary for the role.

The Mosquito was an excellent aircraft in the fighter bomber role, able to trade off manoeuvrability because it had speed. In this it is a little like the Me 262. The obvious difference being that the Me 262 was a "bomber destroyer," or interceptor.

The Me 262 was a success as far as it went, but my argument has always been that the strategists starved it of strategic materials, such as nickel, which it absolutely needed to make it a truly great aircraft.

If you go back through my posts you can see where I criticised the "Wehrmacht centric" attitude of the German High Command where nickel was allocated primarily to uses such as tank armour. The Me 262 should have come first, the U boats second, and the tanks third. Adolf Galland does the same in "The First and the Last", where he decries the utilisation of the aircraft as a blitz-bomber supporting the Wehrmacht ground troops:

"...during the few weeks until the opening of the invasion while town after town, armaments factories, transport installations, and synthetic fuel plants were destroyed in the unprotected homeland, the General of the Combat Fighters tried to make a bomber of the Me 262..."​

"...At last, in August, 1944, the first Blitz bombers went into action against the Allied invasion army, but the chances of success had now become meagre because of the Allied advance. During these actions a few bombs were dropped daily somewhere on enemy territory. Very rarely was one able to say what, if anything, they had hit, or with what result..."​

Regards,

Magnon

 

[Magnon]

It is to me rather simple: Does the specification to which both the He 280 and the Me 262 were designed ask for an interceptor? I'd have to check again but I'm pretty sure it asked for a multirole fighter. And considering the Me 262 A-1a is apart from the swept wing very similar to the very first drawings I doubt they re-designed it as an interceptor either. That it ended up a lot in that role, well which German '45 fighter didn't?

Rather they were very aware of the fact that any twin engined jetfighter would never be competitive with the single-engine prop jobs when it comes to maneuverability or acceleration thus they emphasized its strengths, which are cruise and top speed and dive.

I would argue that whatever the strict specification stipulated, the Lufwaffe's priority must have been as a bomber destroyer. I have been using the term interceptor, but this is not strictly correct:

...A bomber destroyer is a former type of fighter aircraft dedicated to destroying enemy bomber aircraft. It is similar in purpose to the interceptor, and differs primarily in form. Most bomber destroyers are heavy fighter or light bomber designs carrying heavy armament, interceptors include much lighter designs as well. They also differ from night fighters, although often based on the same airframe, as they lack radar and are intended only for day use...​

...Later German designs concentrated on dedicated high-speed fighter planes for this role, notably the Dornier Do 335 Pfeil. Its speed would allow it to remain out of danger from the Mustangs, while still carrying a massive gunload. The Messerschmitt Me 262 also saw widespread use in the destroyer role, where its huge load of four 30 mm cannons and the R4M rocket, the first truly effective air-to-air rocket, proved to be highly capable...​

Bomber destroyer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Regards,

Magnon

 

[riacrato]

Wikipedia is wikipedia, nice for a quick search to get a general understanding but not for some in-depth research? Rather not.

In your very quote they mention the Do 335, again a plane originally conceived as an intruder/fast bomber... not a dedicated bomber destroyer.

 

[Magnon]

Wikipedia is wikipedia, nice for a quick search to get a general understanding but not for some in-depth research? Rather not.

In your very quote they mention the Do 335, again a plane originally conceived as an intruder/fast bomber... not a dedicated bomber destroyer.

Hmmm... OK, conceded.

The word dedicated was not justified, but strategically, it should have been pretty well dedicated unless lots of resources were available to knock out the bombers -

Dornier Do 335 Pfeil

After development of fighter-bomber, reconnaissance, trainer and night-fighter variants, the role of heavy Zerstörer was next to be developed, as a direct result of the worsening war situation. During the winter of 1944/45, the Do 335 V13 (RP+UP) emerged from the Oberpfaffenhofen factory as the Do 335B-1. This aircraft featured the replacement of the weapons bay by a fuel tank, and the replacement of the 15 mm cannon by 20 mm MG 151 cannon. More heavily armed was the Do 335 V14 (RP+UQ) which, intended for service as the Do 335B-2, featured the same armament and an added MK 103 30-mm cannon mounted in the wings.​

But I would have to agree with Erich the old sage that the primary role of the Me 262 should have been as a "zerstörer."

Regards,

Magnon

 

[Colin1]

The Do335 was hugely impressive from a technology point of view but eventually it only proved to be a waste of time and resources. It would have been easily supplanted in the ground attack bomber role by the Ar234 and again in the bomber destroyer role by the Me262.

Had the war continued for any length of time the Mustangs would have recovered their performance deficit over the Do335 with the H model anyway.

Extremely impressive performance at 478mph though and remember it was a BIG aeroplane for a single-seater.

 

[riacrato]

We are sidetracking but iirc the Do 335s that flew did not have the latest DB603 engines installed, neither did they have MW-50 or GM-1. So it's fair to say there was still room for some performance increase left.

But I agree it was overall superseded by the development of the two jets you mentioned.

 

[Colin1]

I thought we were sidetracking too
I was hoping that my post had killed it as an avenue of debate

 

[drgondog]

I wonder - aside from a slight advantage in speed, did the Meteor have any advantages over the D0 335?

 

[tail end charlie]

I wonder - aside from a slight advantage in speed, did the Meteor have any advantages over the D0 335?

sure....it was on the winning side

I dont see the meteor as anything other than an engine test bed that eventually got into service. Its aerodynamics were conservative, possible because jets were radical and they wanted to concentrate on their development. The meteor was prohibited to fly over enemy territory for a long time so they wernt exactly pulling all the stops out. The Venom you could say was designed as a true jet fighter.

All the early jets were almost as dangerous to their pilots as they were to the enemy. Probably best that the 262 was more advanced, has anyone done a study on the number of accidents against each type?

 

[Magnon]

Comment with respect to what specifically?

I am not able to comment on the nacelle design for either a/c other than the 'miscellaneous' drag in the table you showed - at 100 feet per second - which should Not extrapolate to any form of compressibility effects at .74 (or above) at the inlet of the meteor..

The Meteor F 3 had a speed of around 490 mph with a thrust of 2000 lb.t. With the Derwent Vs of 3500 lb.t installed, the same basic (strengthened) airframe had a speed of 606 mph. Hence a 75% thrust increase gave a 24% increase in speed. As the drag is a function of the square of velocity, for a given drag coefficient, the expected required increase in thrust would be 53%. On this basis, it would seem that the drag coefficient had increased by something in the region of 14% between the two speeds. Looking at the attached graph, it would seem that this was relatively modest, and I can't imagine that the Me 262 would be appreciably better.

I'm certainly no aerodynamicist, and there's sure to be something I'm missing here. I would very much appreciate your feedback on this one.

Regards,

Magnon

 

[Magnon]

I wonder - aside from a slight advantage in speed, did the Meteor have any advantages over the D0 335?

What about manoeuvrability? When the Meteor could out-turn the Tempest, I think it would run rings around the Dornier...

 

[Magnon]

sure....it was on the winning side

I dont see the meteor as anything other than an engine test bed that eventually got into service. Its aerodynamics were conservative, possible because jets were radical and they wanted to concentrate on their development. The meteor was prohibited to fly over enemy territory for a long time so they wernt exactly pulling all the stops out. The Venom you could say was designed as a true jet fighter.

All the early jets were almost as dangerous to their pilots as they were to the enemy. Probably best that the 262 was more advanced, has anyone done a study on the number of accidents against each type?

A quote from DragonDog; it looks as though he will have all the statistics to hand in this regard, at least for the Me 262:

"...The 262s experienced the same type exhaust failure [as] the XP-80 , had failures of Turbine blade separations causing fires and crashed, had control failures of horiz Stab (PC+UB), Structural failure (VI+AA), causes unknown (VI+AB, VI+AJ, VI+AI, VI+AS)), Stator Ring failure(VI+AK)...
During ops Herman Buchner Kommando Nowatny said in an interview w/Steven Snyder in 1992 "Although the jet was not supersonic, it is true that we had many crashes at high speed. At high speed it would go in a dive, down and down, and the stick could not be corrected - it would not move. There was no chance to get out of the dive" pg 95 "Me262 Stormbird Rising"

...If you wish to consider these (including the Me262) 'design flaws ' or 'manufacturing' issues - go for it. I call them exceeding design specs and running into issues that were borderline science... trying to get max performance in wartime conditions!..."​

Regards,

Magnon

 

[Magnon]

sure....it was on the winning side

I dont see the meteor as anything other than an engine test bed that eventually got into service. Its aerodynamics were conservative, possible because jets were radical and they wanted to concentrate on their development. The meteor was prohibited to fly over enemy territory for a long time so they wernt exactly pulling all the stops out. The Venom you could say was designed as a true jet fighter.

This is apparently untrue- quote from Glider:

...It also wrong to say that Meteors were banned from operating behind enemy lines, its an often repeated statment but incorrect.
Meteors made a number of attacks behind german lines often attacking transport and other targets as well as airfields and on the 24th April two were damaged attacking Nordholtz. It was on one of these attacks where Meteors almost made their first air to air kill on 3rd May. Of all aircraft it was a Fi 156 Storch but when checking the gun footage it was deemed that the Storch had just landed with its wheels on the ground and therefore it didn't count.
They did try to use Meteors against German fighters keeping two manned aircraft on the runway for long periods near Brussels but the only interceptions were of friendly aircraft. On the one occaision where a German Jet was plotted (9th April) the runway was blocked by 149 wing aircraft preparing for a mission. An interception was attempted but by the time they reached 30,000ft they were unable to close....​

So they were looking for Me 262s, but with only a handfull of either aircraft in the air at any given time and a whole lot of other aircraft in the way, it was a bit like finding a needle in a haystack...

Regards,

Magnon

 

[drgondog]

Magnon - the chart you presented is the 'conceptual' description of the onset and effect of compressibility effects to drag rise. Nothing more can be said other than the general acceptance of approximately .55M is where most WWII a/c were observed to enter this 'vague' increase not accounted for in incompressible flow.

The plot to the left of the steep gradient would be all the terms in sub critical profile drag and the 'stuff' in the gradient is the wave drag (combined compressibility effects due to thickness and lift) for the wing.

What can be said is that the wing of the Meteor due to higher lift Coefficient and higher t/c should experience the effects sooner than the Me 262 (gross assumption).

 

[tail end charlie]

This is apparently untrue- quote from Glider:

...It also wrong to say that Meteors were banned from operating behind enemy lines, its an often repeated statment but incorrect.
Meteors made a number of attacks behind german lines often attacking transport and other targets as well as airfields and on the 24th April two were damaged attacking Nordholtz. It was on one of these attacks where Meteors almost made their first air to air kill on 3rd May. Of all aircraft it was a Fi 156 Storch but when checking the gun footage it was deemed that the Storch had just landed with its wheels on the ground and therefore it didn't count.
They did try to use Meteors against German fighters keeping two manned aircraft on the runway for long periods near Brussels but the only interceptions were of friendly aircraft. On the one occaision where a German Jet was plotted (9th April) the runway was blocked by 149 wing aircraft preparing for a mission. An interception was attempted but by the time they reached 30,000ft they were unable to close....​

So they were looking for Me 262s, but with only a handfull of either aircraft in the air at any given time and a whole lot of other aircraft in the way, it was a bit like finding a needle in a haystack...

Regards,

Magnon

Magnon/Glider

I said they were banned for a long time not completely. April May was right at the end. The pilots themselves may have been itching to go up against the 262 but who else was? how many 262s were even in
the air in May 1945?

regards

TEC

 

[Magnon]

I was looking at item 125 in the CFE report in which it discusses use of the air brakes in a "half roll and pull out."

I got to thinking that it might be possible to work backwards to determine the G-force that was generated in that manoeuvre. I assumed that it was another term for a "split S," but when I did the sums, the G-force which resulted would indicate the pilot was spread out in a puddle in the bottom of the cockpit!

To save having to go to the original document, the relevant paragraph is:
"...from 15,000 ft, a half-roll and pull-out is completed by 10,000 ft without using brakes, from a starting speed of 200 I.A.S. The speed on reaching level flight is 380 I.A.S..."
At 15,000 ft, by my calculation, 200 I.A.S is 251 T.A.S (129 m/s) and at 10,000 ft, 380 I.A.S. is 441 T.A.S (227 m/s).

Can anyone assist on this one?

Regards,

Magnon

 

[drgondog]

I was looking at item 125 in the CFE report in which it discusses use of the air brakes in a "half roll and pull out."

I got to thinking that it might be possible to work backwards to determine the G-force that was generated in that manoeuvre. I assumed that it was another term for a "split S," but when I did the sums, the G-force which resulted would indicate the pilot was spread out in a puddle in the bottom of the cockpit!

To save having to go to the original document, the relevant paragraph is:
"...from 15,000 ft, a half-roll and pull-out is completed by 10,000 ft without using brakes, from a starting speed of 200 I.A.S. The speed on reaching level flight is 380 I.A.S..."
At 15,000 ft, by my calculation, 200 I.A.S is 251 T.A.S (129 m/s) and at 10,000 ft, 380 I.A.S. is 441 T.A.S (227 m/s).

Can anyone assist on this one?

Regards,

Magnon

No. not near enogh data regarding the manuever flight path, stick forces recorded during the manuever, whether the aircraft was in a yaw condition at any time, etc, etc..

 

[Magnon]

Some articles from the "Flight" archive may be of interest in terms of the assessment of jet engine reliability.

Regards,

Magnon