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

Which is better, Me 262 or the Gloster Meteor?

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if you are going to compare these two, some variants need to be looked at. The initial use as a fighter bomber threw a spanner in the works, as the Me 262 was never originally designed for this role, unlike the Mk 1 Meteor, which was designed and operated as fighter. retraining bomber pilots had its drawbacks as well. The other is the night fighter role, which saw the 262 as a fairly competent two seat interceptor. Even with all the extra weight, it was still easily faster than the opposition, and was used to effect against the Mosquito. I am not aware that Meteor ever operated in this role during WW2, but I am keen to hear of any other variants that were made up until April 1945.
 

Thats an astonishing attrition rate. Just over 3900 Meteors produced. about 500 in 1946 IIRC....3714 crashed according to that list, and more than twice the number produced in 1946 lost to accidents. that means that most of the 1946 production crashed at least twice in one year.

Why would they keep flying such piece of junk if those figures are true.....
 

I think you'll find very high accident rates for all post war jet operators. USN carrier operations during the 1950s were horrible.
 
I think we may have a bit of confusion here. The numbers so kindly given by Stona may be ALL the aircraft crashed by the RAF in a given year and NOT just Meteors.

Also "written off" in the immediate post war years may have a different meaning than "crashed".

Written off can happen when an aircraft is damaged beyond economic repair. How bad do you have to "damage" a 1943 built Halifax in 1946 or 47 to have the engineering section decide it is beyond economic repair?

One book on the Meteor claims 490 pilots lost in Peace time in the Meteor. A number of pages on the reminisces of one pilot who logged almost 500 hours in 155 different Meteors ( did one tour as a gunnery instructor and in a third tour as a staff officer caged rides in various Meteors to get his time in). He was lucky to start jet flying in 1949 as by that time they had come up with the two seat T 7 Trainer. Up until that time some pilots went from Harvards to Meteors with an instructor standing on the wing for a bit and then "off you go, solo". It is no wonder they crashed a bunch. Even with the two seater on the fourth flight they were doing single engine flying ( and in the Meteor practice was ALWAYS done with the same engine shut down as only one engine had the auxiliary pumps, loose that engine and the plane was dead.) Even with the two seater aircraft the "training" was 5 hours flying time before "solo".

Blaming the aircraft for the resulting accidents doesn't seem quite fair.
 
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That makes a LOT more sense. Attrition rates by the end of the war, flying in overload conditions (often) and in a wartime environment were about 15% per year for BC. If the attrition rates posted by Steve related only to Meteors, it means, effectively that the Meteors had an attrition rate of around 200% under peacetime conditions, as oposed to to 15% for other types under wartime conditions.

So, we need a figure for Meteor losses versus numbers on the books. by the end of 1946, the RAF had 16 squadrons of Meteors, so they werent mucking around, and given the production rates, werent losing them at the rate of 1014 in 1946.

They may have lost 100, which is still pretty diabolical .......

Just to give some perspective to this, during the Korean war, 77 Squadron, flying under combat conditions flew just under 19000 sorties, and lost 32 pilots. I think they lost 40 or so Meteors in that period. How many of them were lost in combat I would have to check, but it will be at least 20 aircraft.

20 aircraft lost to non-combat causes is an attrition rate of about 30% per year....more than double the loss rates of piston engined aircraft
 
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Losses per year is a crude way of measuring the attrition rate. Losses per hour ( or thousand hours) flown is closer and losses per sortie is even closer (but not perfect). No. 77 squadron by that measure was loosing a Meteor every 475 sorties which may not be too bad for combat conditions. A lot more landings and take-offs than the WW II bomber aircraft.
No. 77 squadron flew P-51s for the first year and Meteors for the last two years of the war. A crude average is 19 sorties a day by the Squadron which is a higher sortie rate than bomber command did with piston engine planes.
 

YES!!!!

The figures are for all aircraft deemed write offs and fatalities for all aircraft in the RAF worldwide.

Category 3 is not a good heading in retrospect as this was introduced in 1952, with various sub-divisions, for aircraft that were repairable. I pasted it from another document and Category E would have been better as this was for an aircraft written off, again with various sub divisions, from 1941 until 1952.

Cat E Write-off
Cat. E1 Write-off, but considered suitable for component recovery
Cat. E2 Write-off and suitable only for scrap
Cat. E3 Burnt out
Cat. Em Missing from an operational sortie (Missing aircraft were categorised 'Em' after 28 days)


Anecdotal evidence for the dangers of early jets. In the early fifties my father transferred from fixed wing naval aviation to helicopters. He told me that eight of his colleagues, many presumably ex 801 Squadron, were killed flying jets by 1960. He reckoned he had made the right choice and always argued that helicopters were intrinsically safer than fixed wing aircraft, something I never entirely agreed with

Cheers

Steve
 
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Just checking in on this poll, and it looks as though 75% of us still think the 262 was better. Of course, being in the majority does not make something right. With the amount of folklore and urban myths, the Me 262 will always remain legendary, and the Meteor will always be the "also ran".
 
I havent voted because I think theres too many other things to consider other than pure performance. If a 1,000 Meteors had met a 1,000 Me262s over west Germany in 1945 a 262 might have been the last plane flying but the next day another 1,000 Meteors will appear wheres the 1,000 262s (and the pilots) going to come from.

I know there werent a 1,000 of any jet available its just a number.
 
If the Meteor (or the P-80) had been able to get into combat sooner, we might have been able to form a better opinion of "which was better", but as we know, that didn't happen so the best we can do is look at the Me262's combat record versus the Metoer's potential and judge from there.

For example, it's much easier to draw a conclusion between the F-86 and MiG-15 because the two actually made contact over the Korean skies. The P-80 and Meteor would have certainly made a showing, especially if the early production bugs were worked out and had experienced pilots. But in the end, as it's mentioned, the 262 would have been out-matched by the simple fact that Britain and the U.S. were able to replace losses at a rate that Germany simply could not.
 
By the way, does anybody know the achievements in aerial combat of the METEOR through it´s service life? I know it downed twelve V1 flying bombs in ww2 (and one half V1 shared) for 260 sortied flown against V1 bombs. I also know of 4 MiG15 claimed by No.77 sqdn at Korea, anything else missed?

I hope that nobody mistakes this question as an argument pro or con, as I am convinced that there is not sufficient data for a direct Me-262 / Meteor comparison, I ask in hope that people know better and more data.
 
An Israeli NF13 night fighter shot down an Egyptian Dakota in 1956. An Argentian F4 shot down an aircraft during an abortive coup. A Syrian NF13 claimed an RAF Canberra recon flight but I have never seen any confirming RAF info.
 
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I would immediately assume it to be a V1 buzz bomb but I honestly don't know.

(Sorry if this has been previously answered as well)
 
Thanks Fastmongrel for the informative reply.


No Me-163b KOMET for sure. They were never deployed in France. Two Ar-234 AV prototypees went over the beachheads taking aerial photographies starting with july 27th, I guess and returned without beeing engaged by enemy aircraft. It repeated the procedure but I had always the impression that the allies were unaware of it.
 
With the very short radius of the Komet and the bulky refuelling rig I cant see the LW being able to get close enough to the beach head to be able to launch without attracting a horde of Jabos
 
fastmongrel said:
With the very short radius of the Komet and the bulky refuelling rig I cant see the LW being able to get close enough to the beach head to be able to launch without attracting a horde of Jabos
Click to expand...

Aside from no Komets being anywhere near the beached the Komet was hardly liken to 'open up' and leave the Spitfires for dead. The motor really served to blast the aircraft to the altitude of the bombers after which it became a very fast glider.
The motor ran for a very short time at full power (estimates vary) but to give an idea it was hoped to increase the full throttle time to 6 minutes on the proposed Me 163 C sub type, so it was definitely less than that. Walterwerke were working on a motor with an additional, lower thrust combustion chamber slung below the main (take-off) combustion chamber which would operate for cruising at height. This arrangement never flew.
Cheers
Steve
 
I'm fairly certain that the Ar234 flown by Erich Sommer first flew a recon mission over Normandy on August 2nd, 1944, and a further 13 sorties with a second Ar234 over the rest of August. As far as I am aware, they were never detected. The Arado did pretty well for itself in the recon role, and actually overflew the UK without detection either. I still consider them to be the most underrated first generation Jet.
 

Yes, this was the only instance of any jet/rocket aircraft flying anywhere near the beaches and it was 2 months after the invasion but..... I thought there was a glide/guided bomb that was used and hit several ships. Or am I confusing Operation Husky with D-Day?
 
Salerno and Anzio were pretty heavily attacked by german glide bombs. i think it was at Salerno that Warspite was hit and had her aft turret destroyed (and never repaired). Cruiser Scylla was hit and sunik there as well. I also think the USS Savannah was hit and heavily damaged

There were no serious effective attacks on the Overlord invasion fleet by German aircraft. There were several near suicide attacks by the KM as Uboats, torpedo and light units attempted to disrupt the invasion. The main disruption that was achieved came from several coastal batteries manned mainly by KM personnel. IIRC one was located at Le Havre
 
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