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

Magnon · Jan 17, 2010

The thrust to weight ratio of the Meteor F4 with Derwent 5 engines was 0.47 as against 0.28 for the Me 262. Ref app-a3

Hence the acceleration of the Meteor was light years ahead on this fact alone. When you factor in the consideration that with the Jumo 004, if the throttle was opened up rapidly the low-grade turbine blades were liable to catastrophic failure, there is absolutely no comparison betwen the two machines.

The poor acceleration was not a problem in the role as bomber destroyer, but in dogfighting, would have been absolutely crucial.

The British had already taken out the world speed record of 606 in a Meteor F3 in 1945, admittedly stripped of armament. The successor F4 had 50% more thrust, and was flown in August 1945, thus technically within the WW 2 time period:

"...Rolls-Royce responded by producing a scaled down version, 85.5% of the size of the Nene, which it gave the name Derwent V. This new engine provided 3,500lb of thrust, a 50% increase on the power offered by the Derwent IV used in later Meteor IIIs. The Derwent V ran for the first time on the test bench on 7 June 1945.
This new engine was then fitted to a Meteor Mk.III (serial EE360), to make the F Mk.IV prototype. This made its maiden flight on 15 August 1945..."

ref Gloster Meteor F Mk.IV

It would be a bit rough to penalise the Meteor for the fact that the Allies finished the war somewhat early!

Magnon · Jan 17, 2010

Quote re the Me 262 and the Meteor F4:

Performance characteristics shown in table I give a maximum speed for the Gloster Meteor F. Mk. 4 of 570 miles per hour, or a Mach number of 0.81, at 20000 feet. One source (ref. 162) indicates that at high speeds the Meteor experienced large trim changes, high aileron stick forces, and a tendency toward snaking. Snaking may be described as a self-sustained yawing oscillation; it plagued many of the earlier jet fighters. According to reference 188, numerous modifications were tried in an effort to cure the problem on the Meteor - none of them were entirely successful. (Later research indicated that the problem was probably related to incipient flow separation from the relatively thick airfoil sections used in the tail.) Climb performance of the aircraft was outstanding. The sea-level rate of climb was 7500 feet per minute, and an altitude of 30 000 feet could be reached in 5 minutes. Clearly, the performance of the Meteor F. Mk. 4 was much superior to the performance of the Messerschmitt Me 262A for which data are given in table V. To put this comparison in proper perspective, however, the Meteor F. Mk. 4 did not fly until after the end of World War II and had a thrust-to-weight ratio of 0.47 as compared with 0.28 for the earlier German aircraft. The author's analysis of the physical and performance characteristics of the two aircraft suggests that the superior performance of the Meteor was due to the higher thrust of its engines and not to any inherent superiority in aerodynamic design.

Ref: ch11-2

Regarding the control problems at transsonic speeds, the Me 262 was "uncontrollable at speeds over 600 mph" as quoted by Adolf Galand.

(Now I wouldn't want it to be thought that I'm implying that the German government foresaw this whole debate and cunningly capitulated early in order to deny the F4 the opportunity of being brought into service during WW2.)

Njaco · Jan 17, 2010

Was the Meteor Mk V operational bbetween May 1944 and May 1945 or are we just comparing the last variants available, without concern for further development?

riacrato · Jan 18, 2010

We are.

DerAdlerIstGelandet · Jan 18, 2010

Magnon said:
It would be a bit rough to penalise the Meteor for the fact that the Allies finished the war somewhat early!

But it is okay to penalize the Me 262 because it was not allowed to progress like the Meteor?

Njaco said:
Was the Meteor Mk V operational bbetween May 1944 and May 1945 or are we just comparing the last variants available, without concern for further development?

How many times is this going to have to be brought up?

FLYBOYJ · Jan 18, 2010

Magnon said:
The thrust to weight ratio of the Meteor F4 with Derwent 5 engines was 0.47 as against 0.28 for the Me 262. Ref app-a3

Hence the acceleration of the Meteor was light years ahead on this fact alone. When you factor in the consideration that with the Jumo 004, if the throttle was opened up rapidly the low-grade turbine blades were liable to catastrophic failure, there is absolutely no comparison betwen the two machines.

The poor acceleration was not a problem in the role as bomber destroyer, but in dogfighting, would have been absolutely crucial.

I could tell you first hand this argument about acceleration is bogus. Upon take off, your cruise is usually over 90%. Once entering combat you're at the upper end of the power level setting and can only go to 100% for very short periods of time. At worse you're looking at about a 20 second spool up time. This would only come into play if a 262 pilot was "asleep at the wheel" and allowed himself to get jumped at low speeds. The other time this would come into play is at takeoff and landing which is well documented.

Unless entering combat during take off and landing, "acceleration" is hardly going to be noticed, especially if you're already at higher power lever settings at higher airspeeds.

Njaco · Jan 18, 2010

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:
But it is okay to penalize the Me 262 because it was not allowed to progress like the Meteor?

How many times is this going to have to be brought up?

Exactly. I don't know how you can compare one aircraft that was suddenly stopped in its design evolution to another that was allowed to play it out.

Kinda like comparing a 2004 Mustang to a 1983 Chevy Citation.

Magnon · Jan 18, 2010

Germany and Britain destroyed each other in World War 2. At the end, Germany was a pile of rubble and Britain was bankrupt.
The economic cost of the war has been estimated at US$1500 billion.
Of this, the US spent 21%, Britain 20%, Germany 18% and the USSR 13%.
(Source: The Penguin Atlas of World History ; Hermann Kinder and Werner Hilgemann; Originally published as Atlas zur Weltgeschichte)
Relative populations were US 120m, Britain 48m, Germany 90m and USSR 200m.

Germany and Britain were akin to the 20th Century Sparta and Athens. Sparta and Athens essentially fought each other to exhaustion in the Peloponnesian War, allowing the barbaric Macedonians to move in to take over entirely. I'll leave you to guess who the equivalent modern-day barbarians might be (I'm not thinking of any one nation).

The bottom line is that both aircraft were great machines for their time. A tragedy that they were being developed to fight each other.

Adolf Galland admired his enemy. In a convestation with Hitler, he went out of his way to express this:
"...I expressed great admiration for our enemy across the water. I was embittered by several insidious and false representations and commentaries by rhe press and on radio, which had referred to the RAF in condescending and presumptuous tone. I expected contradiction or anger from Hitler when I gave him a different picture. On the contrary he did not interrupt me, not did he try to change the subject. He nodded repeatedly and said that my description confirmed his beliefs...The decison, he said, had been all the more difficult for him, to wage this life-and-death struggle, which could only end with the total destruction of one or the other... If we won the war, a vacuum would be created by the destruction of Great Britain, which it would be impossible to fill..."

In fact, as I said, there was effectively mutual destruction.

By the way, there is a lot more in this vein, and the whole book is an excellent read.

I should have said I was quoting from The First and the Last in the above

riacrato · Jan 19, 2010

Are we still talking about the Me 262 and Gloster Meteor?

Waynos · Jan 19, 2010

Yes, I found the excerpt fascinating magnon, but maybe it should be in its own thread? The potentialities of a 'no war' situation in which not only Britian and Germany, but also France, are not shattered by war are intruiging, but not really for this thread.

Kurfürst · Jan 19, 2010

Magnon said:
Germany and Britain were akin to the 20th Century Sparta and Athens. Sparta and Athens essentially fought each other to exhaustion in the Peloponnesian War, allowing the barbaric Macedonians to move in to take over entirely. I'll leave you to guess who the equivalent modern-day barbarians might be (I'm not thinking of any one nation).

Hm, though a bit offtopic, I actually like this analogue quite a bit! 8)

Colin1 · Jan 19, 2010

Magnon said:
Germany and Britain were akin to the 20th Century Sparta and Athens. Sparta and Athens essentially fought each other to exhaustion in the Peloponnesian War, allowing the barbaric Macedonians to move in to take over entirely.

I'll leave you to guess who the equivalent modern-day barbarians might be (I'm not thinking of any one nation).

...both aircraft were great machines for their time. A tragedy that they were being developed to fight each other.

Didn't the Macedonians give us the phalanx? And Alexander the Great? Can't have been that barbaric then... however, I digress, as do you - how on earth did you make the jump from 1st-generation jets to ancient history?

My guess is lawyers. Estate agents?

Tragedy? Why? War is tragedy, the development of a warplane is not. Surely the sole and unambiguous reason for a warplane's development is war? Should we wail and gnash our teeth when it expedites its role with greatness? Even the greatness of our foe's warplane isn't a tragedy, more like bloody inconvenient.

Magnon · Feb 8, 2010

The later F3 Meteors had a speed of 490 mph vs 540 for the ME 262. The Meteor had better maneuverability due to its lower wing loading. It had 862 m/s cannon vs 500 m/s for the ME 262 (72% higher velocity). This was crucial for accurate weapon aiming during dogfighting.

It had a much more reliable engine: 150 hrs TBO against 10 hrs. The output of both aircrafts' engines would deteriorate with % of allowable maximum TBO expended. Much less critical for the Meteor. The axial flow compressor was prone to surge (i.e. compressor blade stall) causing drastic loss of power during acceleration.

The Meteor had better initial acceleration and climb rate due to its higher temperature turbine blades and the Jumo's surge problems. The Jumo 004 was liable to destroy the turbine blades if acceleration was pushed too far - it needed a very high air/fuel ratio to keep temperatures down to acceptable levels.

The Meteor had a longer range due to its relatively more efficient higher pressure ratio jet engine (Derwent 4 was 3.9:1 as against the Jumo's 3:1, a margin of 30%).

Speed isn't everything. The more maneuverable Mitsubishi Zero was able to run rings around the early Allied fighters in spite of its lower speed. The early Allied fighters were reduced to hit-and-run tactics and two-on-one tactics to take out the Zero. The later Allied fighters had much better acceleration and climb rate and used these to advantage. The high thrust/weight ratio and more maneuverable subsonic Harrier was able to outfight the supersonic Mirage in the Falklands.

The Meteor had superior maneuverability and usable acceleration along with a much higher velocity dogfighting weapon.

A thought experiment: if I was given the first choice of machine in a dogfight between the Me 262 and the Meteor
- over neutral territory such as the North sea (with no prospect of rescue)
- with time since last overhaul of 5 hrs in both cases,
I would have no hesitation of choosing the latter.

Kurfürst · Feb 8, 2010

Magnon said:
It had 862 m/s cannon vs 500 m/s for the ME 262 (72% higher velocity). This was crucial for accurate weapon aiming during dogfighting.

Hi, both seem to carry the standard anti-bomber armament of 4x20mm Hispano and 4x30mm MK 108. I am not sure there's much to it, given that the armament was choosen for the tactical role the fighter was to be employed - basically it would be no trouble to replace the four MK 108s with say four MG 151/20s. Probably an even better choice would be a pair of ultra-high velocity MK 103s against both fighters and bombers, but that would sacrifice the extreme weight of fire from the quad MK 108 battery, at similar weight...

Magnon said:
It had a much more reliable engine: 150 hrs TBO against 10 hrs.

Do you have a manual for the RR jet engines perhaps? I am trying to find an accurate TBO time for them. As for the Jumo 004B, the TBO time was given as 50 hours in the manual.

Magnon said:
Speed isn't everything. The more maneuverable Mitsubishi Zero was able to run rings around the early Allied fighters in spite of its lower speed. T

But then I have to wonder what other quality made the Me 262 so deadly in face of impossible odds, if it was not massive speed advantage or why was then the more manouverable Hurricane phased out in favour of the faster Spitfire.. The Zero is an odd example - despite its high maneuverability, the Japanese designers considered the Zero to be a compromise, sacrificing maneuverability for speed; the idea was that good pilots (and they had plenty!) can outmaneuver even the more maneuverable planes, but no matter how good they are, they cant catch faster planes.

Magnon said:
A thought experiment: if I was given the first choice of machine in a dogfight between the Me 262 and the Meteor
- over neutral territory such as the North sea (with no prospect of rescue)
- with time since last overhaul of 5 hrs in both cases,
I would have no hesitation of choosing the latter.

When did the RAF began to operate the Meteor over enemy/neutral territory with no prospect of rescue..? The type was limited to operation over England for essentially its whole combat carrier in World War II..

Milosh · Feb 8, 2010

Kurfürst said:
When did the RAF began to operate the Meteor over enemy/neutral territory with no prospect of rescue..? The type was limited to operation over England for essentially its whole combat carrier in World War II..

Meteor F3s were deployed to Melsbrook Belgium on Jan 20 1945 with 616 Sqd. So ~14 weeks over continental Europe.

The first Meteor, EN219, was delivered to 616 Sqd July12 1944. So ~22 weeks over English soil.

parsifal · Feb 8, 2010

Njaco said:
Exactly. I don't know how you can compare one aircraft that was suddenly stopped in its design evolution to another that was allowed to play it out.

Kinda like comparing a 2004 Mustang to a 1983 Chevy Citation.

I kinda understand where you are coming from, but the original question posed in the thread, did not place any caveats on timeframes or development times for the respective aircraft. If we were comparing the F-14 to the me 262, these two aircraft are separated by 40 years of development. We would have no alternative othe than to compare the 1945 Me 262, to the 1985 F-14.

Same applies to our comparison of the Me 262 to the Meteor. The meteor was given time to develop and mature, the Me 262 was not. Tough break for the 262, but we are still being relevant to the original question when we compare the meteor of the Korean war, to the 262 of 1945

FLYBOYJ · Feb 8, 2010

Magnon said:
The Meteor had better initial acceleration and climb rate due to its higher temperature turbine blades and the Jumo's surge problems. The Jumo 004 was liable to destroy the turbine blades if acceleration was pushed too far - it needed a very high air/fuel ratio to keep temperatures down to acceptable levels.

I'd like to know your source for such a statement. As stated earlier, for the most part in combat acceleration is just about a nil issue unless a sleeping pilot is cruising at 80%. You're flying these jet aircraft well above 90% and either the -262 or Meteor are not going give you blazing acceleration at speed and altitude.

Please explain this "very high air/fuel ratio to keep temperatures down to acceptable levels." The most critical time for a turbine engine as far as temps are concerned is during start. You're also limited on the time you're running 100% but at the same time you could exceed the specified time for running 100% and never exceed TIT or EGT limits. So tell us - where did you come up with this stuff????

delcyros · Feb 8, 2010

Magnon said:
Sparta and Athens essentially fought each other to exhaustion in the Peloponnesian War, allowing the barbaric Macedonians to move in to take over entirely.

I am afraid but that apears to be factual incorrect if not outright wrong. The fighting between Sparta and Athens through much of the second half of the 5th century BC did not brought Macedonia to any power in ancient Greece. In fact, both city-alliances prolonged combat allowed Thebes to raise in power. Thebes is a city in Thessaly (central Greece), not Macedonia (northern Greece). The Maedonians later won over the Thebans in order to dominate Greece in the 4th century BC. Neither the Thebans nor the Macedonians were "barbaric". In both landscapes Greek was the language spoken by native speakers and both landscapes had close relations to the centers of greek culture in the timeframe in question.

best regards,

red admiral · Feb 8, 2010

The Meteor had better initial acceleration and climb rate due to its higher temperature turbine blades and the Jumo's surge problems.

Actually, the Jumo 004 was operating at higher temperatures than the British period engines (around 775°C as opposed to 750°C) which in part caused the lower life. Still you get more thrust from higher temperatures so it just depends where you want the emphasis. Acceleration and climb rate are relating more to the higher thrust/weight ratio of the Meteor. The increasing thrust ratings were mostly due to increases in mass flow rate rather than efficiency gains or higher temperatures.

As stated earlier, for the most part in combat acceleration is just about a nil issue

Acceleration isn't a non-issue in combat. It's very useful to regain speed after you've bled it off during manoeuvering, or for simply running away.

The most critical time for a turbine engine as far as temps are concerned is during start.

I seem to remember your experience is with turboshafts for helicopters? For other aircraft, it's at high altitude at the top of the climb where the engine is working hardest and temperatures are most critical - high thrust needed for climb and large temperature differential.

The meteor was given time to develop and mature, the Me 262 was not.

It's worth pointing out that the performance of the Meteor didn't really develop much post-WWII. Development was in getting a jet to work in squadron service and then adding bits like AI radar to replace wartime aircraft. There's a pretty solid line of evolution between the Meteor and the Javelin which is where the performance development comes in - it's just that the developed version of the Meteor weren't built, and eventually became the Javelin.

Do you have a manual for the RR jet engines perhaps? I am trying to find an accurate TBO time for them. As for the Jumo 004B, the TBO time was given as 50 hours in the manual.

I think figures for lifetimes during operational useage would be a more profitable comparison.

Magnon · Feb 8, 2010

"...The Jumo 004B-4 reliabillity issue was in part caused by a lack of acceleration control in the primitive centrifugal governor based fuel delivery control system, this allowed the pilot to damage the turbine blades via too fast a throttle movement which would then need to be replaced. The alloy was prone to this and its crystalline structure would be changed so that in the event of mishandling the engine needed to be pulled and the turbine replaced. The acceleration limiter was scheduled for delivery in mid April. (the less mature BMW 003 however got its). Another weakness was problems with the controls of the variable area nozzle which determined backpressure, airflow and temperature through the whole engine as well as the lack of work in developing electronics for the thermocouples to bypass fuel despite provision to do so..."

Re: First USAAF P-51 with a Merlin

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

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