Zyzygie’s Mumbles and Rambles

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Me 262 Shot Down By Allied Fighter:

Superior In Speed, But Not maneuverability

The Me 262 was the first operational jet powered aircraft in the world, designed by Messerschmitt and introduced into the war in April of 1944. Jet propulsion was explored by the Germans before the war even started, but engine and other problems prevented them from being widely used. Although their production ended at the conclusion of World War II,

1400 did make it off the assembly lines and managed to get over 500 kills during their short service

Real Footage Of Me 262 Shot Down By Allied Fighter
 
GrauGeist said:
Where ever you cut-n-pasted that from, they had it wrong.
Czechoslovakia continued to build and operate the Me262 as the Avia S-92/CS-92, retiring it from service by the early 50"s.
Click to expand...

Great... thanks Grau. Some good information there.
But they only made about twelve:

The S-92 project​
"Although no completed plane was available, the Czechoslovaks had at their disposal complete blueprints, some completed sub-assemblies, a wide variety of parts, the technical manuals, and most importantly the production jigs and tooling needed to build the Me-262."

"...The type's major problem was the engines.The M-04 (clone of the Jumo 004) was an axial-compression turbojet. It was started by a very small pull-start piston engine inside the intake spike."

"...During WWII, the Jumo 004 needed to be maintained before and after every flight, and had an overall lifespan of only about 30 flight hours. [actually less than half that]. In Czechoslovak service, this was doubled on the M-04 to about 60 flight hours (although maintenance was still needed after every flight). This is not to imply that the Czechoslovak pilots were better than their German counterparts, rather, in peacetime the Czechoslovaks could gingerly work the throttles while taxiing and during the initial climb, whereas the Luftwaffe pilots needed to get the plane in the air as fast as possible..."

"...Finally, although there were no more crashes after the first plane, the S-92 pilots were terrified of the constant engine problems and most thought it was just a matter of time before another went down..."

"...The Avia S-92 first flew on 27 September 1946."
"...In 1950, the S-92 was pulled from squadron service and reassigned as ground training planes. The three CS-92 trainers continued in use until 1951."

The S-92: Czechoslovakia's Me-262

Hmm... why would it have such a short service life... even in peacetime?

Not like the Swiss Air Force where they kept Vampires in reserve until 1988, and the last was retired in 1994, after having been used as a target tug.
 
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bada said:
So, you only provide general Technics quotes. That's nice, this way I can also prove you my Honda engine is much better than any American V6/V8 engine because it's better engineered.

But is it actually better?!?
Click to expand...

Maybe the better analogy would be with something like this?

"...The Trabant's build quality was poor, reliability was terrible, closer inspection revealed "patchy assembly quality", with an atrocious maintenance record..."

Trabant - Wikipedia

But the analogy may be justified insofar that in both cases, the bad engineering was totally the result of the incompetent leadership of the Country.
 

I have driven a Trabant. All I can say is it was rough.

Cheers,
Biff
 
Zyzygie said:
"...The type's major problem was the engines.The M-04 (clone of the Jumo 004) was an axial-compression turbojet. It was started by a very small pull-start piston engine inside the intake spike."
Click to expand...
Not sure why the starter in the nose-cone of the M-04 comes as a surprise, that's the exact same location the Jumo's Reidell starter engine was.
Zyzygie said:
Hmm... why would it have such a short service life... even in peacetime?
Click to expand...
Because the Communists took over in 1948 and cleaned house. All the German and native-built equipment was cleaned out and replaced with Soviet equipment.
This holds true in other nations that were taken over by the Soviet Union, like Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary.
 
"...Because the Communists took over in 1948 and cleaned house. All the German and native-built equipment was cleaned out and replaced with Soviet equipment.
This holds true in other nations that were taken over by the Soviet Union, like Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary..."

There were plenty of other reasons to bail out:

"...Of course this did not "guarantee" a certain number of hours and the M-04 engines might have problems on the first flight. A cause of breakdowns was found to be opening or slowing the throttle too fast. Another problem was the engine flaming out during a sharp maneuver. Another problem (not directly caused by the engine design itself) was asymmetrical thrust in the event of one engine failure. The S-92 could safely fly on a single engine however in a jet, this was different to the twin engine propeller planes the pilots were used to. A dead engine on a piston-powered plane can be shut down and have it's propeller feathered. On the S-92, a dead M-04 was simply drag off the plane's axis. It took certain skill to use the rudder and wings to keep the S-92 in the air with one engine out..."

The S-92: Czechoslovakia's Me-262
 
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I told you why.

Pasting some bit about an engine failure in a twin-engined jet has no bearing on why the Communists made Czechoslovakia get rid of their non-Soviet hardware.

Where do you think the Israelis got their S-199s and the Syrians got their Pzkfw IV and StuG III tanks?
 
There were plenty of other reasons to bail out:

"...Of course this did not "guarantee" a certain number of hours and the M-04 engines might have problems on the first flight. A cause of breakdowns was found to be opening or slowing the throttle too fast. Another problem was the engine flaming out during a sharp maneuver. Another problem (not directly caused by the engine design itself) was asymmetrical thrust in the event of one engine failure. The S-92 could safely fly on a single engine however in a jet, this was different to the twin engine propeller planes the pilots were used to. A dead engine on a piston-powered plane can be shut down and have it's propeller feathered. On the S-92, a dead M-04 was simply drag off the plane's axis. It took certain skill to use the rudder and wings to keep the S-92 in the air with one engine out..."

"...Once the engine hit its lifespan limit, it could be factory-rebuilt. However, the Czechoslovaks found that the M-04 suffered from a type of metal [failure] called creep, and this was inherent to the Junkers design with no fix. After 300 hours or so of total flight time, it was not possible to refurbish the engine again and it had to be scrapped..."
 
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On the face of it, the Me 262 has some problems apart from its engines in terms of general air combat. But this is well outside my area of expertise:



WWIIaircraftperformance.org​




That's certainly not to denigrate in the least the prowess of the Me 262 as a bomber destroyer.
 
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Why do people persist in using later Meteor marks performance data against the Me262's?

The Meteor F.1 and F.3 had service ceilings comparable to the Me262. It wasn't until the F.4 and later, that the ceiling height was much improved...
 
GrauGeist said:
Why do people persist in using later Meteor marks performance data against the Me262's?

The Meteor F.1 and F.3 had service ceilings comparable to the Me262. It wasn't until the F.4 and later, that the ceiling height was much improved...
Click to expand...

Meteor F3 service ceiling with 2000 lb static thrust engines - 45,000 ft (13,710 m):

 

Read it again - it says
Service Ceiling Maximum weight 45,000 ft
Service Ceiling Mean Weight 46,000 ft

But OK I see now it had 2200 lb thrust engines as tested, not 2000 as was used in service.

2400 lb was not to be delivered until the autumn. My mistake.

The F4 was much lighter than the F8...

The time to climb to 30,000 ft for the F4 was 5 minutes. For the F8 it was 5.8 minutes.
 
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This is the performance curve for 2000 lb thrust engines. 13,000 lb. weight. It seems the maximum ceiling was still 40,000 ft or 12,190 metres.




spitfireperformance.com
 
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