ME262 flies again

silverharp

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7620890100890480&hl=en

ye might enjoy this footage

DublinWriter

Lovely.

Nicknamed the flying coffin by the Germans because of it's slow take-off and landing.

Just imagine, we could all be speaking German now had it not been for the lack of fuel for the Me 262 and the Arado jet bomber.

mike65

A slight overstatement, possibly! If the heavy water plant at Telemark had'nt be sabotaged we'd all be speaking German (or dead).

Mike.

Bam Bam

thank god for the Norwegians then

DublinWriter

mike65 wrote:

A slight overstatement, possibly! If the heavy water plant at Telemark had'nt be sabotaged we'd all be speaking German (or dead).

The German scientists were working off very flawed calculations in terms of the amount of refinfed plutionium needed to create a fissionable reaction - they reckoned that one would need a ton of the stuff to create any sizeable explosion.

Even if they did create enough heavy water and weapons grade plutionium, they wouldn't have been able to manufacture a nuclear weapon untill the mid-1950's.

It was really the allies concentrated bombing of Nazi fuel dumps that turned the tide in the end.

But the ME262 was at least a decade ahead of its time. Although the Brits claimed to be the first to develop a fighter jet, the ME262 was the first to actually see combat.

mike65

Doing some googling it looks like the ME262 was the first jet to see combat, by 2 days! The Gloster Meteor Mk 1 was first in July 27 1944 when squadron No. 616 in Maidstone Kent shot down V1s with it. The ME262 saw its first action in July 25 1944. Though the dates open to question, I've seen July 12th mentioned for the Meteor (you'd think there would be log books!).

Mike.

Dyr

Note the abscence of a certain insignia on the tail

Is'nt one of Microsofts top guys involved in some project to restore a 262 for himself? be afraid....

TerrorFirmer

mike65 wrote:

A slight overstatement, possibly! If the heavy water plant at Telemark had'nt be sabotaged we'd all be speaking German (or dead).

Mike.

Thats even more of an overstatement, even more so. German research was years behind that of the allies and rather then a totally united front the germans often had several groups working against each other to produce an atomic weapon.

At least the Me262 was an operational combat fighter, and the first jet to see active service alongside the...me163? is that it? The Komet one anyway. Had it been developed any sooner, or deployed more effectively it could have easily turned the tide of air power and as such domination of the skies would have seen the failure of the normandy landings.

doubt in the overall scheme of how the war progressed from 43-45 though it would have prevented defeat for germany. Prolonged, at best. Of course, which argument isn't really valid either as any prolongement of the war would have meant the option of a-bomb strike on germany.

edit: The Me262 was definately the first mainstream operational jet fighter. The Meteor I believe was flying tests earlier then the 262 was though - but if you include such things, the Germans has basic jet heinkel planes dating as far back as 1942 in testing.

Clare gunner

Nope,wouldnt have made the slightest bit of difference wether it was deployed in 44 or 45.It could have been deployed in early 1944 but Hitler insisted in mods to turn it into a fighter bomber.Somthing it was never concieved to do.By the time that was modified,Allied air superiority was supreme over Germany.Even by the time it was deployed it was still suffering from trouble in the jet motors,and was vunerable on takeoff and landing to landing gear failure.Thats if it wasnt jumped by P51 mustangs.[Thats how Col Chuck Yager shot down his].It became in the end quantity Vs quality.Not much good if you can field ten Me262 and the Alllies can field 50 P51s.Ok so you knock down ten of their bombers.Tomrrow the ten bombers are replaced.Can you replace two 262s and the pilots that went with them??
Plus the A bomb would proably never been used as it conflicted with Adolfs occultistic belifs.Plus there were too many Jewish scientists involved in this and Hitler dismissed the Judenchemie [Jewish chemistry] as hokum.

ALTHOUGH.There is a book called Hitler's Atomic bomb,[published last year]that claims that in March 1945 there was some sort of Test blast on one of the German North sea islands,and that those that witnessed it had all the signs of radiation burns etc.That would put an A bomb blast, if proveable ,well ahead of the Trinity balst.One would wonder if it suceeded what would have happened in the last weeks of ww2?

Wibbs

I remember this crowd were building 5 pretty much exact replicas from an original template; http://www.stormbirds.com/project/index.html

Is this one of them or a rebuild of a museum one(with new engines one supposes)?

The German plane I'd really like to see fly again would be the Stuka. Always loved them. Anybody know of any in the works?