Dear Major Walter Schmidt,
The ME 262 that I posted under German Military had its gun ports covered with some kind of plugs all these years.
When they were taking it apart to restore and make blue prints for the replicas they found the original Machine Guns were still installed.
Great pics, video clips, and info PA. Dutchman. 
Thanks for sharing.
The Germans did some amazing things with amazingly little resources through out the war.
All through the war they had issues with limited supplies, and that helped us to win. God help us if they had unlimited supplies and production as we did.
But here was a new form of powered aircraft, developed at a time when things were hard to come by all over Germany and look what the Germans did in spite of all these limitations. Sure it wasn’t perfect and thank God it wasn’t or we would have been in real trouble.
So the USA and Russia take the all ME 262s they can home with them and what do we do with them? We learn how to make our own jet planes from their ME 262. But we had all the necessary materials they didn’t, and we still screwed up.
At the Delaware Air Museum a Colonel went over the ME 262 piece by piece with me for an hour to show me all the things we used from these outstanding planes to this day.
The swept back wings. We tried to fly one in Korea (Shooting Star)without swept back wings and the ME 262 out flew it in secrets tests conducted by the US Air Force. The little piece on the edge of the wing that moves back and forth on its own is used on every jet fighter to this day. It was first used on the ME 262. The design was superior to our flying jet boxes by GE.
How many American TEST Pilots did not die because of the things we learned and used on our jets from the ME 262? Many many such advancements from the ME 262 spared many Allied Pilots in the years after the war.
Take their battle helmet they first used it in World War I. It was superior to anything anyone else had for the rest of the century. We used the old English Pot helmet in World War I and into World War II. Mean while the German helmet first designed in World War I keeps protecting their heads and ears better than anything we have.
OK now we go int Korea with the same old helmet, then Vietnam and early wars in the Middle East all the time using the old style World War II Helmet. How many men died and were permanently injured because of those old helmets. Finally after nearly 90 years the United States finally adopted the German Style helmet. The one German has been using successfully for nearly 90 years is finally adopted by the US and the United Nations.
So maybe Germany had some flaws in their early jets, but I would hate to think what we would be flying if we hadn’t captured their ME 262 and used them for our own designs.
And again the helmet after 90 years how many Americans died using a helmet that was only good for shaving out of. Too many!!
One more thing. I read a lot about the ME 262, their engine wasn’t necessary a bad design, they lacked the best metals and materials to make the best engine.
If you made the same engine today with the best of materials the engine would work great for a first attempt at a jet powered aircraft. It was in its state better than anything the English or the USA had. We never did get anything into the War to fly against it but more propeller driven planes.
If it was such an inferior plane how come every country in the world was trying to get as many as they could to take home for testing and design after the war. Check it out the US and Russia took all the good jet planes they could get home with them.
They took the U-21 Subs, both the Nautilus and the first Russian subs came from the U-21.
The Space programs were both the result of the work of the German during the war. It was God Almighty Himself that gave us the edge and the win in the end.
Much of our Best tanks and other hardware have their design traced by to a German Tank of the 1940’s.
But again it was late in the war the Germans had limited supplies of quality and necessary materials to build the engine the ME 262 needed.
It has been found that had they had the quality materials and supplies and their engine build under ideal conditions it would have done an outstanding job.
But this wasn’t the case so to get the ME 262 up and flying under the worse of war time conditions was quite a feat.
The Replicas and the Restored ME 262 are using GE jet engines close to the very same size and power ratings of the original engines.
However there is a group who is in the process of building a ME 262 with the originally designed engine, but with the best of materials. It is believed by this group the engine would have been successful had they had the time and necessary alloys to build a quality engine.
Britian and the USA had the materials and alloys and they could not come up with a working plane design to come close to the operation ME 262.
Germany had three viable jet designs as fighters. Compared to two for the British, and only one for the Americans, and none for the Russians.
Germany : He.280. Me.262, He.162 C or D.
Britain: Gloster Meteor, De Havilland Vampire.
America: Lockheed P80.
It is of significant note that the Me.262 outperformed and outmaneouvered the British and American designs. (And as has been mentioned, was doing so years after WW2.)
Therefore, Germany would actually have been wiser to curtail production of the aged Me.109 in favour of the He.280 or the He.162.
The He.280 and He.162 could very easily have served alongside the Me.262, which despite its various problems was nonetheless a superlative aircraft.
The Germans also had three very viable engines on their hands :
He. Os11, BMW 003, and Junkers 004.
Yes each of these engines did have developmental issues, but none were insurmountable.
There was basically only one “Allied” jet engine type, either the RR Derwent or DH Ghost, both of those being Whittle pattern. (The American Whittle pattern copies are essentially irrelevant, being little different from the British forebears.)
Thus, it would have made sense for Germany to have transitioned to a largely jet-powered fighter force, against which the Allies would have basically been defenceless. Therefore, upgrading the piston engine fleet would have been redundant, apart from the cases of perhaps 3 fighter aircraft families, namely:
Ta 152H, FW 190 D9, He.219.
Regards, Uyraell.
The P/F-80 Shooting Star would have been more than a match for the Me262…
Ehm can you please provide more info on P/F-80 Shooting star , maybe a little bit off topic but for first time i meet that name ( i admit i am amateur with the fighter planes )
Here’s a thread on it:
http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/polls/me262-vs-p-80-a-562.html
The P-80 was designed in late 1944 and was almost ready for operational service by the end of the war. It was generally thought to be better than the Me262 as a dogfighter, but missed operational status by a few months at the end of the war. It would serve in Korea, but was somewhat obsolete by that time and the second generation of fighters such as the MIG-15 and Sabre had left the F-80 behind…
Unfortunately, the early prototypes were riddled with problems and ended up killing America’s best ace, Richard Bong, who died as a fuel pump failed on a test flight…
Sorry to disagree, but that simply is NOT so.
When a production P80/F80 was flown in tests against an Me.262 the resulting report so scared the Americans that it was not published until the late 1990’s.
The Me.262 outperformed the P80 in all flight regimes, and only marginally lacked in acceleration.
The P80 had been designed to fight the Me. 262 but in fact would not have succeeded in that task : which the report makes very clear.
The P80 did have one virtue: it’s construction technology allowed it to be produced quickly, while replacement designs were being schemed. Yes, it would have shredded almost any propeller-driven opponent it might have met in a dogfight, but it would have been a rare event indeed had a P80 triumphed over an Me.262.
It was, among other things, this same report that began a chain of events culminating in the F86 Sabre, which is aerodynamically a clone of the Me.262, employing the same wing, and an HG series rudder. Granted, the Sabre ends up with a single, and better engine over the two of the Me.262: however: the Sabre came about to redress the deficiencies of the P80.
Respectful Regards, Uyraell.
Do you have any links to the report? Because I’ve never seen anything more favorable to the Me262 than it was pretty evenly matched and may have had a firepower advantage. The Shooting Star would almost have certainly have had a significant throttle and engine advantage as piston engine fighters such as the P-51 were capable of shooting down the 262 when “cherry-picking” over Luftwaffe aerodromes due to the engines spooling problems…
The P-80 was also clearly more maneuverable…
To be honest, I’ll have to go digging again, but the report was mentioned in two sources I can think of, off hand.
One source was a link from the site where the process of the “new build” Me.262s was detailed.
The other source comes from a book in which Colonel Watson of the USAF (the USAAF, in 1945, of course) and his jet recovery missions are mentioned. The report is mentioned shortly after the Watson section.
Memory is a little vague at this point (over a decade since I last checked all this) But I seem to recall the comparative fly-off as having taken place in two stages, between 1946 and 1947, after which the Me.262 was placed in storage. Bell Aircraft had been given the contract to refurbish the Me.262 before the flight comparison tests.
For years, in the time of my youth, there circulated a tale that 2 Me.262’s had been refurbished and flown, rather than one, this on the advice of Watson himself. I have yet to find adequate confirmation of that aspect though.
Incidentally, the same report is mentioned in Edward Maloney’s monograph on the Me.262, of which I have a copy, published approx 1967, from memory.
Regards, Uyraell.
Not buyin’ it until I see the report! 
Everything I’ve heard is the Me262 was vastly overrated and provided the P-80 had worked out all of its early kinks (like a nasty habit of killing America’s best pilots during testing), it would have been a better dogfighter…
the report is posted right here in this thread, page 12 by George Eller.
Errr… this is page 12, at least for me! Post number?
You mean page ten. After reviewing, the problem with the test was that it featured a lightened Me262 Reconnaissance version which was one or two thousand pounds lighter --not the fighter version-- against the XP-80 Which also was the less powerful test version of what would evolve into the P-80A…
The P-80A was almost 3000lbs lighter and more agile…
See this post, as there were several studies done at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio…
http://ww2incolor.com/forum/showpost.php?p=107252&postcount=142
Gentlemen, I was stunned to read on Spiegel’s WW2 page that Germany had managed to manufacture under very hasty conditions and in the last months of the war 1200 of these jets. But they were unable to get many flying effectively.
This caused me to entertain another “what if” scenario. What if, say a couple of years before the end of the war, Germany had the same 1200 or so of these planes manufactured and effectively flying. I just arbitrarily pick that time frame trying to avoid the scenario that involved a frantic effort and last ditch stand.
How would the Allies have handled such a situation if a better planned and earlier effort had been successful? Could it have possibly ended the war in Germany’s favor? I guess I am wondering if these jets were that important a fighting machine and capable of overwhelming Allied forces if introduced at an earlier date.
Just wondered what you experts thought.
Thanks
The jets would not be the problem. Nor even jet fuel. It would be the pilots.
The closing of the pilot schools in 42-43 is what caused the shortage they had more than anything else. And I have no doubt training compenent jet fighter pilots was much harder than those using prop planes.
Deaf
Never the less with these planes even with 10 pilots Germany would have a greater chance no doubt about it - it’s like me in F-18 and you in P-41 , even with some months experience i still have a chance and you not because you will fly so slowly . One thing was missing at the end - the fuel that caused the germans to stop the fighters , otherwise even 100 allied fighters wouldn’t be a problem for formation of ME-262 even with pilots with some months training , simply the Fuhrer didn’t believe the war would turn so badly against the russians that’s why such projects were delayed .If introduced earlier the allies wouldn’t stand a chance with their old planes .
Even with that utopian number of Me-262’s built the Allied would still have total air superiority. They’d still have bombed the airfields and their fighter planes would still have lurked around the German airfields, destroying the jets while starting or landing.
Well, if we assume the Me-262s were effectively deployed as the “what if” supposes, how on earth would allied bombers and fighters have been able to approach German airfields, or lurk around destroying German jets on the ground?
Am I wrong to think that 1200 such planes would be able to defend themselves against bombing and fighter plane attacks? Are you suggesting the Allies had sufficient number of planes to counter the 1200 jets?
At first glance I tend to side with Ivaylo in post 3, ie, the Allies would not have stood a chance. But I am unsure.
It seems to me that of all the “what ifs” I have seen discussed this one involving the actual manufacture of 1200 jets by the Germans coming though at the end of the war is a “what if” that might very likely have realized the greatest consequences had the Germans planned a little better and a little earlier. I always thought they had only a few of the aircraft built and those more experimental models.