GERMAN JET FIGHTER REPLICA HEADS OVERSEAS (US Gov. alarmed at "war weapon export")

AOPA Online | 1/13/06

[pabianice]

A replica of one of Germany's greatest technological triumphs late in World War II, the Messerschmitt Me.262 fighter jet, has left American soil and reached Germany after U.S. State Department officials delayed it 60 days because they saw it as a weapon of war.

The four 30 mm replica cannons aboard lack a firing mechanism and still wouldn't fire if they had one. The aircraft now has arrived in Germany where it will be reassembled by the Messerschmitt Foundation aircraft collection and flown once again.

The replica project has been taken over by a group of retired Boeing engineers operating in Everett, Washington, as Legend Flyers. The aircraft are for sale by Air Assets International/Warbird Recovery in Colorado. Messerschmitt granted five additional serial numbers. Two have been built, with three to go.

[BeHoldAPaleHorse]

Actually, I heard it was the F11F Tiger that did that. (Navy bird from Grumman.)

[Robert A Cook PE]

B-24 was the crate they boxed up the B-17 inside to ship it overseas.

B-24 beat the 17 in range, payload, and patrol time. B-29 was too late, too expensive (more than the Manhattan project!) and had unreliable engines. Among hundreds of other mechanical and design problems. But engines never were reliable.

But the 8th air force would (and Brit's) refused to let enough be released for mid-Atlantic anti-sub duties. Caused a lot of loss of life, lost of ships lost that could have been saved.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Two other Me-262 venerable points: High speed meant low, straight, flat glide slopes for landing onto grass runways: P-51 would get them as they approached the airfield landing pattern because they didn't have height to maneuver, and had to line up for the runway a long way out.

Takeoff was slow until they got some altitude because the engines didn't spool up quickly. Many were shot up before getting to high speed/higher altitude.

Fuel (ALWAYS!) was a problem at the end: Not even enough fuel to train pilots, so beginners were killed easy.

[Robert A Cook PE]

OK.

So where was the photogrpaher sitting?

120,000 feet (above curve of earth) and a Mach 3?

[Robert A Cook PE]

No, it was the F-101 Starfighter that DID shoot itself down. Y-12 couldn't mount the guns (no holes!) in the fuselage or wing leading edge because of the stealth panels and heat-resistance metal.

Spanish flier I think, NATO certainly, dived into the combat range to strafe (I know, I know - F-101 strafing .. Maybe he thought he was in a A-10 or Stuka).

While in a dive, he shot the minigun, pulled out (lower down of course but in exactly the same course) and pulled up into the bullets he had just shot.

[Robert A Cook PE]

See 145.

[hispanichoosier]

We were fortunate that the Germans weren't able to mass-produce the 262 early in WWII. This plane looks awesome.

[WestVirginiaRebel]

And they're for sale? Wish I had the money...

The State Department...where people who couldn't get jobs at the CIA or the FBI go. And it shows.

[norton]

TA 152 was the long nosed FW 190.
I didn't think Tank got into jets until after he skipped Europe, seem to remember a nice but never built jet designed for Egypt.

Tank was very, very, good and it's been a LONG time since I read up on ex-German scientists.

[rvoitier]

Thanks for the information. You guys are good.

[norton]

"That is hard to say. It delivered a huge payload, for its time. It also had enough guns to truly be a flying fortress, but since from most angles you could only shoot at most a couple guns... It did bring a lot of guys back home after taking a beating, but, you would never have gotten me in that ball...not for a million dollars."

Want a real jolt?
Wait 'till the touring B17 and B24 come to town and go quickly from '17 to '24...
"The box the B17 came in" and a far better bomb carrier (I htink there were more built as well).

[junta]

You are a right thinking man.

[norton]

Thanks, my favorite album after anything early by Dr. Hook.

[Trailerpark Badass]

Umm excuse me... the ME262 is a cool looking aircraft but comes nowhere near being the hottest-looking plane Ever.

[norton]

One of the quirks of the Korea era jets, Sabre and MIGs, was that they both grew from engineering groundwork done before Nazi Germany fell. The then allies appropriated armloads of drawings and busses full of technicians/engineers from the losers and in the early fifties the two premier fighters were clear outgrowths of the same basic format - more interesting were the different interpretations by east and west.

Also interesting were the Bell, Douglas, Ryan, Ilyushin and others that grew from more traditional (piston) engineering - the Airacomet was a snazzy design for piston power, the Fireball was a hodgepodge, Thunderjet became a transition, and the Shooting Star was, fortunately, just a tough little (read, tiny) booger that eventually outserved them all as as both transition and trainer.

[Chode]

WOW!!! that's almost a leap of faith... 8^)

[1rudeboy]

I like the SR-71, but it has no weapons. The Vigilante, on the other hand, arrrrrrrrr.

[School of Rational Thought]

Not to mention that the Germans had very few trained or experience pilots remaining at the time the Me came available.

[Bender2]

Re: "The MiG-15 was a design based on a never-built jet the Luftwaffe commissioned from Focke-Wulf. That plane was designed by the brilliant Kurt Tank and would have been known as the Ta-152"

Kurt Tank finally got his Ta 183 into the air for the Argentina Air Force as the Pulqui II...

From http://tanks45.tripod.com/Jets45/Histories/Fw-Ta183/Ta183.htm

In 1944 Kurt Tank proposed the Ta 183 (to replace the Flitzer) for a contender for the German Air Ministry's emergency fighter specification, which called for a fighter, powered by the HeS 011A turbojet be able to operate with the Me 262, but using less premium resources to make. The Ta 183 was accepted in February 1945, an order for a prototype was given at the beginning of March 1945. The Ta 183 V1 was to use the Junkers Jumo 004 turbojet, as the He S 011 was still not ready for use. The first flight was scheduled for May/ June 1945. On the 8/4/1945 Allies captured Focke-Wulf's design department, none the less work on the prototype did go on, but the Ta 183 V1 was never finished by the war's end

Dr Kurt Tank did how ever continue with the Ta 183 in Argentina from 1947, the aircraft was the "Pulqui II" it's first flight being on the 27/6/1950. Only six aircraft were made, but the program was canceled in 1954, when Dr Tank left to work for the Indian government

Photos and other info at the website...

[Bender2]

Re: I have seen the same footage of a B-24 being hit and the wing immediately crumpling due to "flak". As I recall, the cause was actually from a bomb dropped by another B-24 higher in the same formation. A direct hit on the wing by a 500 lb bomb, even if it didn't explode, would explain the catastrophic failure. Reluctance to admit an incident of friendly fire would explain the incidents attribution to a flak hit."

You are confusing different World War Two film clips.

The B-24 clip shows a B-24 being hit by flak right in the wing root, causing an explosion with the right wings folding up...

There is another almost exact incident but with another high wing design, the Martin B-26 twin engine bomber. The results are the same.

The B-17 footage shows a B-17 stick of bombs falling into the right tail elevator, knocking it off. The stricken 17 keeps flying for a while fading to the right until it goes into a spin and crashes...

I do not have links to these on the web, but I have seen them over and over in different programs for some 50 years.