Posted on 01/13/2006 8:14:42 AM PST by 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.
I read Yeager's autobiography last summer. It talked about how he was the first one to be able to shoot an ME-262 down. He developed a little pullup maneuver at slow speed in a type of arc, with machine guns blazing in a spray pattern. I highly recommend the book.
Thought so. Didn't think there was any jet to jet combat in WWII.
I've been trying to find the drones at AMARC, but I can't quite make them out from the resolution of Google Earth (which just came out for Mac, and I've been compulsively surfing it this weekend). The Google Earth images still have a fair number of intact B-52s, and I think they've all been chopped up and carted off, so I think the pics are a few years old.
AMARC also had a number of Titan II boosters when I was there, decommissioned as ICBMs and mothballed for use as satellite launch vehicles. I think they've completely depleted that stock.
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