Posted on 05/23/2006 8:47:03 AM PDT by yooling
Ping to post 73 for Howard Ellsworth's escape from Germany in an Me-262.
I worked with him in the Pentagon 1977-1980. He is a great guy. Someone else told me the outline of his story, so I marched into Howard's office with two cups of coffee and said nothing we were doing that morning was as important to me as hearing his story. So he told me, in a lot more detail than is reported here.
BTTT
You have no idea how lucky we were.
"Dude! Talk about knowing your obscure tunes. I went to allofmp3.com, and found 3 versions of that song."
When I was a teenager, it wasn't obscure at all. "Secret Treaties" was one of the more popular records I can think of from mid-70's hard rock.. at least in my area and circles.
Heh.. and here we are talking about Blue Oyster Cult on an aviation thread...
I saw a B-24 flying yesterday...... he was about 1500 feet or so and slowly cruising by.
I was suprised at how short it was. It seemed stubby.
It was visiting here and you could go for a ride for $400.
BTTT
We were lucky that he had the patience of a hungry dog and didn't wait a few years to try and take over the world.
With December 1944 on the photos at San Bernardino, it probably wasn't the one Howard Ellsworth flew. My best guess is that it was captured on the ground when we over-ran a German airbase a month or two earlier. Perhaps a "hangar queen" the Germans couldn't fly out before we took the base.
True: On the ground as the Army came forward.
I doubt the ME-262 was captured in the air and pulled over to change pilots. 8<)
All possible, sure would love to know what happened.
There are a few other possibilities. It might have been shot down or had engine trouble and crash-landed in Allied territory, or a German pilot might have defected. In any case, I also would like to know how we got it.
The MiG is not a German design, but benefitted from German aerodynamic research. Germany would have taken at least another two years to get a swept-wing jet into production, and that was two years that the Nazi regime didn't have. There was nothing but sketches of a MiG-like design in 1945.
The engine of the MiG-15 is a copy of a Rolls Royce Nene centrifugal-flow turbojet. Over various objections, the Labour government sold the Russians a small quantity, I believe 15, of these engines.
While the US got the leading rocket guys and aerodynamicists, the Russians scarfed up the leading turbojet guys, which helped the Russians make the move to axial compressors (as the Germans had been using) later in the fifties.
The only Allied nations to use significant numbers of Axis aircraft postwar were France and Czechoslovakia. France used Ju52s and Storches, for which she had profuction plants, and Nakajima Hayabusas, which were surrendered by Japan, for several years. Cs used the Me 262 briefly, and the Me 109 for a number of years, until after the Communist coup the Air Force was purged and Soviet model fighters were provided. The Czech republic (Reichsprotektorat Böhmen und Möhren) had the factories for 262, 109, Jumo 211 engines, and the smaller Walter aero engines.
Other nations used onesies and twosies for testing.
Some nations still operate the MiG-15 UTI (training variant), and Romania was still running Il-28s which use the same motor two years ago or so. There are some civilian registered MiG-15 and -15UTI in the USA. A dangerous plane, with high fuel burn and very long runways required. Without drop tanks (which cannot be dropped inflight, that mechanism must be disabled), and flying on internal fuel only, you barely have VFR reserves to fly the pattern.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
You got any references for those claims?
I'd like to believe them, but they're not my recollection of the events.
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