AHC: WW2 jet-on-jet battles

It did provide the 262 with a higher critical mach number than Allied jets.

As I understand it the Me262 had a Mach limit of .84 and the Meteor .80, but I don't know if that's a long nacelle F3, short wing F4 or even an F8. The 262 had a never exceed speed of 595mph, I think the Meteor could top 600mph in a pinch.

How much of that .84 was due to the wing sweep?
 
As I understand it the Me262 had a Mach limit of .84 and the Meteor .80, but I don't know if that's a long nacelle F3, short wing F4 or even an F8. The 262 had a never exceed speed of 595mph, I think the Meteor could top 600mph in a pinch.

How much of that .84 was due to the wing sweep?

0000000comp.jpg


The aircraft on the right is a Hawk trainer, with 23.5 degree sweep at 1/4 chord. It is cleared for supersonic speed in a dive, and has been tested above mach 1.2. During development, it encountered snaking at high speed, like Meteor, but it was fixed by something called Fred's Back End. It encountered "phantom dive" like Meteor, but that was fixed. It was originally drawn with a straight wing, but a little sweep made it better. How much better, I don't know. I can't use my supersonic wind tunnel, because the neighbors complain about the noise.
 
Damn NIMBYs, they just can't see the big picture.

Maybe if you explained the fine details of critical mach numbers and wing sweep, perhaps with reference to the low power and short running life of German axial flow jets compared to British centrifugal flow jets, they'd come around.
 

FBKampfer

Banned
The thing that's always stuck me is that the 262 and it's Jumo 004's were basically prototypes for the late 1940's and early 1950's jets, while the Meteor and it's Derwent's were more like the designers were thinking "fuck it, the thing functions. It might not scale up very well, but we can start fresh later".

Which I think illustrates that the UK and the Allies had the luxury of more wiggle room in their R&D.

The Germans, reasonably, felt pressure to design not just for 1942 and 1943, but 45, 46, and 47, as lack of foreplanning had bitten them in the ass before.

They just weren't in a winning situation regardless of what they designed, and so now we're here 75 years later calling them dummies.
 
The thing that's always stuck me is that the 262 and it's Jumo 004's were basically prototypes for the late 1940's and early 1950's jets, while the Meteor and it's Derwent's were more like the designers were thinking "fuck it, the thing functions. It might not scale up very well, but we can start fresh later".
Jumos were dead ends, as were the BMWs, but there was one unit that had promise, it formed the turboprop for the Bear. All the other designs the Soviets tried to improve with better metals, they had plenty of Chromium.

So stuck with duds, they asked to Brits to sell them the Nene and Derwent.
And they were stupid enough to do it.
 
The thing that's always stuck me is that the 262 and it's Jumo 004's were basically prototypes for the late 1940's and early 1950's jets, while the Meteor and it's Derwent's were more like the designers were thinking "fuck it, the thing functions. It might not scale up very well, but we can start fresh later".

Which I think illustrates that the UK and the Allies had the luxury of more wiggle room in their R&D.

The Germans, reasonably, felt pressure to design not just for 1942 and 1943, but 45, 46, and 47, as lack of foreplanning had bitten them in the ass before.

They just weren't in a winning situation regardless of what they designed, and so now we're here 75 years later calling them dummies.

Funnily enough the first German jets were Ohain's HeS 1 and HeS 3 which were both centrifugal compressors and the advanced HeS 011 had both axial and centrifugal compressor stages.

As for the British, the axial compressor was Metrovick F1 and F2 running in 1941 and flown in a Meteor in 1943 but considered it unreliable due mainly to overheating.

Both side made their choices for their own reasons.

Jumos were dead ends, as were the BMWs, but there was one unit that had promise, it formed the turboprop for the Bear. All the other designs the Soviets tried to improve with better metals, they had plenty of Chromium.

So stuck with duds, they asked to Brits to sell them the Nene and Derwent.
And they were stupid enough to do it.

The Whittle and original Derwent were dead ends too, they didn't last beyond the earliest Meteors. The Nene and other centrifugal flow engines lasted longer, but in the end for fast aircraft the axial flow jet pioneered in combat by the Germans was the winner.
 
Jumos were dead ends, as were the BMWs, but there was one unit that had promise, it formed the turboprop for the Bear. All the other designs the Soviets tried to improve with better metals, they had plenty of Chromium.

So stuck with duds, they asked to Brits to sell them the Nene and Derwent.
And they were stupid enough to do it.

Not the brightest move of any post war UK government, Tory or Labour
Another deadend was the axial flow Lockheed.
 
Top