Dogfight between Gloster Meteor and ME262

Its a very niche subject studied by obsessed and angry people, like me!

I just wanted to say thank you, I needed this. It made me laugh! Speaking as another passionate student of a different niche historical / engineering topic I get where you are coming from.

Michael
 
Depends on when the clash took place, as has already been mentioned both aircraft had various models which changed their performance.



Well a British government, which was led by a different party than during the war*. Once the first shipment had been made and the damage done there wasn't really any point in limiting overseas sales then.

*Yes I know Labour was part of the Churchill war ministry.
ah ok.

I was thinking about first gen of both fighters really. Both were developed around the same time (Although the ME262 became operational earlier) so let's say August / September 1944, just after the Meteor became operational. They randomly get lost and single fighters of each meet up over the channel?
 
In September 1944 the ME 262 would have the Meteor for breakfast. With a 100mph speed advantage they can control the engagement from start to finish (provided the engines didn't burn out), and they are all flown by specially chosen experts.
 
If the contact occured in 1944 then the F1 might stand a chance because in 1944 most Me262 sorties were fighter-bomber mission, I think they peaked at 58 sorties in a day in December. The pure fighter sorties peaked at 55 in a day in March 45, by then there were Meteor F3s in Belgium.
 
In September 1944 the ME 262 would have the Meteor for breakfast. With a 100mph speed advantage they can control the engagement from start to finish (provided the engines didn't burn out), and they are all flown by specially chosen experts.

I have strong doubts about that, even though my previous post referred to the more likely frametime for an engagement, spring 1945.

In September 1944 there is that speed gap, yes. So what? Assuming the ideal level field conditions proposed in the OP, both fighters turn to face the enemy and start accelerating from cruise speed, because both are bad at quick acceleration and therefore both pilots decide they need to bank speed.
So you have a first ballistic contact in which the combined speed is such that the two targets are in range of each other for a small fraction of a second - chances are both pilots miss.

And then? As mentioned, both fighters are bad at real dogfighting because they are as maneuverable as a 18-wheeler, and all the more so at top speed. With equally skilled pilots, they can probably only achieve another frontal pass - with probably the same result. The speed advantage would count only if the Meteor decides to break contact first, which is unlikely both for strategic reason and because this fact would be obvious to the British pilot too.
 
'Dogfighting' sucks anyway, the Japanese fighters were great dogfighters and got flogged by good divers like the P40 and Wildcat.

However, you're stuck with what you get, so these jets might well find themselves in a turning fight.
 
Just the nacelles would allow the F.3 to tangle with the Me 262 and Ar 234, even with Derwent III-IVs and long wings.
So it would, most on-line sites – for what they're worth – seem to credit the lengthened nacelles with improving the F Mk.III's top speed by 75 mph which would put it roughly level with the Me 262.
 
So it would, most on-line sites – for what they're worth – seem to credit the lengthened nacelles with improving the F Mk.III's top speed by 75 mph which would put it roughly level with the Me 262.

With these early jets it gets a bit weird, with the interplay of speed and mach number. Iiuc with the long nacelles the meteor was faster in level flight than the 263 but had a mach limit of .8 whereas the 262 had a mach limit of .84. I don't know how that works, probably altitude and air conditions.
 
I understood that the Meteor was relatively maneuverable?

In trials it could match a Typhoon apparently?

Okay a Tiff is not a Spit but its no slouch

I know the 262 turned like an oil tanker but its prey was B17 and B24 so in its principle role it did not matter - I am not so sure it would far well in a turning fight and I would be surprised if a pilot allowed himself to do so at that stage in the war - Boom and Zoom or is it....?

And while the Germans shoved 'expertan' into their fighters my understanding is that No 616 Squadron RAF was staffed with experienced pilots as well - and don't forget that the 'Plan' was delivering very well trained 'Rookies' in large numbers

So a early 45 clash of 262 verses Meteor - I think would depend on positioning and Pilot skill - with the 262 having a marginal advantage in speed (negligible) and the Meteor having the advantage in turn and armament*


*the Mk5 20mm Hispanio 404s (firing a 20mm shell at 850 RPM at 879 M/S) being better suited for this type of fight over the slower firing and slower velocity shell (MK108 fired a 30mm shell at 540 M/S at 650 RPM)

The larger German shell made more sense when being used against a B17 or B24 as with its 85grams of rdx explosive (verses 14 grams in the 20mm) it took only a handful of hits to disable the bombers
 
With these early jets it gets a bit weird, with the interplay of speed and mach number. Iiuc with the long nacelles the meteor was faster in level flight than the 263 but had a mach limit of .8 whereas the 262 had a mach limit of .84. I don't know how that works, probably altitude and air conditions.
Speed of sound in metres/second is the square root of (gamma x R x T), where gamma is the ratio of specific heats (Cp/Cv: =1.4 for air), R is the universal gas constant (=287) and T is the gas temperature in Kelvin (= temperature in Centigrade + 273.16°). Altitude has got nothing to do with it, except that temperature usually goes down with altitude.
Limiting Mach will usually be in a dive or at high altitude for the early jets (low temp -> low limiting Mach), while limiting speed will probably come from lack of thrust to get there. That rather suggests that at low altitudes the Meteor may have actually been able to go faster than an Me-262.
 
Speed of sound in metres/second is the square root of (gamma x R x T), where gamma is the ratio of specific heats (Cp/Cv: =1.4 for air), R is the universal gas constant (=287) and T is the gas temperature in Kelvin (= temperature in Centigrade + 273.16°). Altitude has got nothing to do with it, except that temperature usually goes down with altitude.
Limiting Mach will usually be in a dive or at high altitude for the early jets (low temp -> low limiting Mach), while limiting speed will probably come from lack of thrust to get there. That rather suggests that at low altitudes the Meteor may have actually been able to go faster than an Me-262.

I found the old docs concerning the Meteor, they make interesting reading.

Meteor III production batch, engines and speeds.
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/meteor/meteor3-9jan45.jpg

Meteor deployments in March 1945.
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/meteor/meteor-squadrons-16march45.pdf

Edit; has anyone seen an Me262 up close? There is an unrestored one at the Australian War Memorial, and it is a real piece of shit. Its thrown together with whatever garbage materials they could lay their hands on, so an F3-262 fight might depend on how well or poorly built that particular 262 was and it is likely to fall apart under the strain of combat or not.
 
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OK, so if I've understood that correctly the majority of aircraft in spring 1945 would have had the B.37 engines with the original thrust levels, capable of 435 mph (true?) air speed at sea level and 465 mph at 30,000 ft.
They also have a critical Mach (?) restriction of 500 mph (indicated = 560 mph true) up to 6,500 ft reducing to 300 mph (indicated = 485 mph true) at 30,000 ft.

From memory the Me-262 engine had an expected life of 10 hours, and when the pilots complained they were told that their life expectancy was shorter than that anyway, so why were they complaining? I think I remember an account (Galland's book maybe?) of engine failures being a common occurrence, after which the pilots were just trying to survive and the aircraft was a slow target.
http://www.airpages.ru/eng/lw/me262.shtml is the only source I can find which gives variation in speed with altitude - that suggests that the Me-262 could achieve just over 500 mph in level flight, ~40 mph faster than the Meteor.
 
From memory the Me-262 engine had an expected life of 10 hours, and when the pilots complained they were told that their life expectancy was shorter than that anyway, so why were they complaining? I think I remember an account (Galland's book maybe?) of engine failures being a common occurrence, after which the pilots were just trying to survive and the aircraft was a slow target.
Galland is reputed to have said that the ideal first generation jet fighter would be the ME 262 equipped with the Meteor's engines. As he flew both his opinion seams a reasonable one.
 
Which makes politics a strange bed fellow when you consider after war British governments simply handing such engines over......
Churchill was kicked out before the War was over. Clement Attlee's Labour Party curbstomped Conservatives across the board.

Now he was anti-Communist. Very much so.

But that didn't carry over across the new Government

Over in the Ministry of Trade, with Cripps and Wilson, that was another story.
That's how the Nene and Derwent were shipped over. Some in the UK even though Wilson was an actual spy.
 

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Galland is reputed to have said that the ideal first generation jet fighter would be the ME 262 equipped with the Meteor's engines. As he flew both his opinion seams a reasonable one.
Was that Galland? I've read that Eric Brown the legendary test pilot said the same thing.
 
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Churchill was kicked out before the War was over.

Well, before the Pacific War was over. But certainly well after the war in the ETO was over.

Point taken, though, about Cripps and Wilson having their own agendas which may not have synced up with Attlee's.
 

Deleted member 1487

From memory the Me-262 engine had an expected life of 10 hours, and when the pilots complained they were told that their life expectancy was shorter than that anyway, so why were they complaining? I think I remember an account (Galland's book maybe?) of engine failures being a common occurrence, after which the pilots were just trying to survive and the aircraft was a slow target.
http://www.airpages.ru/eng/lw/me262.shtml is the only source I can find which gives variation in speed with altitude - that suggests that the Me-262 could achieve just over 500 mph in level flight, ~40 mph faster than the Meteor.
The average life was 10 hours because pilots were treating the aircraft like a piston engine and flaming out the engines through too fast of acceleration. That cut the average life of the engines in service to less than half their rated 25 hour service life due to flame outs weakening the blades, which used a less heat resistant alloy than the original design. The frequency of flame outs due to pilot error forced them to add an aerial restart mechanism before realizing they needed to just add a restrictor to the throttle to prevent the flameouts in the first place.
Keep in mind that was the first model of Jumo 004B, later versions increased engine life substantially as did better training and the throttle restrictor. The models about to phase into production in 1945 when the war ended with rated for 50-100 hours life.

There is a good book on the various German wartime jet engine projects:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/p/ge...MIwfuA64D05AIVaf7jBx0gBgTdEAQYAiABEgJmJPD_BwE
 
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