Meteor in full production

WI the Meteor jet plane reached full production in 1943, would the war have ended sooner and how would the Meteor have performed in comparisen to the Spitfire?
 

MacCaulay

Banned
From what I know about it (and I could be wrong, so someone else who knows more about this back me up if I'm right), the RAF was really wary of using the Meteor over the front.
They weren't concerned about attrition, but they didn't want the Germans getting their hands on the engine. This kept the Meteor back doing intercept duties and things like that in France and Britain, since it could outrun the V1s and V2s.
So I don't know if was necessarily production you're thinking about, but more a change in how the RAF felt it needed the Meteor to be used.

But as far as how it handled compared to the Spitfire, since it flew faster, it obviously had a longer turning radius. In my opinion, they would probably want to use it as an interceptor as opposed to a fighter, unless they decided that the threat from the Me262 was great enough that it required them posting the Meteors around the known airfields where the German jets were based.
The Americans had already come up with a pretty good jet-killer in the form of a pimped-out P-51 Mustang with NAS (actually, that's where they got the idea. Someone brought it home and put it on their car.).
Then they just hit the jets while they were taking off or landing, which put them in their speed range.

So if you had, say, so hawkish Air Marshal who REALLY wanted to know how this thing worked, then maybe some Meteors could be moved forward to the front to cover Montgomery's push.
It's not something that would be needed, since the Allies had already developed doctrine to deal with the jets, but if you put a Meteor over, say Laage, then I'm sure one of the Messerschmidts would've come up to play.
 
There is a qoute I've heard of from Luftwaffe Ace Galland (don't know if its true or not though) "to get the ultimate ww2 jet fighter you put German engines in a RAF Meteor".

If they were avalable in 1943, Germany brings foward its jet in numbers and we have second generation jets such as the RAF Vampire coming into service by 1944/45ish, long with all those Luftwafe 1946 goodies. Otherwise the war turns out exactly the same with minor diffrences, the Axis don't win but the finish line might be different.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Probably less than you would expect. The Meteor, at least the first version, wasn't going to make a difference in any way that mattered to the air war. It had too short of legs to escort the Big Boys to Berlin and wasn't going to be any more of a force in CAR than the excellent Tempest & Typhoon.
 
The Meteor III is superior to the Tempest V in almost all departments. If it were not for the heaviness of its ailerons and the consequent poor maneuverability in the rolling plane, and the adverse effect of snaking on it as a gun platform, it would be a comparable all-round fighter with greatly increased performance.

http://www.vectorsite.net/avmeteor.html


So Me 262 was not the only jet that had problems with snaking at speed. Also as I recall it was not as fast the oft quoted Mk 4 -580mph. This site says 75mph slower or ~ 500mph?

http://www.fighter-planes.com/info/meteor.htm
This site says 490mph for the Mk III.

But the mark I was the 1943 model and even slower ~ 415-417mph. How fast was the Spitfire in 1943/44?

From the history there is a 2 year window for earlier Meteor production, since Whittle had difficulty getting another company to come onboard to develope and produce the jet.

http://www.fighter-planes.com/info/meteor.htm
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
There is a qoute I've heard of from Luftwaffe Ace Galland (don't know if its true or not though) "to get the ultimate ww2 jet fighter you put German engines in a RAF Meteor".

If they were avalable in 1943, Germany brings foward its jet in numbers and we have second generation jets such as the RAF Vampire coming into service by 1944/45ish, long with all those Luftwafe 1946 goodies. Otherwise the war turns out exactly the same with minor diffrences, the Axis don't win but the finish line might be different.

Rather the other way around. The RR engines were the class of the world.
 
Rather the other way around. The RR engines were the class of the world.


I gather that by 1945 the germans had developed a new alloy for these pesky jet turbine engines for the improved Jumo 004D & Jumo 004E, both of which where to be put into mass production and service by mid 1945.

When the Americans were testing the Me-262 after the war they quickly ran out of available engines , so the got the blue prints for these engines and the new steel alloy for these engines and built some. When tested the improved engines got 500 hours on bench tests and 150 hours in operation. These figures are comparable to the Meteor engines that got ~ 475 hours on bench tests and 175 hours operationally. The original Jumo 004B engine got 100 hours on bench tests and was designed to last 35 hours operationally but because of the fuel dump problem they usually only lasted 10-25 hours, so the Jumo 004D/E were destined to be a quantum leap in reliablitiy bringing nearly up to the Meteor engine levels.

In addition to increased thrust, these Jumo 004D/E were also supposed to featured a control device to prevent the notorious fuel dumping problem that plagued the earlier jet engines. ...which may also help to explain the huge leap in operational reliablity.
 
I gather that by 1945 the germans had developed a new alloy for these pesky jet turbine engines for the improved Jumo 004D & Jumo 004E, both of which where to be put into mass production and service by mid 1945.

When the Americans were testing the Me-262 after the war they quickly ran out of available engines , so the got the blue prints for these engines and the new steel alloy for these engines and built some. When tested the improved engines got 500 hours on bench tests and 150 hours in operation. These figures are comparable to the Meteor engines that got ~ 475 hours on bench tests and 175 hours operationally. The original Jumo 004B engine got 100 hours on bench tests and was designed to last 35 hours operationally but because of the fuel dump problem they usually only lasted 10-25 hours, so the Jumo 004D/E were destined to be a quantum leap in reliablitiy bringing nearly up to the Meteor engine levels.

In addition to increased thrust, these Jumo 004D/E were also supposed to featured a control device to prevent the notorious fuel dumping problem that plagued the earlier jet engines. ...which may also help to explain the huge leap in operational reliablity.

Yet you dont see derivatives of those in the Mig15.....
 
Not sure what you mean, the Mig 15 got the British engine, since the german one was not in production.

They had the German design and not the Nene. Once Britain gave them Nene they retro-engineered their VK-1 version. That was more difficult than using the German design with better metallurgy in the turbine blades. They refused to pay licence fees for manufacturing the copy and obtained the technology for free. That design powered the Mig 15 & 17 as well as many Western aircraft. It was not until the Avon and it's contemporaries entered production that axial flow engines outperformed the centrifugal Nenes. This shows the wisdom of Whittle in putting the main effort in producing the centrifugal flow engine.
 
They had the German design and not the Nene. Once Britain gave them Nene they retro-engineered their VK-1 version. That was more difficult than using the German design with better metallurgy in the turbine blades. They refused to pay licence fees for manufacturing the copy and obtained the technology for free. That design powered the Mig 15 & 17 as well as many Western aircraft. It was not until the Avon and it's contemporaries entered production that axial flow engines outperformed the centrifugal Nenes. This shows the wisdom of Whittle in putting the main effort in producing the centrifugal flow engine.


The Jumo 004D/E never entered production, since the war ended before they could, so no jigs etc and probably insufficent new alloys. The Americans seemed to have captured alot more, so they were able to build some for there research into the Me-262.
 
The Jumo 004D/E never entered production, since the war ended before they could, so no jigs etc and probably insufficent new alloys. The Americans seemed to have captured a lot more, so they were able to build some for there research into the Me-262.

The Russians didn't rely on captured jigs or factories they had captured the plans and that was enough for them. Then as soon as they were given 75 RR Nenes and Derwents they reverse engineered them toot sweet. So then you had the spectacle of both sides in the Korean war using their versions of the Nene, Russia with the Klimov VK-1 and America with the Pratt and Whitney J-42 Turbo Wasp.
 
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