WI F-80 Shooting Star had been available in 1945?

Blair152

Banned
The last years of World War II was the beginning of the jet age. You had two
jets already in service by 1945: The Messerschmitt Me. 262 Schwabel, (Swallow), and the British Gloster Meteor. However, there was a third jet that
never made it into service that year. What if the Lockheed F-80 Shooting Star had been available in 1945?
 

CalBear

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It WAS available, albeit in small numbers.

The Americans would do (and DID BTW) the same thing as the RAF, fly it over territory they already controlled to prevent the engine from falling into enemy hands.
 
The USAAF had P-80 demonstrators In Europe PRIOR TO V-E day. Primarily to show that the US was not asleep. As I understand it P-80s would of been sent to the Pacific in order to support either operations Olympic or Coronet. Personally IMO the P-80 would of eaten the ME-262s lunch. While the 262 had heaivier arament the 20 and 30mm have a much slower rate of fire. One of the reasons the US retained heavy MGs in their fighters as long as they did. Of course some will say that the Luftwaffe would of had an edge in pilot experience. I really wonder about that as the USAAF had a deep pool of experienced pilots due to the rotation system and I have no doubt that they would of been able to get sufficient pilots to sign up for a tour flying the hottest fighter in the inventory

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/polls/me262-vs-p-80-a-562.html
 
I seem to recall hearing somewhere that the USAAF had a flyoff between the Shooting Star and the Schwalbe and found out that the perfermance of the two fighters was nearly identical...
 

CalBear

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I seem to recall hearing somewhere that the USAAF had a flyoff between the Shooting Star and the Schwalbe and found out that the perfermance of the two fighters was nearly identical...

Chuck Yeager discusses that test briefly in his auto-biography.
 
Well, they have all but won the war at that time, and anything they had outclassed the Japanese, so I imagine that if they really have needed it ...
 
It only got off the ground due to british engineering.

The second prototype, designated XP-80A, was designed for the larger General Electric I-40 (a copied Rolls-Royce Derwent engine, later produced by Allison as the J33) engine,

You seem to have some trouble with the concept that Allies help each other out, and new developments come on the shoulders of the old. Calling the J33 a copied Derwent when it has twice the power and a considerably better thrust to weight ratio is pretty much the same as calling the later RR Nene a copy of the J33.

On topic: yeah, absolutely no changes.
 
The last years of World War II was the beginning of the jet age. You had two
jets already in service by 1945: The Messerschmitt Me. 262 Schwabel, (Swallow), and the British Gloster Meteor. However, there was a third jet that
never made it into service that year. What if the Lockheed F-80 Shooting Star had been available in 1945?

There was reportedly a USAAF P-80A unit in Italy, that was 15 minutes from it's first combat sortie, with the aircraft, when Kesselring agreed to a unconditional surrender of all German Forces in Italy...
 

Blair152

Banned
It WAS available, albeit in small numbers.

The Americans would do (and DID BTW) the same thing as the RAF, fly it over territory they already controlled to prevent the engine from falling into enemy hands.
Be that as it may, CalBear, I'm talking about large enough numbers to completely overwhelm something like the Me 262, and potentially, the Volksjager. Hitler wanted a fighter simple enough for the Hitler Youth to use.
 

Blair152

Banned
You seem to have some trouble with the concept that Allies help each other out, and new developments come on the shoulders of the old. Calling the J33 a copied Derwent when it has twice the power and a considerably better thrust to weight ratio is pretty much the same as calling the later RR Nene a copy of the J33.

On topic: yeah, absolutely no changes.
No, I don't. The first jet engine sent to this country from Britain was the Whittle engine. That was used in the Bell XP-59 Airacomet. Frank Whittle, and a German scientist, I forget his name, but it wasn't Willy Messerschmitt,
or Wernher von Braun, invented the jet engine independently of each other.
Frank Whittle wrote a paper on jet propulsion in 1928.
 
But you have to remember is the British had a prototype Jet aircraft in 1940 called the G-40

gloster_g-40.jpg
 
No, I don't.

Since I wasn't talking to you...

The first jet engine sent to this country from Britain was the Whittle engine. That was used in the Bell XP-59 Airacomet. Frank Whittle, and a German scientist, I forget his name, but it wasn't Willy Messerschmitt,
or Wernher von Braun, invented the jet engine independently of each other.
Frank Whittle wrote a paper on jet propulsion in 1928.

What in God's name is this restating of the obvious supposed to be relevant towards?
 

Blair152

Banned
It WAS available, albeit in small numbers.

The Americans would do (and DID BTW) the same thing as the RAF, fly it over territory they already controlled to prevent the engine from falling into enemy hands.
The RAF flew the Meteor against the V1s if I'm not mistaken. Still, a dogfight
between the Me. 262 and British and American jets would have been great had it been available in greater numbers. As it was, the Me. 262 was a day
late and a Reichsmark short. Hitler didn't know if he wanted a pure fighter or a fighter-bomber. Hitler wanted it to do both but the Arado Ar. 240 would have been better suited for the fighter-bomber role.
 

CalBear

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The RAF flew the Meteor against the V1s if I'm not mistaken. Still, a dogfight
between the Me. 262 and British and American jets would have been great had it been available in greater numbers. As it was, the Me. 262 was a day
late and a Reichsmark short. Hitler didn't know if he wanted a pure fighter or a fighter-bomber. Hitler wanted it to do both but the Arado Ar. 240 would have been better suited for the fighter-bomber role.
THe Meteor was used to attack the V-1, OVER THE CHANNEL, which even you would have to acknowledge is Allied controlled territory.
 
It's the Arado 234, not the 240 that is the first jet bomber.

The De Havilland Vampire's development didn't receive top priority, owing to the company's more pressing needs. The second Halford/Goblin development engine was taken away and shipped to the States to replace an example that blew up. Why did the Vampire not have top priority? Because the war was won without it. This leaves open to conjecture which would win a head to head battle in the skies over a destroyed Germany.

The P-80 was developed in a remarkably short time, but working up to a properly organized and trained status requires time which was not available. Much of the Me 262's service career was in the form of field testing, made simpler by the presence of enemy aircraft overhead.
 
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