Slitherine

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The only 10 min I remember being in the cinema watching a war movie when people actually got really silent were the first 10 min of Saving Privat Ryan. The rest of the film was as much Oktoberfest as in every other movie.

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It would even be really Hollywood to build a story around the crew - you've got your stoic captain, the co-pilot that wants to prove himself, the know-it-all engineer, the wisecracking ball gunner, the two brothers manning the waist guns, and of course one of them dies tragically in the arms of the other, the radioman that just wants to go home, and of course the old navigator that's on his final flight before he ends his tour and goes back to his wife and 2 kids (also dies tragically).

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Has anyone seen the movie poster? It had 3 Me 262's falling from the skies with P-51's in hot pursuit. The 262's are riddled with bullets and flaming from every orifice....

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ORIGINAL: Ddog

Has anyone seen the movie poster? It had 3 Me 262's falling from the skies with P-51's in hot pursuit. The 262's are riddled with bullets and flaming from every orifice....even the nose......which is where they apparently stored the fuel?? ;)

http://www.traileraddict.com/poster/red-tails/2

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ORIGINAL: Ddog

Has anyone seen the movie poster? It had 3 Me 262's falling from the skies with P-51's in hot pursuit. The 262's are riddled with bullets and flaming from every orifice....even the nose......which is where they apparently stored the fuel?? ;)

http://www.traileraddict.com/poster/red-tails/2

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ORIGINAL: castor troy

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ORIGINAL: Ddog

Has anyone seen the movie poster? It had 3 Me 262's falling from the skies with P-51's in hot pursuit. The 262's are riddled with bullets and flaming from every orifice....even the nose......which is where they apparently stored the fuel?? ;)

http://www.traileraddict.com/poster/red-tails/2

just out of interest, have they ever shot down a Me-262 in real life?

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just out of interest, have they ever shot down a Me-262 in real life?

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Incidentally, that is how most Me-262s were shot down.

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ORIGINAL: mdiehl

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Incidentally, that is how most Me-262s were shot down.

I would like to see a source to support that claim. As far as I have read, no one had made the claim that they were mostly shot down when landing or taking off.

On the whole they were poor aircraft. They had poor acceleration, poor engine reliability, poor maneuvering characteristics, and a very short air time.

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ORIGINAL: Treetop64

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ORIGINAL: mdiehl

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Incidentally, that is how most Me-262s were shot down.

I would like to see a source to support that claim. As far as I have read, no one had made the claim that they were mostly shot down when landing or taking off.

On the whole they were poor aircraft. They had poor acceleration, poor engine reliability, poor maneuvering characteristics, and a very short air time.

That's a bit of an over-generalization based on some negative aspects of the 262. On the whole, they were excellent aircraft, and Germany's only real problem with the Me-262 was that they entered service too late to have any significant effect on the war, and Germany simply could not build enough of them.

From the "Counter Jet Tactics" section of the Me-262 article in Wikipedia:


"Despite its high wing loading and lack of low-speed thrust, pilots soon learned that the Me 262 was quite maneuverable, especially if attention was drawn to its effective maneuvering speeds. The controls were light and effective right up to the maximum permissible speed and perfectly harmonized. The addition of full span leading edge slats, in three unconnected sections on each wing,[44] helped increase the overall lift produced by the wing by as much as 25 to 35% in tight turns or at low speeds, greatly improving the aircraft's turn performance as well as its landing and take off characteristics.[45] (The slats lowered the stalling speed of the aircraft to a respectable 160 to 170 km/h (86 to 92 kn; 99 to 110 mph) depending on load out. They deployed automatically below 300 km/h (160 kn; 190 mph) on takeoff or landing, where the innermost (between fuselage and nacelle) was normally deployed, and at 450 km/h (240 kn; 280 mph) in turn or climb.)[46] And as many pilots soon found out, the Me 262's clean design also meant that it, like all jets, held its speed in tight turns much better than conventional propeller driven fighters, which was a great potential advantage in a dogfight as it meant better energy retention in maneuvers.[47] Luftwaffe test pilot and flight instructor Hans Fey stated, "The 262 will turn much better at high than at slow speeds, and due to its clean design, will keep its speed in tight turns much longer than conventional type aircraft."[48]

Too fast to catch for the escorting Allied fighters, the Me 262s were almost impossible to head off. [Notes 3] As a result, Me 262 pilots were relatively safe from the Allied fighters, as long as they did not allow themselves to get drawn into low-speed turning contests and saved their maneuvering for higher speeds. Combating the Allied fighters could be effectively done the same way as the U.S. fighters fought the more nimble, but slower, Japanese fighters in the Pacific.

Allied pilots soon found the only reliable way of dealing with the jets, as with the even faster Me 163 Komet rocket fighters, was to attack them on the ground and during takeoff or landing. Luftwaffe airfields identified as jet bases were frequently bombed by medium bombers, and Allied fighters patrolled over the fields to attack jets trying to land. The Luftwaffe countered by installing extensive flak alleys of anti-aircraft guns along the approach lines in order to protect the Me 262s from the ground, and providing top cover during the jets' takeoff and landing with the most advanced Luftwaffe single-engined fighters, the Focke-Wulf Fw 190D and (just becoming available in 1945) Focke-Wulf Ta 152H. Nevertheless, in March–April 1945, Allied fighter patrol patterns over Me 262 airfields resulted in numerous losses of jets and serious attrition of the force."

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ORIGINAL: mdiehl

My reply is that the ME 262 was a poor fighter but a great experimental craft. It was not very effective at shooting down enemy a.c. of any kind, and many *were* intercepted in high altitude combat. Many were also destroyed on the ground or in patterns because the 262 had a lousy flight envelope that involved 26 minutes of vulnerability out of the 30 minutes you could keep it in the air before the gas tank ran dry. And the engines stunk. They were hangar dogs. It's easy to blow up a jet that has 40 hours of maintenance for every five hours of airtime because it lives most of its short, pointless life on the ground.

If the ME262 had ever encountered a P-80, the latter would have eaten it's lunch nine times out of ten.

The Germans should have left the ME-262 for the airplane museum and built more 190s and TA-152s.

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I would say that the Me-262 was only a serviceable fighter but it was a very good interceptor especially once pilots learned to judge closure rates well and use its speed to advantage. As to your contention that the P-80 would have eaten it for lunch, we will never know as no P-80s ever saw combat in WWII. And given the P-80's propensity for engine fires for which it was grounded on several occasions, I would assume that the P-80's engines were just as unreliable as the Swallow's.