[Thee_oddball]

No need for that,British and Americans already have much better jets,swept wing or not,at least Allied jets are not self-flammable.

Really?!...what plane would that be?? the Meteor MkI (max speed 410mph ) or how about the MK3 (max speed 496mph) neither as fast as the me262 but you dont have to worry about them bursting into flames...

Safety record

A total of 890 Meteors were lost in service with the RAF (145 crashes in 1953 alone), resulting in the deaths of 450 pilots.

Contributory factors in the number of crashes were the high fuel consumption and therefore short endurance (less than one hour) causing pilots to run out of fuel, and difficult handling with one engine out due to the widely-set engines. The casualty rate was exacerbated by the lack of ejection seats except in the F 8, especially in the training version T 7 and F 4 fighters relegated to training/conversion duties.

this is after a further 8 years of development and the "no ejection seat" just blows my mind....and the de Havilland Vampire went into production as the war ended..it had a speed closer to the 262 but neither reached the serial production numbers of the 262,234,162 before the war ended.

YP-59A wasn't any better than the P-51 and the P-80 started life as a pilot killer

The P-80 testing program proved very dangerous. Burcham was killed on 20 October 1944 while flying the third YP-80A produced, 44-83025. The "Gray Ghost" was lost on a test flight on 20 March 1945, although pilot Tony LeVier escaped. Newly promoted to chief engineering test pilot to replace Burcham, LeVier bailed out when one of the engine's turbine blades broke, causing structural failure in the airplane's tail. LeVier landed hard and broke his back, but returned to the test program after six months of recovery. Noted ace Major Richard Bong was also killed on an acceptance flight of a production P-80 in the United States on 6 August 1945. Both Burcham and Bong crashed as a result of main fuel pump failure. Burcham's death was the result of a failure to brief him on a newly installed emergency fuel pump backup system, but the investigation of Bong's crash found he had apparently forgotten to switch on the emergency fuel pump that could have prevented the accident. He bailed out when the aircraft rolled inverted but was too close to the ground for his parachute to deploy.

The Shooting Star began to enter service in late 1944 with 12 pre-production YP-80A's one of which was destroyed in the accident that killed Burcham. A thirteenth YP-80A was modified to the sole F-14 photo reconnaissance model and lost in a December crash. Four were sent to Europe for operational testing (two to England and two to the 1st Fighter Group at Lesina Airfield, Italy) but when test pilot Major Frederic Borsodi was killed in a crash caused by an engine fire on 28 January 1945, demonstrating YP-80A 44-83026 at RAF Burtonwood, the YP-80A was temporarily grounded. Because of the delay the Shooting Star saw no combat in World War II.

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Lucky the birth of the jet age was plagued with problems for ALL! but the major difference between the Germans and the allies was that they were not being bombed day and night and running short on resources while fighting a war on 2 fronts, the meteor,vampire and 80 were good planes but were quickly out classed by the new swept wing fighters (mig15/f86) which were not copy's of German designs but heavily influenced by the work done by Germans on swept wings. the Americans went as far as to build a replica of the P.1101 fighter they captured to study the viability of variable wing geometry that was later used in the F14 and F111 (swingwing) bomber.

True
I just like pointing out that while the Germans were trying to make a another jet the Americans were spliting atoms
A much harder task

very true..Prof. otto Hahn would know all about that

On that note you have to ask youself why were they trying to make another jet?
If we are to belive the Germans were SO FAR AHEAD of the rest jet wise with their Me262 and thier He162
Why not refine those instead of making a totally new jet?

ummm they were....

Variants HE162

Sources differ on the details of the production versions of the He 162. All agree that the He 162A-2 was armed with two 20mm MG 151 cannon, and that one version was to be armed with two 30mm MK 108 cannon, but while most sources state that this was the A-3, others give it the designation A-1. Here we will follow the first suggestion

He 162 A-1

The He 162A-1 was powered by the BMW 003A-1 engine, and was the earliest production version of the aircraft. It was soon superseded by the A-2.

He 162 A-2

The A-2 became the standard production version of the aircraft. It was powered by the BMW 003A-3 engine, and armed with two 20mm MG 151 cannon each with 120 rounds.

He 162 A-3

The A-3 was a design for a version of the He 162 that would have been armed with two 30mm Mk 108 cannon, each with 50 rounds. This cannon put an unacceptable strain on the standard He 162 fuselage, and the A-3 may have been a design with a stronger fuselage designed to counter this.

He 162S

The He 162S was a tandem two-seat training aircraft. Two prototypes were produced, and a third aircraft may have been produced. The first was ready to fly on 28 March 1945, but a few days later the training programme was scrapped and the aircraft were destroyed.

Proposed Versions

The destruction of many Heinkel records towards the end of the war means that many details of the He 162 programme are now obscure. The following list includes all proposed versions that we have found mentioned.

A-6

The A-6 was to have a stronger fuselage, extended from 29ft 8in to 30ft 1in. V25-V28 were built with the longer fuselage, possibly as prototypes for this series.

A-8

The A-8 was to have been powered by the Junkers Jumo 004D-4 turboket, and given larger fuel tanks to increase its endurance. It had an estimated maximum speed of 551mph.

A-9

The A-9 was to have been a version of the A-2 with a butterfly tail assembly, as tested on the He 280 V7 and V8. The butterfly tail replaced the horizontal surface and twin rudders of the standard He 162 with two small wings, mounted in a 'vee' shape, and with control surfaces on the trailing edge.

A-14

The A-14 was probably a test-bed for the planned C-1 and D-1 versions. A partially completed prototype was captured by the Allies, and could have taken either swept back or swept forward wings.

B-1 and B-2

In November 1944 the German Air Ministry issued a specification for an even simpler fighter, to be powered by the Argus impulse duct engine, as used on the V-1. Heinkel responded with two designs - the B-1, which would have been powered by one Argus As 014 engine and the B-2, with one As 044 engine. The Argus engine couldn't provide any power until the aircraft was moving at speed, and so the He 162B would have had to be launched either by catapults or rockets. The project was soon abandoned.

C-1

The C-1 would have used swept-forward wings and the butterfly tail, and would have been powered by the HeS 011 engine. It was suggested in December 1944, and work may have begun on a test bed, the A-14.

D-1

The D-1 was proposed at the same time as the C-1, and would have been given swept back wings, the butterfly tail and the HeS 011 engine. The outer panels of the wings may have been angled downwards. As with the C-1 the A-14 may have been a test bed for this design.
Reason is the Germans knew the Britts and Americans allready had much better jets
On that note
wonder how many of these blue lovers even know that the Me262 was not intended to be the first swept wing fighter
As a mater of FACT the only reason the wings got swept on the Me262 was to correct the center of gravity due to the larger and heavier jet engines
Thus to maintain the cg they had to push the engines farter to the rear
And the only way to do that without a total re-design was to sweep the wing back


ME262

Willy Messerschmitt regarded the Me 262 as it went into production only as an interim type. His interest in high-speed flight that had led him to initiate work on swept wings starting in 1940 is evident from the advanced developments he had on his drawing board in 1944. While the Me 262 HG I (Hochgeschwindigkeit, high speed) that was actually flight-tested in 1944 had only small changes compared to combat aircraft, most notably a low-profiled canopy to reduce drag, the HG II and HG III designs were far more radical. The projected HG II variant combined the low-drag canopy with a 35° wing sweep and a butterfly tail. The HG III aircraft had a conventional tail, but a 45° wing sweep and the jet turbines embedded in the wing root.

Messerschmitt also conducted a series of carefully controlled flight tests with the series production Me 262. In these dive tests, it was established that the Me 262 was out of control in a dive at Mach 0.86, and that higher Mach numbers would lead to a nose-down trim that could not be countered by the pilot. The resulting steepening of the dive would lead to even higher speeds and disintegration of the airframe due to excessive negative g loads.

The HG series of Me 262 derivatives was estimated to be capable of reaching transonic Mach numbers in level flight, with the top speed of the HG III being projected as Mach 0.96 at 6 km altitude. Despite the necessity to gain experience in high-speed flight for the HG II and III designs, Messerschmitt undertook no attempts to exceed the Mach 0.86 limit for the Me 262.

After the war, the Royal Aircraft Establishment