Messerschmitt Me 262 Development & Politics by Dan Sharp

[HoHun]

Hi,

It was George Schairer that sent an urgent letter, while still in Germany, to his colleague Bernard Cohn at Boeing to re-design the B-47 for a swept wing, not R.T. Jones.

Of course, thanks for pointing out that typo ... I've corrected my post accordingly.

Von Kármán had been present at the 5th Volta congress in 1935 at Rome where Busemann presented his paper that included his swept wing theory, but had not paid much attention to it, like most people outside Germany.

That's in fact a bit surprising, but it might be explained by the, at the time, mostly theoretical nature of the topic.

"Die Pfeilflügelentwicklung" by Maier quotes Harry Egerton Wimperis, who took part in the Volta congress as well, as stating during the concluding discussion at the congress, "... to fly fast at altitude, we still need to wait for the development of new propulsive devices, such as jet engines. We're still far away from a practical application of these. But one day, thanks to the excellent work of this congress, we will know how it has to be done. Then all that remains will be to convince the passengers to fly at such great altitudes and speeds".

At his visit to Germany in 1945 Busemann reminded him of that presentation and von Kármán then said something like "I should have known".

I've read that too, and it sometimes gets reported as "von Kármán didn't remember", thus I thought his detailed recollection of General Crocco's sketches was interesting

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[HoHun]

Hi again,

The Chalais-Meudon trials alone should be sufficient to bust the myth that the Me 262's wing sweep was chosen merely as a convenient way to fix a centre-of-gravity problem (which according to Dan's research quoted above it actually didn't do, as it actually moved the centre of gravity in the wrong direction). It wasn't convenient at all, as it introduced new problems a straight wing wouldn't have had, and it required quite some engineering effort to make certain the resulting swept-wing aircraft would be safe to fly - and the maximum coefficient of lift was reduced over the straight wing anyway, so a price was paid for the sweep.

To follow up on this: So a price was paid for sweep, but what were the benefits?

It's sometimes stated that the Me 262's wing sweep angle was too low to actually accomplish anything, but as we're talking about physics here, even a small sweep angle would give at least a small result.

Here's a comparison of the operating limits of the Me 262 and contemporary jet fighters that didn't have swept wings:



The redline speeds of the various types are mostly determined by Mach number, and it's evident that there is considerable variation even between the straight-wing jet fighters, with the Meteor having the lowest Mach limit and the P-80 the highest.

The P-80's Mach limit of 0.80 is still lower than the swept-wing Me 262's limit of 0.86. Of course, this observation doesn't permit the attribution of the difference to any particular cause.

Still, it's worth noting that the general equation M = M0 cos (phi) to establish the effective Mach number of a wing swept at the angle phi when operating at the true Mach number M0 indicates an increase of the effective Mach number by about 5% for the Me 262's outer wing sweep of 18.5°.

That's only slightly less than the difference between the P-80's and the Me 262's Mach limit, so I'd say this difference is more or less in line with what one would expect from the wing sweep.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[pathology_doc]

Received both this book and Me-328 today. As I stated elsewhere, since I kicked off with reading the story of an aircraft procurement program that went into a descending spiral until it flew up its own fundament, I'll follow up by reading the story of an aircraft procurement program in the same industrial and political environment that was ultimately a success - inasmuch as a finished product entered squadron service in numbers and saw combat against the enemy. Starts off well, and I fully expect to be entertained and informed as much as I was with 309.

I wonder how many times I'll say "I didn't know that!" before I finally put it down.

 

[pathology_doc]

Well.

I'm still reading the last of the appendices, but they are essentially technical and I don't think they materially affect the story told in the rest of the book.

The very nature of this book means that there was a good deal of re-treading the ground that I'd already seen covered in the Me309 book by the same author. To wit: there was a perceived need for a piston-engined successor to the Bf109 and the Bf110, and these competed for resources (including human resources) with the 262, the revolutionary jet's development often taking second fiddle to the piston programmes, themselves beset by numerous problems and ultimately failing to develop a service aircraft (Me209, Me309) or delivering grossly late and with disastrous service introduction before an eventual resolution (Me 210 --> Me410).

However, this re-treading (from my perspective!!!) is necessary, given that not everyone who reads this book will have read or even intends to read the Me309 volume (it's a very niche aircraft of which many in the general public have never heard, whereas the Me262 is far better known), and it will be interesting to see the degree to which this carries over into the Me328 book.

The author makes it clear that this wasn't only a Messerschmitt problem, detailing the fact (unknown to me until now) that Heinkel actually requested the cancellation of their own jet fighter (He280) in order to free up resources to try to solve the He177's problems (a story which would more than justify its own telling in full from Dan's pen - and arguably Calum Douglas's as well, given how powerplant-focused they were). I had previously thought this was something imposed on Heinkel from without.

(No doubt in some universe where planes are anthropomorphized, the He177 and the Avro Manchester are having a lively conversation; the Manchester looking with jealousy but also considerable pride on the mass-produced four-engined masterpiece its own failure spawned, the 177 bemoaning what could have been).

The extent to which the entire German aircraft industry was chronically short becomes apparent once more (to those who've already read the 309 story), with staff taken wholesale from one aircraft company to be seconded to another in times of desperate need, and with special efforts having to be taken (not always successfully) to stop skilled aviation-industry workers from being drafted into the infantry as Eastern Front cannon fodder.

Nevertheless, the same thread runs through this book as with the Me309, in that while shortages imposed by enemy action have an obvious impact on things, it also comes across as a story of time wasted, feet dragged and opportunities lost. Comparing against Calum's book on Western Front fighter engine development, the same story naturally emerges: an industry that frequently came up with the best ideas first but failed (for various internal and external reasons) to translate them into production hardware in timely fashion, if at all.


The physical quality of the book is as usual excellent, the story well told, and the money well spent. I did find what appear to be a few typos, but these did not drastically detract from my enjoyment of the book.

 

[red admiral]

Meteor having the lowest Mach limit and the P-80 the highest.

Hi Henning

I've just come across this from last month. NB that the Meteor limits really depend upon which Mk. The longer nacelle variants from Mk IV onwards raised the Mach limit to ~0.85. For Meteor the issue wasn't the wing but the cross sectional area distribution - the sharp increase in area from the start of the nacelles produced a strong shock which impacted the wing, whereas the longer nacelles avoided this.

On your maths to look at impact of Me262 sweep, then you need to use quarter chord sweep rather than leading edge, as the effect is dependent on the max thickness of the wing. So it'll be Cos (~15).

Overall, I'm not sure your analysis on the benefits holds together as there are many other factors. e.g. differences in wing thickness (thinner wing with lower sweep will also raise critical Mach), shock impact on control surfaces, area distribution etc. and it's really difficult to separate out one factor from another unless in the wind tunnel/CFD. But there should be some benefit from even moderate sweep - best example is the moderate sweep on the likes of A320, E190 etc.

 

[Calum Douglas]

Well.

I'm still reading the last of the appendices, but they are essentially technical and I don't think they materially affect the story told in the rest of the book.

The very nature of this book means that there was a good deal of re-treading the ground that I'd already seen covered in the Me309 book by the same author. To wit: there was a perceived need for a piston-engined successor to the Bf109 and the Bf110, and these competed for resources (including human resources) with the 262, the revolutionary jet's development often taking second fiddle to the piston programmes, themselves beset by numerous problems and ultimately failing to develop a service aircraft (Me209, Me309) or delivering grossly late and with disastrous service introduction before an eventual resolution (Me 210 --> Me410).

However, this re-treading (from my perspective!!!) is necessary, given that not everyone who reads this book will have read or even intends to read the Me309 volume (it's a very niche aircraft of which many in the general public have never heard, whereas the Me262 is far better known), and it will be interesting to see the degree to which this carries over into the Me328 book.

The author makes it clear that this wasn't only a Messerschmitt problem, detailing the fact (unknown to me until now) that Heinkel actually requested the cancellation of their own jet fighter (He280) in order to free up resources to try to solve the He177's problems (a story which would more than justify its own telling in full from Dan's pen - and arguably Calum Douglas's as well, given how powerplant-focused they were). I had previously thought this was something imposed on Heinkel from without.

(No doubt in some universe where planes are anthropomorphized, the He177 and the Avro Manchester are having a lively conversation; the Manchester looking with jealousy but also considerable pride on the mass-produced four-engined masterpiece its own failure spawned, the 177 bemoaning what could have been).

The extent to which the entire German aircraft industry was chronically short becomes apparent once more (to those who've already read the 309 story), with staff taken wholesale from one aircraft company to be seconded to another in times of desperate need, and with special efforts having to be taken (not always successfully) to stop skilled aviation-industry workers from being drafted into the infantry as Eastern Front cannon fodder.

Nevertheless, the same thread runs through this book as with the Me309, in that while shortages imposed by enemy action have an obvious impact on things, it also comes across as a story of time wasted, feet dragged and opportunities lost. Comparing against Calum's book on Western Front fighter engine development, the same story naturally emerges: an industry that frequently came up with the best ideas first but failed (for various internal and external reasons) to translate them into production hardware in timely fashion, if at all.


The physical quality of the book is as usual excellent, the story well told, and the money well spent. I did find what appear to be a few typos, but these did not drastically detract from my enjoyment of the book.

Some of what you report here is probably inevitable, as Dan and myself (I didnt participate in the 262 book I just mean generally) just trawled the RLM meeting records, the meetings are pretty chaotic and in one meeting you`ll get many aircraft progammes mentioned, so once you`ve been through and pulled out one "strand" for one story, you`ll inevitably pick up the general themes of what was happening at the time, so from a certain perspective it can actually be very difficult to write different aircraft books through this period WITHOUT the same narrative patterns emerging. I would say that if this didnt happen, you ought to be worried as it would imply you`ve not read the records as nearly all the programmes were impacted by simular war needs and industrial situations in parallel.

But, as you say this does mean that if you read lots of books researched using this same technique of just teasing the plot out of the stenographic records, certainly you`ll not find 100% fresh stories each time as the core characters talking (Milch, Messerschmitt, Goring, Frydag etc..) are the same people the other books study too.

I`m glad you`re enjoying the 309 book so far.

 

[newsdeskdan]

Some of what you report here is probably inevitable, as Dan and myself (I didnt participate in the 262 book I just mean generally) just trawled the RLM meeting records, the meetings are pretty chaotic and in one meeting you`ll get many aircraft progammes mentioned, so once you`ve been through and pulled out one "strand" for one story, you`ll inevitably pick up the general themes of what was happening at the time, so from a certain perspective it can actually be very difficult to write different aircraft books through this period WITHOUT the same narrative patterns emerging. I would say that if this didnt happen, you ought to be worried as it would imply you`ve not read the records as nearly all the programmes were impacted by simular war needs and industrial situations in parallel.

But, as you say this does mean that if you read lots of books researched using this same technique of just teasing the plot out of the stenographic records, certainly you`ll not find 100% fresh stories each time as the core characters talking (Milch, Messerschmitt, Goring, Frydag etc..) are the same people the other books study too.

The strangest thing is that so much of the information presented by Calum and myself comes across as 'new'. It has been available in archives for decades but has seemingly been ignored for some reason.

In terms of an overlap between the Me 262 and Me 309 books, the Me 262 book was written first. It was only while writing that that I realised the Me 309 story was also worth telling. Up to then I think everyone, including myself, had regarded the Me 309 as a mere curiosity which nobody really took particularly seriously. Instead, the evidence surprisingly indicated that it was the designated successor to the Bf 109 in German air ministry plans for well over a year - and an aircraft of critical importance.

Both the Me 309 and Me 328 books provide important back-story to the Me 262 book. While working on the Me 309 book I found a quote from Woldemar Voigt in a report labelled Me 109 mit DB 603 from January 1, 1943 (see p133 of the Me 309 book) - while Messerschmitt was trying to get the Me 209 installed in the 309's place - which essentially notes that it would be better to build a 109 with the DB 603, if possible, than to start again from scratch with the 309. Voigt then says: "Achieving this goal would probably be of crucial importance, especially because a fundamental change in the production of the high-performance fighter with the introduction of the jet engines may be imminent in the near future."

So jets are coming soon eh? My understanding of the Me 262 up to that point was that neither Willy Messerschmitt nor Voigt were much interested in it at that stage. Yet here is Voigt predicting big things on the jet front. When I read that, I was fairly horrified. Had I been wrong about the Me 262?

It wasn't until I started working on the Me 328 book that I realised Voigt wasn't actually talking about the Me 262 in that document. He was (incredibly, with hindsight) referring instead to the Me 328. At this time, Voigt honestly thought that the Me 328 was going to be the mass produced jet fighter - when you transpose this onto the Me 328's development process, and what was being said about the Me 328 at this time, you can see it quite clearly.

The whole narrative that Messerschmitt battled bureaucracy to try and get the Me 262 into production is (again, quite surprisingly) a fabrication - the Messerschmitt company pushed hard for the Me 209 as the piston-engine replacement for the Bf 109 and the Me 328 as the Luftwaffe's cheap mass-produced jet fighter. It was only later, immediately after the war, that the notion of the Me 262's greatness having been recognised all along came to prominence. Voigt and Messerschmitt were not the sort of people to openly admit that they'd been backing the wrong horses for such a long time.

 

[HoHun]

Hi,

Overall, I'm not sure your analysis on the benefits holds together as there are many other factors. e.g. differences in wing thickness (thinner wing with lower sweep will also raise critical Mach), shock impact on control surfaces, area distribution etc. and it's really difficult to separate out one factor from another unless in the wind tunnel/CFD. But there should be some benefit from even moderate sweep - best example is the moderate sweep on the likes of A320, E190 etc.

Well, I've actually not done much of an analysis and mostly just portrayed the historical redlines, where the Meteor III was the logical counterpart to the Me 262.

The cosine formula for the sweep angle is a 2D approximation anyway, so it shouldn't be expected to be overly accurate. I believe there was a difference in the preferred reference line on the wing (and related calculation details) even between Junkers and Messerschmitt at the time, and your suggestion probably is a sensible one as well, but as you point out, if you consider the entire airframe (and 3D flow), there's a lot more going on.

My point merely was, the cosine formula would suggest a difference in the same general magnitude as the Mach limit difference between the swept-wing Me 262 and the unswept P-80 as the "best of the rest". That might not positively prove anything, but it definitely casts doubt on the popular claim that "the sweep of the Me 262 wing was too small to do anything at all", which is sort of a common internet thing (though it probably didn't actually come up in this thread specifically).

But with your statement on the benefits of moderate sweep, I think we're in agreement anyway

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[Hood]

Some of what you report here is probably inevitable, as Dan and myself (I didnt participate in the 262 book I just mean generally) just trawled the RLM meeting records, the meetings are pretty chaotic and in one meeting you`ll get many aircraft progammes mentioned, so once you`ve been through and pulled out one "strand" for one story, you`ll inevitably pick up the general themes of what was happening at the time, so from a certain perspective it can actually be very difficult to write different aircraft books through this period WITHOUT the same narrative patterns emerging. I would say that if this didnt happen, you ought to be worried as it would imply you`ve not read the records as nearly all the programmes were impacted by simular war needs and industrial situations in parallel.

It wasn't until I started working on the Me 328 book that I realised Voigt wasn't actually talking about the Me 262 in that document. He was (incredibly, with hindsight) referring instead to the Me 328. At this time, Voigt honestly thought that the Me 328 was going to be the mass produced jet fighter - when you transpose this onto the Me 328's development process, and what was being said about the Me 328 at this time, you can see it quite clearly.

It sounds to me like a book on Luftwaffe aircraft development and procurement as a whole could easily result from your researches.
As you say, a lot of the threads are interconnected in these RLM meetings, knitting them into a coherent story would be very interesting. It would probably a big doorstop of a book and fairly dry, but as an academical text it would be very illuminating I think.

 

[newsdeskdan]

It sounds to me like a book on Luftwaffe aircraft development and procurement as a whole could easily result from your researches.
As you say, a lot of the threads are interconnected in these RLM meetings, knitting them into a coherent story would be very interesting. It would probably a big doorstop of a book and fairly dry, but as an academical text it would be very illuminating I think.

It could be done - but it would be quite complex.

Perhaps the chief difficulty in writing a truly comprehensive account is the lack of a clear overview where productive capacity is concerned. There are books out there with lists of numbers showing airframes manufactured (actual output) but what I'm talking about is less tangible - where was the slack? Where were the gaps where 'something might be done' in the way of building prototypes etc? You might imagine there was no slack - but there are constant hints and teasers to be found in documents scattered throughout the Me 262/309/328 books about factories that were perceived as being less busy (e.g. Siebel). Or aircraft types that were perceived as less useful/less essential (e.g. seaplanes). Or particularly well organised factories where there appeared to be scope for even greater output (e.g. Jumo 211 production, resulting in the Ta 154).

As the Me 262/309/328 books demonstrate, available productive capacity was an absolutely crucial component in development planning. The fate of all three types was arguably determined by the German air ministry's inability to get to grips with 1) what capacity it actually had available, 2) where that capacity actually was, 3) what future capacity it might be able to create - where that was and when it was likely to come on-stream.

Based on knowledge of what happened to Arado and Junkers during the 1930s, you might believe that the German government had a strong grip on the levers of production, as it were. That might have been true at one point but by the time Milch took charge that grasp had well and truly been lost. The Jaegerstab comes in and tries to resolve this problem circa March 1944 - so you start to see mass type cancellations, furniture factories pressed into service making cheap wooden components to replace alloy ones etc. And you see an uptick in 'projects' as a result - but obviously it's all way too late.

Such a book would be 'academic' but given that I'm not an academic, with no PhD, I can imagine it being given fairly short shrift by the 'real historians' as a 'textbook' no matter how many fully referenced archival sources it cited.

 

[sienar]

 

[pathology_doc]

I`m glad you`re enjoying the 309 book so far.

Oh, I've long since finished that and left my review in the appropriate thread.

It could be done - but it would be quite complex.

I suspect it would easily rival Secret Horsepower Race for size. It would also perforce be another collaboration with Calum, since the Luftwaffe's double-barrelled problem was successor aircraft to the ones it started the war with PLUS the successor powerplants to drive them. The Allies had the same issue, but far more logistic clout thanks to the US, and they were also fortunate to have a few really good powerplants that could be developed and overclocked beyond anything that Germany could manage (for all the reasons Calum has described) - the Merlin stands out in this regard.

 

[HoHun]

Hi Dan,

The strangest thing is that so much of the information presented by Calum and myself comes across as 'new'. It has been available in archives for decades but has seemingly been ignored for some reason.

I totally share that amazement. I've only been reading original documents that are available online, like from the Bundesarchiv, and it's quite common to find stuff that people obviously have seen and written about in the 20th century - and with the original in front of me, I see that they have totally missed the point.

And there's also interesting stuff that I've never heard of, right in the same archival context. For example the Luftwaffe's late war decision to fit all fighter with a yaw damper because ballistics experts had found that would increase hit ratios significantly ... I never read about that in any books or articles, but I think it's totally fascinating!

Or a post-mortem assessment by some Rüstungsstab members, criticizing their own work at the end of war, pointing out that they had concentrated too much on quantity when they really should have put their priority on quality.

As an example involving engines, when the infamous He 177 raid on England failed because supposedly there were so many engine failures, an investigation was conducted and pretty quickly determined that there had been quite a lot of problems not related to the engines, but to a lack of operating skills of the poorly trained aircrew, and the engine problems that were actually real in some cases were exacerbated by the crews ignoring the operational limits of the engines and running them at high power levels for too long. I believe the archive has a detailed summary for basically every individual bomber that malfunctioned or crashed that night.

Then there's the (US) Herbert K. Weiss report on German gun camera film evaluation, from which the oft-quoted hit ratio of 2% for the Luftwaffe pilot stems. If one reads the report, these were actually 2% hits that were visible on film, and Weiss made it quite clear that many hits were invisible on film for a variety of reasons, such as the use of armor-piercing ammunition, or simply long engagement ranges. Some bombers were set on fire or even destroyed without ever receiving a hit that would show on film!

And in the Australian Archives, who have put a lot of good stuff online, I even found digitized microfilm reels on air combat in the Korean War, which also give a much more balanced view of the air war than at least the older books ... separate thread here: https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/th...-meteor-viii-mig-15-f86a-f86e-in-korea.42098/ (Also contains an evaluation of the Meteor VIII, with the mention of a Mach limit of 0.82, by the way.)

So, I'm totally enthusiastic about authors like Calum and you going through the archives again with an open mind! The authors of the 20th century clearly have missed a lot, and they've introduced a lot of misconceptions as well, and I'm quite happy that there are new books on the market that manage to convey a quite different, more realistic perspective on so many aspects of WW2 aviation!

There's still so much new to learn, it never gets boring!

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[newsdeskdan]

Or a post-mortem assessment by some Rüstungsstab members, criticizing their own work at the end of war, pointing out that they had concentrated too much on quantity when they really should have put their priority on quality.

I'm sure I have something similar, somewhere, written by Edgar Petersen - not enough emphasis on quality.

Authors of the past were enormously handicapped by the technology of their time and even the availability of documents - the British National Archives in particular seem to have withheld fairly innoculous technical material for far longer than was strictly necessary.

That said, there does also seem to have been a deliberately subjective approach to writing about aircraft - and a descriptiveness bordering on fiction. If someone was writing about the Me 262, for example, they would write that it was 'superb', 'a true work of genius' etc. They would describe Wendel leaping from the cockpit of the Me 262 V3 on July 18, 1942, as crowds of cheering factory workers approached (I think Mano Ziegler actually does write something like this), Willy Messerschmitt stepping forward to clap Wendel on the shoulder and shake his hand, with Wendel responding along the lines of: "You did it, Professor! A masterpiece!"

In reality, there seem to have been no cheers, no crowds, no Willy Messerschmitt. It was just a surprisingly successful test flight of an obscure prototype, with no one realising its significance.

Whether it was the author themselves, or their editor, if a book was written about a single aircraft type, often there seems to have been a compulsion to make that aircraft the 'hero' of the story. It was a fantastic piece of kit all round, it had its teething troubles, sure, but it was always destined for greatness etc. It's basically looking back from a modern standpoint, knowing that the aircraft ended up as a success, and observing each step of its development with that success firmly in mind throughout.

As such, if you write an aircraft history based entirely on contemporary documents, it becomes clear that success was absolutely not assured. Very few aircraft were seen as 'destined for greatness' early on. And those that were seen as such (e.g. Me 163) often ended up as the most outstanding failures. Whereas some types that nobody held in particularly high regard at the time, such as the Me 262, ended up being relatively successful - with those who had dismissed them earlier on then coming forward to claim the credit.

 

[Elan Vital]

I'm seeing much the same thing in French archives (ground vehicles/weapons rather than aircrafts), a lot of context/information that is present in the documents I have read are completely unknown to historians on the matter. Admittedly in that particular case the documents became truly accessible only recently (90s-2000s) and naturally the pace of archive-digging in this country is much slower than in the UK, US or Germany which attract more attention.

 

[Calum Douglas]

I'm seeing much the same thing in French archives (ground vehicles/weapons rather than aircrafts), a lot of context/information that is present in the documents I have read are completely unknown to historians on the matter. Admittedly in that particular case the documents became truly accessible only recently (90s-2000s) and naturally the pace of archive-digging in this country is much slower than in the UK, US or Germany which attract more attention.

I`ve been trying for years to get into French archives to look at various stuff, for example post-ww2 junkers 213 engine production, any tips ? (I would say they were even worse than the Russian ones, who did actually reply !)

 

[Elan Vital]

I`ve been trying for years to get into French archives to look at various stuff, for example post-ww2 junkers 213 engine production, any tips ? (I would say they were even worse than the Russian ones, who did actually reply !)

To book archival documents or make requests for physical or scanned duplications, you need to sign-in on the Defense Historical Service (SHD in French) website and then register as a reader, which will require you to fill in a form (basically adress, civility, framework of your research, type of ID used, archive center where you will complete the registration the first time).
Link here: https://www.servicehistorique.sga.defense.gouv.fr/en/my-online-procedures/sign-reader
Once all of this is done, you will receive a mail, e-mail or phone call with your reader number and then you will have to go in person to one of the archive centers to complete the registration (another form to fill to explain further the scope of your work, doesn't need to be too precise) and receive the reader card. The good thing is you can already book documents so you can complete the registration during your first visit (at the center you selected in the registration form).

I do not know how this would go for a non-French person, though afaik some foreigners already accessed the archives before so I suppose it does work.

It is possible to use the website's search engine to look for the documents' references or "côte" in French, and then to book the documents or ask for their duplication through the online procedures (the reference is used to identify the docs during the procedures). Booking docs and then seeing them in the reading rooms is quite simple once you have visited the archives once, but I have never needed to ask for duplicates/scans as I can take pictures of the docs in the room, so I do not know how complicated the process is. This doesn't sound very practical though because you pretty much need to see the docs in person once to know what may actually be worth duplicating. In Vincennes however there is a free scanner you can use for anything up to A3 size if I recall (most of the plans I have seen are too big as they fill my entire table, but documents themselves are the usual A4 size or smaller).

Unfortunately, each center has its own set of rules. Talking about the Vincennes and Châtellerault centers which will be the most relevant for armament development (Châtellerault itself is being set up as the main armament archive center, Vincennes in my experience has a bunch of stuff as well but is meant to be somewhat higher level, such as committees, meetings or reports), Châtellerault has you download and fill a form you then submit by e-mail and there is no limit to the amount of docs you can get, while Vincennes allows you to book docs directly on an integrated form in the website but you have a limit of 10 docs per visit (in my experience, never an issue since the docs were so large).

If you want more help at any point, we can continue the discussion either in another thread related to the archives, or in private messages.

I actually looked for Jumo, Jumo 213, german engines or the french designation Arsenal 12 H in the search engine, but not much popped up other than an intriguing doc titled:

Numéro de dossier : 3043/54. Etudes, réalisations et essais concernant les stato- réacteurs et moteurs Arsenal 12 H.​

(Studies, fabrications and trials regarding ramjets and Arsenal 12 H engines)

I intend to go to Châtellerault in late October for other documents and may end up having spare time at some point, so maybe I will have a look at that to see if there may be interesting stuff for you, if it is available.

Unfortunately, as with any search engine it will always leave you with questions about the unknown unknowns, eg all the files that may not have been explicitly titled or were not even digitally referenced yet.

There is however a rather large Hispano-Suiza archive funds.

 

[red admiral]

Whether it was the author themselves, or their editor, if a book was written about a single aircraft type, often there seems to have been a compulsion to make that aircraft the 'hero' of the story. It was a fantastic piece of kit all round, it had its teething troubles, sure, but it was always destined for greatness etc. It's basically looking back from a modern standpoint, knowing that the aircraft ended up as a success, and observing each step of its development with that success firmly in mind throughout.

I note that no author has tried to write a book on the Blackburn Botha or Short Seamew

Some aeroplanes are just bad

 

[GTX]

I note that no author has tried to write a book on the Blackburn Botha or Short Seamew

Some aeroplanes are just bad

And while not a book per se, there is this in depth article:

 

[pathology_doc]

To invert a well-known saying in aviation, it's fair to say that if a plane looks ugly, it will fly ugly.

The Botha is legendary for that one infamous comment from its test pilot. But for that, I suspect few would care.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

I'd be more interested in the issues Germany had in getting their jet engines to work with respect to the Me 262 since that was probably one of the biggest holdbacks to getting the plane into production.

 

[newsdeskdan]

I'd be more interested in the issues Germany had in getting their jet engines to work with respect to the Me 262 since that was probably one of the biggest holdbacks to getting the plane into production.

A few other books have been written on or around that topic (e.g. Making Jet Engines by Hermione Giffard and German Jet Engine and Gas Turbine Development 1930-1945 by Antony L. Kay) but none that really give a blow-by-blow account with specific reference to the Me 262.

Messerschmitt Me 262: Development & Politics does chart the simultaneous progress of engine and aircraft development. In researching it, I specifically wanted to test the theory that lack of engine availability/engine reliability problems/other engine-related issues was the primary cause of the 262's apparent slowness to enter full series production in quantity. There have been so many differing accounts of what happened and why (none of them citing primary sources) that my main motivation for writing the book was to look at the primary sources and see what they had to say about it.

From what I can tell, as you can read in the book, engine availability does not appear to have been an issue except for a brief (and long anticipated) period during December 1944. There does not ever seem to have been a period when otherwise fully-built but engineless 262 airframes were stacking up, waiting for engine deliveries. It could be argued that airframe production was actually carefully paced to ensure that this never happened but I think that would be giving Messerschmitt and latterly the Ruestungsstab too much credit. They just couldn't build airframes fast enough.

In addition, the fantastic rate of attrition for in-service Me 262s meant that engine reliability and the need to swap in new units was evidently far less of an issue than you might think looking purely at reliability figures without reference to whole airframe losses.

Had I found evidence that, yes, it was the engines which were holding up production, I would absolutely have shouted that from the rooftops in the book. I was aware, throughout writing it, that plenty of people have previously researched the Me 262 and that plenty more would do so in future, and the last thing I wanted was for those people to come forward with hard evidence that I'd been wrong about the engines. I had no particular axe to grind - I don't really care one way or the other what caused the Me 262's slowness to enter production. Wherever the evidence led, that was going to be my conclusion. I was entirely ready - perhaps even expecting, given the popularity of the notion - to write 'it was engine shortages which delayed it' but that just wasn't what the sources indicated. For anyone who still thinks it was, not matter what evidence I present in the book: I invite you to prove me wrong (with fully referenced primary source material, rather than just some guy in some book stating it to be true with any references to back it up)!

The greatest single holdback in getting the Me 262 into production appears to have been the shortage (or non-availability) of specialist jig-makers. Arguably, the whole reason for setting up the Jaegerstab was the need to find jig-makers (who had, it appears, been largely co-opted by the Ruestungsstab for AFV production - in which Hitler himself was heavily invested - up to this point) and get them working on jigs for the Me 262.

In terms of the technical side of Jumo 004 production, certainly Messerschmitt had been expecting the 004 B-2 (and later C) to become the Me 262's engine - and anticipated performance sheets for the production model were, for a long time, written with that in mind. But eventually it became clear that the B-1 was the only unit anyone was ever likely to get. As to the step-by-step development stories of the B-2 and C, I've not looked into those since they fall beyond the scope of Messerschmitt Me 262: Development & Politics.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

One that I know happened with the Me 262 was the V1 was equipped with early BMW 003's for its first test flight. In bench runs the 003 ran perfectly, and BMW (who had very limited turbine experience) thought it was fully ready for service. Both engines failed in flight the moment the Me 262 began a gentle turn as the intake and compressor geometry couldn't handle any shifting in the air flow resulting in compressor stalls.

This sent BMW back to the drawing board, and to Brown Boveri in Switzerland the only good source open to Germany on gas and steam turbine design. BMW then spent nearly two years redesigning the compressor section to overcome this problem. That led to Messerschmitt going to the Jumo 004, but that engine wasn't ready at the time so a delay of about a year ensued to redesign the 262 to take the weight and size difference.

This wasn't unique to BMW by any stretch. The British and US had more access to companies that had vast steam and gas turbine experience like Vickers or GE who had done all the turbine blade profile analysis already and could easily apply it to jet engines.

So, it wasn't engine "shortages" that was the problem, it was German aircraft engine manufacturer's lack of knowledge of gas turbine and turbine blade designs that was holding things up. They used the resources they had but were at a disadvantage compared to nations like the US and Britain who had decades of manufacturing steam and gas turbines for use on ships, or like GE who had spent almost two decades developing gas turbines for turbocharging aircraft and had done all the blade profile work.

The Germans were on a steep learning curve with often inadequate resources to get the job done. That they did manage to get jet engines to work is to their credit. In the case of von Ohan and Henkel, he did a work around using a combination centrifugal and axial compressor section. Like Whittle using centrifugal compressors, this got around a lot of the blade profiling problems straight (and more efficient) axial compressors had.

 

[newsdeskdan]

This sent BMW back to the drawing board, and to Brown Boveri in Switzerland the only good source open to Germany on gas and steam turbine design. BMW then spent nearly two years redesigning the compressor section to overcome this problem. That led to Messerschmitt going to the Jumo 004, but that engine wasn't ready at the time so a delay of about a year ensued to redesign the 262 to take the weight and size difference.

So you're specifically interested in the delays that occurred in getting the 004 into a state where it could be mass manufactured, as opposed to any delays arising out of getting it mass manufactured and delivered. I think it might be worth asking whether those delays were 'reasonable', given the technology of the time, or whether those delays arose from mismanagement and/or avoidable errors of the sort that would impact the Me 262 programme later.

BMW: yes absolutely - disastrous first 3302-powered flight attempt was on March 25, 1942. The Me 262 V3 had apparently been fitted with 004s by June 1, 1942 - just under 10 weeks later. Wendel then successfully flew with these on July 18, 1942.

Around this time, however, the Messerschmitt company was in absolute turmoil as a result of the Me 210/410 and the RLM's heavy-handed response, which focused attention away from any redesign of the Me 262 to eliminate the issues caused by its tail-dragger configuration (the tricycle undercarriage version had been designed by November 1942). During this time, Jumo was busy completing the first limited run of 004 A-types.

I don't think that a year was lost purely as a result of Messerschmitt redesigning the Me 262 to accommodate the different size/weight of the 004 compared to the 3302. When was that year - from when to when?

By March 1943 there were more 004 A-types available for testing than there were Me 262 airframes available to test them in. And Messerschmitt wasn't working to address this because the company was focused on getting the Me 309 replaced with the Me 209. Shortly after that happened, in January 1943, the RLM and the Luftwaffe came to the realisation that, actually, the Me 262 represented the quantum leap forward in performance they had been looking for.

The decision was made at the end of May 1943 to switch Messerschmitt over to Me 262 production. In the meantime, there was a gap in 004 production (still no airframes though!) as Franz worked to convert the 004 A, which apparently required 88kg of nickel, to the 004 B, which seems to have been largely the same but which only required 24.4kg of nickel. The 004 C would've only needed 2.6kg.

Then Messerschmitt managed to persuade Hitler to reverse the Me 262 production decision and get the Me 209 reinstated. The exact knock-on effect this had on resource allocation to Franz is not clear, but I don't think it did him any favours. If the Me 262 had top priority, Franz's team would get that too. If the Me 262 did not have priority, then neither would its engines.

The question, I suppose, is whether Franz could reasonably have been expected to get the 004 B finished and into mass production much sooner than the autumn of 1943. If the May 1943 production go-ahead for the Me 262 had stuck, would that have given Franz the resources he needed to get more engines made more quickly? I'm not really sure. It does represent a potentially avoidable delay of about six months. If all available resources had been thrown at the 262/004 at that time, May 1943, it does seem reasonable to suggest that the Me 262 would've been in service maybe a few months sooner.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

I would say the delays on getting the jet engines to run reliably (not service life but just where they ran without failing in flight due to design errors) were inevitable. The US and Britain certainly had their issues in that respect too (as did the Russians).

I'd also say that Messerschmitt failing to recognize the need for a tricycle landing gear right off was a mistake, but they were working in a near vacuum of information on the properties of jet flight early on. Henkel, by comparison, figured that out having flown the 178. Henkel's mistake was making the 280 too small to haul sufficient fuel to make it really worthwhile as a fighter. I think that was in part due to Henkel's obsession with speed over everything else.

Well, one issue internal to Junkers is they weren't keen on even producing the 004. So, you'd have to get Junkers onboard in wanting to make production of that engine a priority.

 

[newsdeskdan]

I would say the delays on getting the jet engines to run reliably (not service life but just where they ran without failing in flight due to design errors) were inevitable. The US and Britain certainly had their issues in that respect too (as did the Russians).

I'd also say that Messerschmitt failing to recognize the need for a tricycle landing gear right off was a mistake, but they were working in a near vacuum of information on the properties of jet flight early on. Henkel, by comparison, figured that out having flown the 178. Henkel's mistake was making the 280 too small to haul sufficient fuel to make it really worthwhile as a fighter. I think that was in part due to Henkel's obsession with speed over everything else.

Well, one issue internal to Junkers is they weren't keen on even producing the 004. So, you'd have to get Junkers onboard in wanting to make production of that engine a priority.

Have you read the book? It does explain exactly why the He 280 was cancelled and it wasn't anything to do with that particular aircraft's qualities...

Jumo: yes, I think you're right. It does seem that they weren't keen on producing the 004. That said, Junkers did as it was told since it was wholly state-owned. Goering regularly pointed to Junkers as paragon of virtue in this regard and there don't seem to be many (any?) examples of Junkers being anything other than a doormat when it came to direct orders.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Have you read the book? It does explain exactly why the He 280 was cancelled and it wasn't anything to do with that particular aircraft's qualities...

Jumo: yes, I think you're right. It does seem that they weren't keen on producing the 004. That said, Junkers did as it was told since it was wholly state-owned. Goering regularly pointed to Junkers as paragon of virtue in this regard and there don't seem to be many (any?) examples of Junkers being anything other than a doormat when it came to direct orders.

No, but one reason it would have been cancelled is the range is really short due to it's lack of fuel capacity and that was predicated on using von Ohan's 001 engine that proved very problematic because Henkel couldn't fix the fuel leaks among other issues with it.

With the 004, as in any corporate bureaucracy, if the management doesn't want it but is told to do it anyway, they do what they have to but don't put in any extra effort whatsoever. Been there, seen that.

 

[newsdeskdan]

No, but one reason it would have been cancelled is the range is really short due to it's lack of fuel capacity and that was predicated on using von Ohan's 001 engine that proved very problematic because Henkel couldn't fix the fuel leaks among other issues with it.

With the 004, as in any corporate bureaucracy, if the management doesn't want it but is told to do it anyway, they do what they have to but don't put in any extra effort whatsoever. Been there, seen that.

I think you would be surprised about what happened to the He 280.

What you say about lack of fuel capacity is mentioned at least in prisoner of war testimonies on the 280. Another PoW account mentions that endurance had been increased from 40 minutes to one hour 45 minutes. No technical details in either case. The actual German documents do mention difficulties converting the design from single fin to twin fin and in getting 004s to fit acceptably due to low ground clearance. I have (somewhere) a complete test flight log for the He 280 V1 but I've not yet translated it.

In any case, none of that is the direct reason why the He 280 was cancelled.

Unfortunately, while it is possible to say why it was cancelled, but evidence is too sparse to write a thorough and authoritative chronological account of the type's development overall.

 

[HoHun]

Hi Dan,

By March 1943 there were more 004 A-types available for testing than there were Me 262 airframes available to test them in.

In this context, the attached graphical overview might be interesting. It was on display at the Luftfahrtmuseum Hannover-Laatzen, accompanying their Jumo 004A exhibit, unfortunately withput any further context (if I remember correctly).

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[newsdeskdan]

Hi Dan,



In this context, the attached graphical overview might be interesting. It was on display at the Luftfahrtmuseum Hannover-Laatzen, accompanying their Jumo 004A exhibit, unfortunately withput any further context (if I remember correctly).

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

Interesting graph - it's a shame it's undated, so it's hard to know how much of it is forward planning and how much is a retrospective record of what's already been delivered.

 

[HoHun]

Hi Dan,

Interesting graph - it's a shame it's undated, so it's hard to know how much of it is forward planning and how much is a retrospective record of what's already been delivered.

I am confident the museum would be able to provide more context. Here's their contact page:

Kontakt

www.luftfahrtmuseum-hannover.de

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

 

[T. A. Gardner]

I think you would be surprised about what happened to the He 280.

What you say about lack of fuel capacity is mentioned at least in prisoner of war testimonies on the 280. Another PoW account mentions that endurance had been increased from 40 minutes to one hour 45 minutes. No technical details in either case. The actual German documents do mention difficulties converting the design from single fin to twin fin and in getting 004s to fit acceptably due to low ground clearance. I have (somewhere) a complete test flight log for the He 280 V1 but I've not yet translated it.

In any case, none of that is the direct reason why the He 280 was cancelled.

Unfortunately, while it is possible to say why it was cancelled, but evidence is too sparse to write a thorough and authoritative chronological account of the type's development overall.

Well, on that note, I have read repeatedly it was a combination of Henkel not having the capacity to build the plane, the RLM not particularly liking Henkel and their thinking that it would cut into Henkel's bomber production.

 

[newsdeskdan]

Well, on that note, I have read repeatedly it was a combination of Henkel not having the capacity to build the plane, the RLM not particularly liking Henkel and their thinking that it would cut into Henkel's bomber production.

You could get the book and see what it has to say.

 

[newsdeskdan]

Hi Dan,



I am confident the museum would be able to provide more context. Here's their contact page:

Kontakt

www.luftfahrtmuseum-hannover.de

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

Thanks - if I come back to the 262 at some point I'll investigate further. That said, the schedule doesn't seem far removed from what was being reported at GL meetings.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

You could get the book and see what it has to say.

I'm spending too much on material on early surface-to-air missiles at the moment...

 

[pathology_doc]

They used the resources they had but were at a disadvantage compared to nations like the US and Britain who had decades of manufacturing steam and gas turbines for use on ships, or like GE who had spent almost two decades developing gas turbines for turbocharging aircraft and had done all the blade profile work.

Whittle made the right choice to go with centrifugal in the first instance, as much of the early work used familiar supercharger tech as the basis. Axial flow was the way to go in the long term and just about everyone knew it, but centrifugal was easier baby steps and it remained viable for quite some time after the war.

Not to mention the thing that Calum always brings up - lack of German access to raw materials for critical alloy components.

material on early surface-to-air missiles at the moment...

Ooh, pray do tell.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Whittle made the right choice to go with centrifugal in the first instance, as much of the early work used familiar supercharger tech as the basis. Axial flow was the way to go in the long term and just about everyone knew it, but centrifugal was easier baby steps and it remained viable for quite some time after the war.

Not to mention the thing that Calum always brings up - lack of German access to raw materials for critical alloy components.


Ooh, pray do tell.

I'm getting close to finishing a history of surface-to-air missile development to (about) 1955. That's when the first systems became operational.

 

[pathology_doc]

I'm getting close to finishing a history of surface-to-air missile development to (about) 1955. That's when the first systems became operational.

Without wishing to derail too much, I would be looking forward to reading that and I hope it has a good bibliography.

 

[newsdeskdan]

I'm getting close to finishing a history of surface-to-air missile development to (about) 1955. That's when the first systems became operational.

Do you have much on Messerschmitt Enzian?

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Do you have much on Messerschmitt Enzian?

Quite a bit actually. The biggest problem for Messerschmitt was they never got a satisfactory engine for it. At the end of the war, the French got most of the documentation and other materials for Enzian and were the only country to do anything post war with it. Sud Est was the primary contractor and ended up with only one operational design out of it that became a tactical SSM.