Most Overrated aircraft of WWII?

44-85123 was the same aircraft that achieved 548 mph which was the fastest of the P80As tested, 562 mph was reached because of a new nose section and clipped wings.

 

And just what was the average speed of a Me 262? From what I've been able to read 125 Me. 262's were tested in late'44-45 with one approaching 568 MPH itself being 25-30 MPH faster then average. So even if what your saying is true the average speed of a P-80 would be around 533-535 MPH while according to the Me 262 testing it's average being something in the area of 538-543 MPH but the British tested several & according to their tests they achieved about 535 MPH and those weren't even carrying any ammo. So even at the worst case for the P-80A we're talking about a diffference at top speed in favor of the Me 262 of around a few MPH ,at the worst depending on whose/what figures you use and to speed isn't as important as what range over different altitudes you use.. A Me 262 speed as follows(at the worst for the P-80)..


at SL...521 MPH this is the P-80's best area being significantly faster
15,000'..Me 262 hits 537 MPH slightly slower then the P-80
20,000' 543 MPH the me 262's best alt and it is slightly faster at this altitude
33,000... 518 MPH and the Me 262 is still slightly faster.

So basically I still stick to my guns that the P-80 has an advantage in speed over all alt's from what I've read about the testing between the two however in the above I've tried to paint a worsdt case sceanrio for the P-80 and yet it still is at the very,very least extremely competitive. It seems the two are about equal in climb too BUT the P-80 seems to definately have an advantage in rolling,turning and in initial diving acceleration if not being better diver.

Now Chuck Yeager flew both and said both were equal in speed & climb. The pertinent test is what we need for one thing it seems the Me 262 used in said test was a stripped recon version with no armament or armor.Anyways all I'm trying to prove is that the statement " The Allies had nothing even close to it's performance" false and I feel I've been able to do that.

 

Not really. For instance I proposed a perfectly rational way of ranking the planes. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is incorrect.

Irrelevant. As it was the Me-262 would not have been consider ready for operational service by the western allies. Which was my point.

Many but not all. It wasn't going to take off from a WWII CV. It would also have been a lousy long range escort fighter.

That may be putting it simply but it is not putting it correctly. There were flight conditions under which a Me-262 was at a significant disadvantage to even allied piston fighters.

It wasn't going to be a carrier bomber either. As for a bomber the author one of the most acclaimed reference books on the eastern front has made a case for it being a very good one. It has some merit in my opinion although he overstates it a bit I think.

Arrogance combined with incompetence provokes either humor or irritation.

 

It's also worth noteing that the allies saw the end of the war coming pretty clearly in mid 44 and started scaling back both production and research. Had the axis remained a serious threat or looked like they would be a serious threat in 45 and beyond the priorities would have been quite different.

 

Load of the test aircraft:
pilot
parachute
3gallons of oil
425 gallons of fuel
ballast..........................Gross weight-11560 pounds

Average production P-80A 44-85462 top speed
44-85462: 5000 ft-525 mph 20000 ft-522 mph 35000 ft-512 mph.

Painted with the high gloss paint increased the top speed by about 15 mph, but the high gloss was dropped on production aircraft as it would start to chip, slowing the aircraft down.

I don't know the average speed of the me 262, the top speeds Ive heard are, 520 mph, 532 mph, 541 mph, 559 mph and 568 mph, i know the highest speed reached by an me 262 was 578 mph, this was with unregulated engines

The only Me 262 A-1a/U3 that was tested had its nose replaced with a fighter nose so the test should be accurate since it carried no less armour than the A1 version, unless the armament was removed which there is no evidence that it was.

I completely agree with you.

 

125 production Me-262's were tested by MTT, and the average top speed was found to be 870 km/h (540 mph) at alt and 840 km/h (521 mph) at SL. The individual results varied a lot depending on what batch of engines the aircraft were equipped with, the ones equipped with an esp. poor underperforming batch dragged the average result down while the ones equipped with proper performing engines often exceeded 900 km/h in level flight. As confirmation: after during several recorded speed runs with Eric Brown as the test pilot the RAE established the top speed of the Me-262 to be 568+ mph in level flight.

Post war comparative flights done in the US between the Me262 & P-80A also showed the Me262 to be faster in level flight and climb performance, while the a/c were equal in all other aspects. And this was like I mentioned a post war comparison, by which time the Lockheed engineers had gotten ample amounts of time to correct some truly lethal errors in the design. The wartime YP-80 was not only a lot slower with a max speed of just 792 km/h (491 mph), its' engine also suffered a lot of troubles and the a/c had a habbit of killing its own pilots.

In short the Allies had no response to the Me262 at all, their closest attempts were the Gloster Meteor & Lockeed Shooting Star, but both fell way short of the Me262 in any aspect of performance.

Oh so now I'm a Nazi all of a sudden? That's a pretty serious accusation to come with!

It may interest you to know that it is usually the people who accuse others of such stuff (being a Nazi etc etc.), which themselves suffer from a serious problem with personal bias and a complete dislike and disregard of the truth.

Fact is that from the start of the war and until well after it was finished the Germans were far ahead when it came to sciences such as aerodynamics, engineering & electronics, and I know you don't like this and that's why you called me a Nazi. But fact of the matter is I am not stating these things because I wish them to be the case, I'm stating them simply because that's how it was. And it wasn't because the Germans were smarter then anyone else either, it was simply because they emphasized on always being the best nomatter the cost, its' part of the German national character, they seek too greatly for perfection and you can see that mirrored in nearly everything they make. Its' a weakness as much as it is a strength, something many people fail to notice.

Other countries knew when not to spend too much time or effort on something, and they also understood that perfection is far from always cost effective, the Germans were less good at understanding this.

 

How about the de Havilland Vampire Mk I which had a top speed of around 535 mph, the first production models were delivered in April 45.

It should also be noted that the first Gloster Meteor IV flew in August 45 with a top speed of 585 mph

 

535 mph is pretty far from 568 mph redcoat. There's a reason Eric Bornw called the Me262 a quantum leap in performance compared to any other a/c he had ever flown when he tested it after the capitulation of Germany.

Furthermore by March 45 the Jumo 004D was ready to start entering full scale production, only the Allied bombing offensive and advance into Germany prevented that from happening.

The Jumo 004D would've boosted the Me262's performance greatly, giving it a top speed of well over 575 mph and a climb rate of over 6,000 ft/min.

The Gloster Meteor F.4 first went into production in 1946.

 

I know this is way off topic but it needs to be dealt with.

First of all, nobody called you a Nazi, please don't twist people's words.

Second of all, the way I see it there are three stages one goes through while learning about WWII (from US standpoint)

Stage one: You are just learning about the war and you natuturally assume the Allies were the best and everything they produced was the best.

Stage two: You start to learn more about the war and then shift your bias to the Axis side (not supporting Nazism) and you love to call everyone else patriotic and think you know more than anyone else.

Stage three: Your learning comes full circle, not that you know everything about the war, but you realize that the truth is that each side has its perks and in reality most went to the Allies.

When I first joined this site I was in stage two. I used to cruise the web looking at multiple forums, making fun of people when they said the Sherman was the best tank of the war, because I obviously knew the Tiger or Panther was the best. If you look back in the pages of Top Ten tanks you will find my very first posts arguing agaisnt the Sherman with T.A., JCF, Tomcat, etc. and I really thought I knew more than them and they were just nationalistic. I was very much like you back then, I pretty much disregarded anything they said because I knew I was right. To but it bluntly, I was ignorant. I have since moved on as you can see.

Sadly you are also in stage two and I do hope you move on too. Please don't tell me you just state the facts or some other garbage. You are arguing with member with a lot more medals and alot more salutes than you. Please don't accuse anyone here of being nationalistic again.

I feel like I have gone on long enough, back to planes!

 

Nice try JagdTiger but I am not at any stage of learning here. I am simply stating the facts I have accomulated over the many years of researching the subject of WW2, and unlike the naysayers around here I am providing original docs for most of my arguments. That you can't read them is no excuse, get a translator.

Also it may seem like I am pro-German but that is only because a lot of unjust bashing of German equipment is going on here, so I in effect am having to defend certain things against an unjust and biased attack.

Now not all things that the Germans made was great, I understand that as well as any other man, but some of the things they did come up with were way ahead of their time. Credit where credit is due JagdTiger, that is also why you see Soviet & US equipment on some of my top 3 lists.

Also would you please quit with your popularity contests, this isn't about who's got the most cyber salutes or medals, it's about the truth. If you trust blindly in someone with 1500 salutes and 50 medals then you're the one who's ignorant and at a certain stage of learning, not me.

And finally plz explain to me how this isn't an accusation of me being a Nazi: "Methinks we have a Nazi "gee-whiz" fan here in the "Proeliator"

The language is english and he is directly calling me a Nazi or Nazi fan (same thing) with his choice of words, it can't get anymore openly obvious than that my man, the above is a DIRECT accusation. And not to be rude in any way, but if you can't even see that then you shouldn't have passed your english exams.

 

awack,

Well thanks for agreeing with my basic statement about the Me.262 not having any close counterpart to it. Now on the 44-85044 had a top speed of 534 MPH ,4640 FPM initial climb and time to 20K- 5.5 minutes. Eric Brown in he Luftwaffe""iFPM and time to 20 K of 6.8 minutes.
Do you know where I can get a hold of the reports from the me. 262 versus P-80 test?


Prolietor,
Well on what the YP-80A could do and not do Bill Norton's "U.S. Experimental & Prototype Aircraft Projects: Fighters" seems to disagree with you both on performance figures & problems with the aircraft . A good part of the problem was in transitioning pilots from propellor fighters to jet ones & I'm sure Germany had it's problems there too. In fact the Germans had severe problem with attrition of crew & aircraft too .
I have provided several sources for all my figures and statements so how about you? What is your source for the YP-80 only hitting 470 MPH???You also made a statement that 538 MPH is a bit far from 568 MPH but you know the Spitfire V's over Darwin had some good performance advantages over the A6M Zeros' and still got bested.

 

Icky, get a book specifically about the aircraft in question, then you'll see that the YP-80 didn't perform very well. The top speed of the YP-80's sent to Europe was nomore than 792 km/h. Try out Wooldridge's book, "The P-80 Shooting Star: the evolution of a Jet fighter".

Don't confuse the YP-80A's sent to Europe with the later P-80A's entering service in 1946 and the even later P-80C's. There are big differences in performance.

The only aircraft that the Allies had by wars end which even approached the performance of the Me262 was the Vampire, but even it was over 30 mph slower than the Me262.

 

I'd have to go with the later marks of Spitfire. Apparently, they weren't as maneuverable as the earlier marks, and they really were a waste of time, considering the war ended and introduced the age of the jet! It is a pity, because the Griffon engine combined with say, a mark V really would be a site to behold!

 

Well Prolieator I've been using primary documents mostly and it seems to be a battle of sources but one thing is the book I quoted is just a little bit more recent then Woolridge's book which was published in 1979. It seems that if the report in question about the P-80 taking on the Me 262 is so often quoted then somebody ought to be able to produce it.

 

You are the proponent of that postition it's up to you to supply quotes and sources. General comments such as "get a book" don't cut it.

 

A gentleman over on The Great Planes stated that the D-12's speed was just estimated and in Herrman's "Long Nose" it explains why the D-13 beat the Tempest BUT if I'm not wrong the Tempest was still faster up to 23K. The GM-1 did enable the German plane to go faster but only at higher altitudes.
It's just like the Me. 262 versus YP-80 from whaty I've been able to gleam the P-80 was faster up to 20K,then the Me. 262 took over up till about 33K but then the P-80 took over so it could very well depend on which altitude your comparing two fighters furthermore my statement here puts the P-80 in it's worst light.

 

I know this dead horse has been beaten already, but I'm going for the A6M "Zero;" it dominated the first 4 months of the war against opposition made up of under-trained pilots flying inferior or obsolete aircraft, only to meet its match at Coral sea, Midway,and Guadalcanal against the US Navy/Marines who were well trained in deflection gunnery while flying in the rugged and dependable F4F "Wildcat", and for all its supposed "superiority" over the Grumman, it never exceeded a 1:1 ratio against it, I say its reputation has been inflated quite a bit.

 

I tend to agree that the Zero is more myth than reality, though it was a good aircraft for its time, just not the giant killer it was made out to be.

I would add the Me 262. Very innovative to be sure, but problematic in so many way's.

 

The pilot program for the Japanese was intensive. Samurai of the sky...But they never considered attrition. Because of their blind faith- Japan did not train enough pilots.

 

Can not recall where exactly but I had read that a contributing factor for Japan's poor replacement program had to due to her history where she had never fought a long conflict save for China, but in this case pilot losses were so modest that the need for 'more' pilots never came to be a issue.