American Jets over Europe in WWII

During the first months of 1945 a number of P-80A prototypes were tested by the USAAF in Italy. The idea was to gather information on the behavior of the new fighter under combat conditions without risking an exposure to the German Luftwaffe.

After the Allied invasion of Italy and the subsequent surrender of Italy in 1943 the southern front had been relatively quiet during 1944. In February 1945 however, the German army launched a counter attack and quickly advanced south through Italy. In their advance they overran the airbase near Rome where the P-80s were stationed.

The US personal tried to evacuate all classified equipment and documents, the P-80s taking of literally minutes before the German army arrived. One of the P-80s suffered an engine failure on takeoff and had to abort. The plane was captured before the pilot could destroy it and was transferred to Rechlin where if was tested by the famous "Beute Zirkus Rosarius".

It received the code T9+YK. It was painted Dark Green RLM 71 over Yellow RLM 04. It was flown in mock combat against the Ta-152 and Me-262. In these simulations it was found superior to the Ta-152 but, except for the engine, the Me-262 was to be preferred. The Me-262 was faster and better maneuverable. After intensive testing the aircraft was transferred to the Heinkel Werke in July. There is was broken up and its construction studied.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~tozu/l46/L46-p-80.htm

 

Operational history

Operational P-80Bs at Langley AFB.The Shooting Star began to enter service in late 1944 with 12 pre-production YP-80A's (a 13th YP-80A was modified to the only F-14 photo reconnaissance model and lost in a December crash), one of which was destroyed in the accident that killed Burcham. Four were sent to Europe for operational testing (two to England and two to the 1st Fighter Group at Lesina, 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.

The initial production order was for 344 P-80A's after USAAF acceptance in February 1945. Eighty-three (83) had been delivered by the end of July 1945 and 45 assigned to the 412th Fighter Group (later redesignated the 1st Fighter Group) at Muroc Army Air Field. After the war, production continued, although wartime plans for 5,000 were quickly reduced to 2,000 at a little under $100,000 a copy. A total of 1,714 single-seat F-80A, F-80B, F-80C and RF-80s were manufactured by the end of production in 1950, of which 927 were F-80Cs (including 129 operational F-80As upgraded to F-80C-11-LO standards). However, the two-seat TF-80C, first flown on 22 March 1948, became the basis for the T-33 trainer, of which 6,557 were produced.


wiki

 

Could we please have an "ALTERNATIVE HISTORY" or "AYE, RIGHT" warning conspicuously displayed in the title!

 

P-80 flown by the Luftwaffe ! Gettoutahere !!

Surely there can be no way at all that such an advanced aircraft as the P-80 ever flew remotely anywhere near a combat zone ! ?, let alone so close as to permit one to be captured ? What were the operating guidelines on the RAF's Meteors ?, which did actually enter wartime service, albeit being ( I think ) limited to flights over the UK in pursuit of Doodlebugs. I fully expect that they were restricted in their use, and could not fly near enemy lines. Not only that, but I have a copy of Hans-Heiri Stapfer's splendid book ( "Strangers in a Strange Land" ) on US aircraft captured and flown by the Luftwaffe, and there ain't no mention at all of any P-80's in it !!
BG

 

Advanced in what manner? The germans already had jet aircraft, and no resources to reverse-engineer and produce anything they did capture.
Meteors served over Europe, not just the UK, IIRC.

 

i never heard of an american jet captured, :-?
also never heard of a meteor in europe?

 

Read the original link

Someone made a model of a P-80 in Luftwaffe colours and made up a bit of "history" to go with it.

Amazing how people seem to have been take in (including possibly the original poster!) Didn't "July 1945" ring any alarm bells?

 

Erm, actually the "July 1945" reference is to the actual operational history of the real aircraft, not an Alternative History.

Of the first post however AFAIK only the first sentence is even remotely factual.

P-80s were deployed to North Italy, however they were intended to be used for interception against Ar-234 Recon planes, the war in Europe ended before they became operational though, it seems that there were no combats and certainly none were captured.

As for the Meteors, the official reason is that the British didn't want to risk them being captured, to be honest I always thought given the type's lacklustre performance figures it was because the RAF didn't want to be embarrassed by their state-of-the-art jet being out performed by many of it's piston engined contemporaries, although I have to admit that this is pure speculation and I have nothing besides my own suppositions to back this up. I seem to recall reading that Meteors did deploy to North West Europe toward the very end of the war, although they saw no action before the war's end, although I could well be mistaken.

 

From

http://www.vectorsite.net/avmeteor.html

 

:roll:

 

Sorry, missed that bit, I thought you were refering to:

 

Meatbox v FW 190

Isn't it a pity that the Meteor never did came up against a late model FW 190, or even an early one, come to that ! It would have been illuminating to learn how they would have compared.

 

Not brilliantly I'd imagine to be honest, it was slower than (For example) a Spitfire MkXIV, it's armament wasn't much better and it was less manouevrable.

 

Re: Meatbox v FW 190

i think the meteor wqas not bloodied in ww2, i mean never saw combat against any plane, only doodlebugs

 

From the link in my previous post.

and

Meteor didn't see air-air combat (the link also says that the Meatbox pilots were keen to try out their planes against Me 262s) mainly because of Allied air superiority. Not enough targets...

 

The Gloster Meteor F.1 which entered service in July 1944 only had a top speed of 415mph, but in December 1944 the F.III entered operational service, and this had a top speed of 493mph.
The Meteor F.IV which first flew on the 17 July 1945 had a top speed of 580mph.
Due to the end of the war the development of the F.IV was slowed down and it didn't enter service until 1947, but there is little doubt that if the war had continued the F.IV could have been in operational service by 1946