Meteor F.III or Me262- Which is better?

[Work In Progress]

Given that this forum is about "WWII Military Modelling",

Good point, and it is worth us remembering the existence of the full-size aviation sub forum (which I probably ought to look into more often) here:

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/forum/65-real-aviation/

[wellsprop]

Oops I probably should have put this in real aviation.

I wasn't asking which was better in WWII as much as I was asking which made the most logistical, economic, operational sense...

If any forum can have a civilized discussion about, it'd be this one!

[The Crusty one]

ok so make it into a model post,havent made a meteor ......anybody got any recomendations for one?

[Jennings Heilig]

This (or any other) discussion will only fall apart if those involved in it allow it to. If everyone is an adult, it won't. Just that simple.

The Tamiya 1/48 Mk.III is an excellent kit.

Edited June 5, 2014 by Jennings Heilig

[wellsprop]

ok so make it into a model post,havent made a meteor ......anybody got any recomendations for one?

The Tamiya kit does look rather great! The cyber hobby kit is brilliant too if a bit pricey

Ben

[Procopius]

The Tamiya kit does look rather great! The cyber hobby kit is brilliant too if a bit pricey

Ben

I'm fond of the Cyber-Hobby kit, but three things to note, as if you didn't know already:

1. It needs a LOT of noseweight, and due to how it's engineered, this doesn't fit well in the actual nose.

2. The mass balances are attached to the tailplane, rather than the separate control surfaces. This is easily fixed.

3. The kit decals are a weird colour, but Barracuda decals makes a correction set.

[Edgar]

Well, if we get right down to it, the Meteor III served practically no useful military purpose in WW2 either. No-one would have missed it if it had not existed before VE-day, given a few more Tempests.

The intended victims of the nine V1s (would have been more but gun jams got in the way) they shot down might tend to disagree.

Edgar

[bigh827]

Built using the best materials, and the best non-slave labor, the 262 would have been the better aircraft.

Had it been pushed in to production in 42 when the first ones were tested, and had not time and money been wasted trying to build a bomber out of it, when they had a jet bomber, the Me 262 would have been the best jet fighter to come out of WW 2.

With it coming in to large scale use in 43, the USAAF would have had to stop day light bombing until Mustangs could be deployed.

The Meter was OK, that's all, and the P/F-80 would not come in to it's own till the C model, and of the four jet fighters deployed in WW 2 it's my favorite possible do to me being an American.

And right at the end of the war in Europe two P-80's where on had, one in Denmark, and one in Italy. They where there to show the troops that America could build wonder weapons.

As for models Tamiya does the best for your buck 262 and Meteor kits.

[Procopius]

Had it been pushed in to production in 42 when the first ones were tested, and had not time and money been wasted trying to build a bomber out of it, when they had a jet bomber, the Me 262 would have been the best jet fighter to come out of WW 2.

The delay due to bomber conversion is largely a myth. The production bottleneck was getting the engines to be reliable enough for series production, and as we've seen, "reliable enough" was a very generous assessment. Alfred Price again:

"It has become part of the accepted wisdom about the Luftwaffe that Hitler's decision was instrumental in preventing the large-scale deployment of the Me 262 in the fighter force. In fact his edict was not the main reason, or even a major reason, for the failure to deploy the fighter in the hoped-for numbers. Not until August 1944 was the average running life of the 004 jet engine raised to 25hr; that was still a very low figure, but it meant that the design could be frozen and mass production could begin. In September Hitler rescinded his order that all new Me 262s be delivered as fighter-bombers. By then more than a hundred fighter airframes were sitting around without engines, and as soon as 004s became available these aircraft were completed and delivered to the Luftwaffe. In fact Hitler's order delayed the introduction of the Me 262 into service in the fighter role by only about three weeks."

[wellsprop]

Built using the best materials, and the best non-slave labor, the 262 would have been the better aircraft.

Had it been pushed in to production in 42 when the first ones were tested, and had not time and money been wasted trying to build a bomber out of it, when they had a jet bomber, the Me 262 would have been the best jet fighter to come out of WW 2.

With it coming in to large scale use in 43, the USAAF would have had to stop day light bombing until Mustangs could be deployed.

The Meter was OK, that's all, and the P/F-80 would not come in to it's own till the C model, and of the four jet fighters deployed in WW 2 it's my favorite possible do to me being an American.

And right at the end of the war in Europe two P-80's where on had, one in Denmark, and one in Italy. They where there to show the troops that America could build wonder weapons.

As for models Tamiya does the best for your buck 262 and Meteor kits.

It would have been the most technically impressive... But does that change the fact it was very difficult to construct (particularly the engines).

Its a similar argument between the King Tiger and the Sherman...

After reading through some of Alfred Price's work, it seems to me that, regardless of the quality of a 262, what held it back was the fact the engines needed a huge amount of maintaince in the field as well as poor engine production. Furthermore, the amount of training required to fly a 262 would take ab elite pilot out of active front line service for momths.

Ben

Edited June 6, 2014 by wellsprop

[Giorgio N]

Its a similar argument between the King Tiger and the Sherman...

Up to a point... The Sherman was a not particularly great design that had one only advantage: was easy to build and made available in large numbers. Even the Pz.IV, a design much older than the Sherman, was better than the US tank in several aspects and only through constant evolution did the Sherman manage to become a decent tank at the end of the war. With the Sherman, the US deliberately chose quantity instead of quality. Now it's true that "quantity has a quality all of its own", but does the use of inferior components that are easy to mass produce really make something a better aircraft/tank or anything else ? If we follow this line of thought then al our perceptions of the "best" should change. For a starter the Spitfire suddenly is not among the best fighters at all, since it was quite difficult to build compared to other designs

[Doug Rogers]

Being slower but more maneuverable didn't do the Harrier any harm in the Falklands.

I think the 262 was definitely technically superior, and as a fighter pilot with the choice I'd have walked towards the 262.

[Eric Mc]

The brief for Glosters when designing the Meteor was NOT to try any advanced aerodynamic or construction techniques in the design. The Air Ministry thought that having new technology engines on an aircraft was complex enough without adding any further complications.

It was a deliberately conservative design./

The Germans had no such qualms - so the 262 was a bit of a handful and terribly unreliable. It need probably two more years of test and development - time the Germans didn't have.

Edited June 6, 2014 by Eric Mc

[AWFK10]

The intended victims of the nine V1s (would have been more but gun jams got in the way) they shot down might tend to disagree.

Edgar

But, if anything, this tends to prove WIP's point. Tempests were credited with more than 800 V1s destroyed. If the resources put into developing and deploying the Meteor I and III had been put into building and fielding more Tempests, the odds are that not only would these 9 V1s have been shot down anyway but so might the others that got through due to jammed guns on the jet.

[Work In Progress]

The brief for Glosters when designing the Meteor was NOT to try any advanced aerodynamic or construction techniques in the design. The Air Ministry thought that having new technology engines on an aircraft was complex enough without adding any further complications.

It was a deliberately conservative design./

The Germans had no such qualms - so the 262 was a bit of a handful and terribly unreliable. It need probably two more years of test and development - time the Germans didn't have.

All true. The conservatism of the basic Meteor airframe, particularly in structural terms, contributed to its adaptability and long term growth potential. The 262 was undoubtedly an aircraft that the pilot must treat with respect, and its high mach capability was particular area where the former pistone engined fighter pilot would need to learn the ropes very quickly

However the Meteor would spend most of its time being very docile and then suddenly become an absolute killer, in terms of pilots. Its very conservatism in one way created a lethal characteristic. When the basics of the Meteor were laid out, it was just a normal assumption that a twin had one engine well out on each wing. And the fact that the early engines were somewhat prone to shedding red-hot bits of metal mean that it felt conservative to put them a fair distance away from the fuselage control runs, the pilot, etc.

But in spacing the engines out so far they introduced very serious asymmetric control problems in the engine-out case, and that was a factor which became worse rather than better as the rest of the airframe and the engines were refined (especially with more power added).

Put an experienced Spitfire / Hurricane / Tempest pilot in a Meteor III or IV and he would find it dead easy to fly with both engines running. You get a great view out the front, it's a piece of cake to take off and land. But with one engine out that's a whole new world which most former single-engine fighter pilots lacked the skills and experience to deal with, in an airframe which strongly accentuated the problems of asymmetric flight. The post-war accident rate on Meteors in RAF squadron service, with no-one shooting back, was by any modern standards utter carnage. Even when two-seat trainers with experience multi-engine instructors were brought into the system, in an attempt to stem the losses, the training accident rate was still appalling because of the sheer physical strength required to control the aeroplane with one dead engine and the other at high power.

http://www.pprune.org/military-aircrew/300245-meteor-accidents-1953-a.html is a thread which discusses this phenomenon from first-hand experience and historical records.

Of course many other first and second generation jet fighters also had very poor flight safety records for other reasons, and a souped-up 262 with 3500 lb of thrust a side would have been just as bad in a single-engined go-around. For many services, peacetime ops in the 1945 - 1955 era were very little safer for military jet aircrew in terms of deaths per hour flown than WW2 operations had been for the piston-powered crews.

Edited June 6, 2014 by Work In Progress

[tempestfan]

Regarding continental deployment of the Meteor, there was an interview with Warren Schrader (OC 616) in one of the Ventura booklets, detailing the final days of the war when they were stationed in the Lüneburger Heide a few km from where I live (Fassberg or Celle; or possibly they may have moved to Lübeck by then). One memorable statement by Mr Schrader was he didn't paint kill marks on his planes as he couldn't see the benefit for mankind - an account worth reading.

[Giorgio N]

The asymmetric thurst problems mentioned by Work in Progress prompt me a further comment: this kind of problem is one of the reason why other designers disliked the Meteor arrangement and very few fighters later used this. One that did was the Soviet Yak-25/28 series and all these aircrafts suffered from these problems. The Yak-28 in particular had plenty of thrust and afterburners that made the situation even worse, so much that takeoff with afterburners enaged was not usually done to avoid any problem. An afterburner failure during take off or at low level would have almost certainly resulted in the loss of the aircraft

Edited June 6, 2014 by Giorgio N

[venomvixen]

What if's aside the 262 was never going to be anything more than an also ran.

Built out of substandard matireals by unskilled labour who would most likely not be putting in their best

efforts into the construction of the said technological marvel and would probably be happier if it

schmucked in on its first outing.

Theres a Jumo engine down in the museum, "Extremely rickety" springs to mind when looking at it

I've never seen such substandard construction on any aircraft component before. I would not recommend goosing the

throttle on one of those. I'd suggest the Meteor would get a bit warm and rumbly but would hold together better than the

bavarian heap.

[Work In Progress]

Built out of substandard matireals by unskilled labour who would most likely not be putting in their best

efforts into the construction of the said technological marvel and would probably be happier if it

schmucked in on its first outing.

Reminds me of another modernistic, shark-like design: a machine of great beauty and much interesting design work, let down by much the same factors...

[Brad]

No, because in 1943 a Meteor would not have had the range to do anything useful. First-generation jets were crippled by short range and endurance. The late-war 262 was fighting defensively over home turf, so was able to engage the enemy as it approached (if they could find any fuel, get it started, and get it into the air at all).

Exactly. A jet, even something akin to said "Bavarian heap" (not sure that's the first thing that went though an air gunners mind while being shot at by one) was far more useful as point defense. Perhaps the simplistic question of "Which is better?" should be "Which side would have benefited most from a jet fighter in WW2?". Undoubtedly it is Germany.

[Foxbat]

As a modeller the 262 is one of my favurite aircraft, and I really enjoyed building Revell's 1/72 kit. I've never built an early Meteor, but I did wrestle with the Matchbox NF version back in the day. I think that one was best counted as a score draw.

From an engineering/flying point of view I'd love to know what a professionally built, properly developed 262 with reliable engines could do, just to know if the concept was sound or if it would have failed whatever.

As a child of postwar Britain, I'm really glad the 262 never got the chance to succeed and the Meteor did.

Andy

Multiple hat wearer.

[wellsprop]

The brief for Glosters when designing the Meteor was NOT to try any advanced aerodynamic or construction techniques in the design. The Air Ministry thought that having new technology engines on an aircraft was complex enough without adding any further complications.

It was a deliberately conservative design./

The Germans had no such qualms - so the 262 was a bit of a handful and terribly unreliable. It need probably two more years of test and development - time the Germans didn't have.

Thats a pretty good point!

Cheers

Ben

[mhaselden]

IIRC, the Me262 had swept wings not to improve aerodynamic performance but because of CofG concerns. Now, clearly, swept wings do confer higher performance under certain conditions...but that wasn't the raison d'etre for the Me262 having them.

And now I've joined this thread...curses!!

[bigh827]

As a modeller the 262 is one of my favurite aircraft, and I really enjoyed building Revell's 1/72 kit. I've never built an early Meteor, but I did wrestle with the Matchbox NF version back in the day. I think that one was best counted as a score draw.

From an engineering/flying point of view I'd love to know what a professionally built, properly developed 262 with reliable engines could do, just to know if the concept was sound or if it would have failed whatever.

As a child of postwar Britain, I'm really glad the 262 never got the chance to succeed and the Meteor did.

Andy

Multiple hat wearer.

They have built a few here in America. I don't know how fast they are rated, but they have to govern the engines as they are much more powerful than the 004's.

Even built with the best of skill, the air-frame can only take so much speed before it rips apart.

[Andre B]

As said, today there are 262's flying...

http://www.stormbirds.com/project/

But as the 262 was the first "operational jet"... ...one question is how long the 262 would have been operational?

There where already other types in the pipeline from Messerschmitt, Focke Wulf and othes. How long could the "operational life" be concerning the early jets as 262? Was the 262 that good that it would be further developed or woul'd it's role been taken over by other types,..

Would the Meteor, P 80 and even Vampire stand against an Ta 183?