JET A I R C R A F T
In the final analysis, the Me 262 was simply too little, too late. The German jet scored its first confirmed combat victory in the hands of Leutnant Joachim Weber - his victim was a PR XVI Mosquito of No. 540 Squadron, RAF - on 8 August 1944, four days after the British Gloster 'Meteor' Mk 1 had made its combat debut (though admittedly, the latter's debut 'victory' had been over a pilotless VI (lying bomb). That bare statistic is a telling indictment, for the British had not flown their prototype jet aircraft, the E.28/39, until almost 21 months after Heinkel's He 178 had taken to the air. Above: This Me 262A, 'White 10' (the distinctive markings are largely obscured), was flown by Leutnant Kurt Bell of III/EJG 2 during the making of a Luftwaffe training film. Note the aircraft's pristine appearance.
'Sturmvogel' ('Storm Petrel') bomber, at the rate of one fighter to 20 bombers. Furthermore it was 4 November before he gave permission for it to go into unlimited production. By then, 13 pre-production Me 262A-Os had been completed, in addition to 12 development prototypes, and 60 more were scheduled to roll out during the following month. There was still much 'fine tuning' to be done, and versions of the aircraft, both bombers and fighters, were testing in a variety of forms, but more importantly, pilot training had begun. It was still to be five months before the Me 262 was ready to go to war, but essentially by mid1944 the development emphasis had switched from Messerschmitt to the Luftwaffe, although the firm was still heavily involved, developing the two-seater trainer and night-fighter versions, as well as alternative forms for the stillborn hochgeschwindigkeits (HG - high speed) version.
Me 262 VICTORIES
Some 1430 Me 262s were to be produced, in seven main versions, but probably no more than a third of them actually saw combat (and over 100 were lost, many in accidents on landing) over a seven-month period. By the spring of 1945 they were operating under very difficult circumstances but were still downing American bombers in significant numbers, particularly when equipped with 5.5cm R4M 'Orkan' ('Hurricane') unguided rocket projectiles, despite a never-cured tendency to snake at high speed, which made aiming somewhat unpredictable. The total number of victories scored by Me 262s is uncertain, but is authoritatively put at more than 735. The highestscoring pilot was Oberleutnant Kurt Welter, with over 20 victories, and 27 other Luftwaffe pilots became jet aces, with five or more victories each, including Below: The Me 262B-1 night-fighters of 10/NJG 11 were assigned to the defence of Berlin. One of the unit's pilots, Feldwebel Karl-Heinz Becker, accounted for seven Allied aircraft. Note the radar array on the nose.
MESSERSCHMITT Me 262B-la/Ul Type: Two-seat night-fighter Length: 11.53m (37.83ft) Span: 12.48m (40.96ft) Max take-off weight: 6585kg (14,515lb)
Max speed: 813km/h (505mph) at 6000m (19,700ft) Range: 1050km (652 miles) Armament: 4 x MK 108 30mm cannon
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