File:Messerschmitt Me262A-1a Schwalbe (50110923988).jpg

Messerschmitt Me262A-1a Schwalbe (Swallow) at the RAF Museum, Cosford, Shropshire, 8 July 2020. The Me262 became operational in July 1944, about the same time as the British Gloster Meteor. The great FAA test pilot Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown considered the Me262 the best fighter of WWII, a generation ahead of any other. By comparison, the British Gloster Meteor was essentially a piston engine design with jets instead of piton engines. The Me 262 had highly advanced aerodynamics with its shark-like fuselage and swept back tail. It had a very heavy armament of 4x30mm MK108 cannon and, on some aircraft, 24x55mm R4M air-to-air missiles. Moreover, its Junkers Jumo 004 engines were of the axial-flow type, which was the way ahead for jet engines compared to the centrifugal-flow Rolls Royce Wellands of the Meteor. The only rather conservative feature was the centrally-placed cockpit. That might have been the traditional position for a single-seat fighter (though not a twin engine one) but the Meteor had the cockpit well-placed forward.

The Me262 was not without its faults as a combat aircraft. Lacking dive breaks, the Me262’s approach speed to a slow bomber formation was so high that there was not sufficient time to aim the guns before the Me262 had to break so the pilot had to hope for the best when firing. As a result, tactics were devised of a ‘Wolf Pack’ of Me262’s firing a salvo of R4M rockets from the flank of a bomer formation, and trust some would hit a bomber (which often happened). Moreover, the Me262 was extremely vulnerable on take-off and landing, when the majority of Me262’s were shot down, because of the low thrust at slow speeds and the poor throttle response of early jet engines. Many were also destroyed on the ground. Me262 pilots thought the Hawker Tempest their most formidable opponent.

The engines suffered from reliability problems because their sophisticated design had entailed design compromises whilst the substitution of poor materials because of the lack of high grade metals which the engine had been designed to use exacerbated the problems. The service intervals between overhauls was extremely short - a mere 10-20 hours compared to the conservative, but reliable, Welland’s 180 hours. By the end of the war, many Me262’s remained grounded because of lack of jet fuel and replacement engine parts. Out of 1,430 built no more than 200 were operational at any one time. After the war, it was revealed that many hundreds were under construction in dispersed facilities and underground caves/factories and that tens of thousands of slave labourers had died in their production.