Early Gloster Meteor vs ME262

[Dr Jekyll]

Which would come off best in a dogfight? My money is on the ME262 but it's a guess based on what I've read about comparative performance.

[Dr Jekyll]

The ME262 used an axial flow turbojet, while UK designers stuck to centrifugal flow for production engines on the basis that axial flow engines could not yet be made reliable enough. Probably, as you say, due to available materials.

[Dr Jekyll]

V8 Fettler said:

Not quite certain what a Meteor would be doing over Germany in WW2.

I fully appreciate that Meteors didn't meet ME262s in combat. Hence my question as to what, hypothetically, might have happened if they had.

Whilst we are on the subject, how would the P80 do? Similar performance to the ME262 and technically in service in WW2.

[Dr Jekyll]

Slightly OT here, but when might we have seen operational jet fighters if WW2 hadn't happened?

It always seems odd to me that the monoplane piston engined aircraft with retractable undercarriage is such an historically important type of fighter, yet by the time it had completely taken over from fixed undercarriage biplane fighters the design was already basically obsolete. The brief window between piston biplanes and jet monoplanes just happened to coincide with WW2.

[Dr Jekyll]

Part of the reason the Meteor and Me262 never met in combat was that Meteors were not allowed to fly over Germany in case they fell into enemy hands. Given the state of German technology could the Germans really have learnt anything they didn't already know from the fairly small pieces crashed jet fighters tend to leave?

[Dr Jekyll]

Sea Furies have taken out MiG15s and Mig17s have given Phantoms a very hard time so a great deal must be down to the pilots and their choice of tactics.

There was a serious chance in the 70s of Royal Navy Phantoms having to mix it with P51s over Belize. The Phantoms wouldn't have been in any real danger but a lot of thought was given as to how best they could take down the Mustangs.

[Dr Jekyll]

Could you fit a sidewinder onto a Sopwith Pup?

[Dr Jekyll]

V8 Fettler said:

Your ranting has reduced, that's good; although you appear to be searching for Keyboard Konflikt which - in view of your marvellously irascible codgerliness - you'll not get from me. Throw what you want and I'll take notes for my dotage.

We can cut through the proverbial by comparing the number of 262s destroyed by P51s and vicky verky.

After a recount, I estimate that P-51s destroyed about 120 262s; source (pdf): http://www.afhra.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-...

I estimate that 262s destroyed approximately 70 P-51s, my source being "The Me 262 Stormbird: From the Pilots Who Flew, Fought, and Survived It", Colin D. Heaton. There is what appears to be a complete copy on an Eastern European website that I'm not going to post a link to (spyware detection wasn't happy). I'm sure there will be PHers with the hardback or the kindle version who can check this.

I was expecting about a 3:1 advantage in favour of the 262, so I'm not 100% confident of the data (possible missing pages on the Stormbird copy?), so chip away at my estimates! I am tempted to spend the £18 or so for a kindle copy, but I'd rather spend that on petrol.

Bear in mind that while the P51s were there to shoot down fighters, the ME262s were there to shoot down bombers. Ideally they wanted to totally ignore the P51s.