Back in the late 1980s I was part of a project to obtain one of the Czech-built Me 262s (Avia S-92) and restore it to flight. (The Warsaw Pact was crumbling, and such things were becoming possible) We were going with the same tact as these new-build 262s (Can't really call them replicas), replacing the Jumo 004s with GE CJ610s. My role was performance prediction and flying qualities prediction. It's great to hear from Mr. Kraehenbul not only how much he enjoys flying the airplane, but how close my predictions, from the days when Computers were stupid, and so Engineers made up for it with sweat, coffee, and lots of paper, were to what he's describing.
@@afre3398 Nobody's going to fly a Jumo 004. They weren't safe even by 1844 standards. Which isn't surprising - as a Year Zero jet engine, the internal aerodynamics and engine control systems were all "By Guess and By Gosh". Every restoration / reconstruction project is based around the CJ610, or, perhaps the Pratt & Whitney JT-12. You then run into problems - you need to limit the engines to about 66-70% thrust - If you ran a CJ610 at full thrust, and lost an engine, the single engine safety speed (The speed where you have enough control authority to not have it immediately roll over and plow into the ground is about 250 mph/300 km/hr. Which is about 100mph (85 kts/160 km/hr) higher than the takeoff speed. (Even in the day, it was dicey enough - a 30 kt window is pretty wide.) If you were running at full power at altitude, you'd be right up against its mach limit - which means uncontrollable nose tuck. Don't forget the pressure to get the engine and the airframe in service - Operational and Production issues with the engines were never satisfactorily resolved, and delayed service introduction for a half a year. There was a lot to be done to get the airframe itself ready for production . For its time - it was a fairly advanced shape, with relatively primitive systems - it a lot of lessons.
Yeah thats not true. There is currently a Me 262 replica with Jumo 004 replica engines being built. The thing is the Jumo 004 is an "OK" engine....If its being built with the proper metals as it was designed. The problem was that those metals were substituted with inferior ones
At first i thought "Wow, there is still a ME 262 Pilot who's alive AND flying it nowadays? Of course thinking of a WW2 Vet. That said, hearing from a WW2 Veteran and ME 262 Pilot as well as someone who isn't a WW2 Vet BUT flies these nowadays and has Experience to share are both valueable and fantastic! Prost & Cheers from Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps
This is not a Me 262, this is a Hybrid Me 262, electronics, engines, odometers, gauges, even the seat... This is only a Me262 steel chasis, nothing more.
Galland, Schall, and Steinhoff were notable people still alive who talked about their experiences flying the Me-262 in not so distant past. But yeah, none of the OGs flew a Me-262 after the war. I doubt anyone would. A number of surviving heroes did fly in the backseat of their adversary Spitfire as recent as 10 years ago.
@@sztypettto That's very true. My Grandfather (also a WW2 Vet and still alive now at the Age of 105) wasn't allowed back into the Bundeswehr after the War because like many towards the End of the War he ended up being drafted into the Waffen SS. But like many he still was invited a lot to the USA but also here in Germany to give Speeches to Soldiers regarding his Experiences fighting the Soviets and Steinhoff was very active in those "WW2 Veteran but not allowed to keep serving after the War" Circles and supportive. So while i never got to meet Steinhoff myself, my Grandfather did and apparently he was quite a Blast after a few Beers retelling his Stories and experiences with different Planes. Regarding flying as Passenger in a Spitfire, i heard about that! In general i heard a lot about especially German Luftwaffe Pilots meeting with British Royal Airforce Pilots after the War and becoming Friends
@@chartreux1532 much respect to your grandfather for his service. It may not be a popular subject to talk about since that era, but your grandfather was from an era of the most honourable people of the time. Very graceful how a number of Germans reshaped their lives after the war and became very resourceful. There's likely no parallel to this, and likely won't ever be.
Almost every plane at this time turned out to be designed as a boom and zoom fighter. The time of dogfight as an air superiority concept was over for a decade by the introduction of the me262. The me109, fw190 and almost all American designs had the same concept. Especially the Japanese learned that the hard way.
@@remote24 Guns needed time on target, so turn fighting became increasingly relevant by the end of the War. The Japanese Navy and 109 pilots were late in catching up that hit and run theories were less useful than was anticipated in the 1930s (the Zero rarely turned, and used mostly hit and run or a vertical loop called the Hineri-Komi). Furthermore, hit and run required a cooperating target that went straight, which, as a consequence, required firing at point-blank range... The Me-262 achieved most of its kills with R4M rockets, not guns...
@@boas7742 The British were so far ahead they were out of sight: Pre WW2 Britain was on two paths: *1)* The *axial-flow* air compressor by Griffiths; *2)* The *centrifugal* air compressor by Whittle. Griffiths' 1926 seminal paper laid down axial-flow. His paper actually outlined a turbo prop. He did not believe at the time the engines could produce enough thrust, but could turn a propeller. He got Metrovick to develop an axial-flow turbojet in 1938, who started the groundwork of the F.2 axial-flow in 1940, having an engine first spin in 1940, with a successful test bed spin in 1941. Whittle's patent was in 1930, which laid down the _turbojet._ All this info was available to the Germans. Whittle went for centrifugal, as it was a _simpler_ way of compressing air. Whittle wanted a simple air compressor to establish his turbo jet design *_quickly._* In short, he was interested more in establishing the back end of the engine, the thrust, rather than the front. Once the back end was perfected then he could improve the front, the air compression. This was the sensible approach. The centrifugal compressor was perfectly adequate to prove the rear thrust side of the engine. As post war engines proved the centrifugal was taken to higher limits. Axial-flow compression was a series of turbine fans on one shaft, with successive fans passing air to the next fan to increase air compression. This added complexity in many ways. Griffiths went for the more complex axial-flow. He also laid down a contra-rotating compressor, but Metrovick did not go down that road. The more powerful F.2 was used to fly the Meteor plane but considered unreliable at that stage, so Whittle's centrifugal engine was used. The F.2 was more reliable than the German Jumo, but the British would never put a plane in the air with such an unreliable under-developed engine. Wiggin in Birmingham were commissioned to develop high temperature resistant alloys as the jet engines were being developed. The Germans had no such programme. The F.2 ended up as the post war Sapphire being built under licence in the USA as the J65, powering the: Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, Grumman F-11 Tiger, Martin B-57 and the Republic F-84F Thunderstreak. It took the French a wasted *eight* years to get the German design reliable, which by that time they had discarded many of the German engine concepts. The French airliner the Sud Aviation Caravelle, used Rolls Royce Avon engines the French engines, based on German designs, were so good.
Some great footage and intelligent questions and answers. I love how articulate and excited he is to describe the honor of flying such a unique aircraft and to recount tales of his time in the Swiss A.F.
When I worked at the Me262 Project at Paine Field (where this a/c was completed), I came to know their test pilot, Wolf Czaia. He provided lots of insight into this aircraft's flight characteristics and quirks. Most notable where the very high stick forces for longitudinal (aileron) control at high speeds which would lighten considerably when the stick reached the end of its travel in either direction. Reminded me of drawing back on a compound bow.
it's always nice to see when such historical vehicles are functional, even if it requires a bit modern help, and enable us to get first hand experience reports. especially when they're such rare & iconic ones as the 262.
Those last shots coming in to land, it was interesting seeing the slats moving in and out. I'll have to go back and watch your previous videos on the Me-262 again.
"What was that!? What the hell was that!? It went by like we were standing still. What the hell is it?" It was the Messerschmidt 262. The world's first operational jet fighter. It flies an 150 miles an hour faster than our fastest fighters.
The first operational fighter was the Meteor - with trained air and ground crews ready to be deployed anywhere. The 262 was with a test unit most of the time.
I think many are missing what this a/c is It’s a MODERN copy of a 262 with MODERN engines It’s one of the batch that were started in Tx and finished up at Paine Field. There was an original with original engines being restored by Paul Allen but I have not seen an update on that program for a while (when his sister didn’t follow his wishes to fund the museum)
This is an original with modern engines (the jumos always broke down quickly) He said they cannot use the engines at full capabilities because it could damage the aircraft.
No its a replica, built to the original plans using modern engines and avionics. I talked to Herr Krähenbühl while he was standing next to the aircraft at RIAT on the Saturday when it couldn't fly due to the crosswinds. Ask him good questions and you get very good answers. Me How good is this in a turning Fight? K12: Get into a turning fight in this aircraft and you're dead!!!
Still wonderful that it's flying and pretty close to the original. I gather the only Ju87 Stuka flying is a replica. But it's much better than nothing.
The ME-262 is just a beautiful plane. It saddens me that it's design wasn't used more. I know the Sabre and the MiG-15 are both loosely based off the 262, but neither of them match it in looks, for me anyways. It's simply gorgeous.
it really is a great design its like a shark almost from the frontal view. But I think they gave it the right name of Schwalbe or Swallow or some times Sturm Vogel or Storm Bird but that's a less interesting name for me.
If you listen closely to Mr. Krahenbuhl he pretty much tells you why the design wasn't used more--it's a tricky aircraft to fly. Eric Brown said something similar: "It wasn't a beautiful aircraft to fly."
Czechoslovaks built nine Avia Š-92 from parts and plans left over by Germans. These were essentially Me-262 with Czech tri-color on it, used as the first czechoslovak fighter jets. They also built a unique twin-seat trainer - Avia CŠ-92 - you can see it in the Letecké Muzeum Kbely in Prague.
Very interesting to hear this perspective and compare it to the original pilots. Their frame of reference was what came before the Me-262. But his frame of reference is what came after.
Same, when I moved to America and went to the National Air and Space Museum in D.C. , seeing this plane was like seeing spaceship. Its twin engines, triangular nose, and knowing it fought against WW2 props blew my mind.
The Me 262A was definitely not an easy airplane to fly with it's relatively underpowered Jumo 004B with slow "spooling up" but we are talking about the end of the war with chronic shortage of everything including experienced pilots nevertheless it is one of my favourite airplanes...
There are aviation equivalents of "Wehraboos" who will ardently claim that the Me262 could out-turn a Spitfire, and had easy handling characteristics, and a long-lived reliable engine. That it was a completely faultless airoplane..... One in particular I am thinking of insists of calling the 262's contemporary the Gloster Meteor the 'meatbox'.
@@pashakdescilly7517 Well, everybody, including the pilots who flew them, called the Meteor the Meatbox. That being said - the Me 262 was early, not magic. The Allies had equivalent or better performing jets by the time of the German surrender, but, since they weren't losing, didn't have the same desperation to get them in combat.
@@peterstickney7608 The Brits were keen not to allow the Germans to find a destroyed Meteor and assess its engines, and have access to the special alloys used in making them.
@@pashakdescilly7517 it's not like German engineers didn't know how to build longer lasting jet engines. The metal shortages just didn't allow them to actually build them, next to the bad quality at the end of the war.
500kmh on one engine is crazy for a 1940s era warplane. Hearing Geri talk about the unique flying dynamics of the plane it is no wonder the Luftwaffe were weary of deploying them more often or able to have pilots with enough experience & flight time to fly them at optimal levels. Got to remember by 1944 most of Germany's pilots were in theirs early 20s. I've read the biggest issue with ME262 was the engine design had temperature issues on long range missions, lack of fuel reserves keeping most squadrons used in smaller operations, and parts shortage due to constant destruction of factories at the hands of British bombers.
Is this bird one of the five built by ME262 project? Years ago, I was lucky enough to see running ME262 upclose, sit in cockpit, and meet great Wolf Czaia in Seattle. Preatty proud to say, I am amongst very few in the World today to have experienced it. What a machine waay ahead of its time! Thank you for sharing.
Since first reading about this plane as a barely ten year old in the late 1980's and then "finaly flying" it in SWOTL (after completing BOB multiple times the years prior) : I'm soooo jealus of this man! But on the other hand I'm happy that there're guys who can still fly this piece of art/history!
He rolled and looped it ! Very cool. Now someone make a flying He 162 with better engine and glue. The 162 is reported to be a much better flying plane then the Me 262.
I have the squadron documents of the flights logged by the French Armee de l'Aire of the He 162s they briefly flew in 1945. Flight times were on the order of 20-25 minutes.
I don't know how many ME 262's actually flew over the UK during WW2...not too many I suppose 🙂 so it's interesting that one finally got to do that even if it was in a time of peace... Great video Thanks 👍
None. They were all held back for the defence of the Reich. They would not have had the fuel to get to the UK anyway. Some recon flights over the UK were done by Arado 234 Jet bombers fitted with cameras.
I find it interesting they didn't want to explore the potential flight envelop with more powerful engines. I recall someone (Eric "Winkle" Brown?) commenting that the Me-262 program was so rushed, the germans didn't test the complete high speed envelop, like, what was the real mach limit, true maximum dive speeds, etc. So with this one, they didn't wanted to push their luck with unexplored territory and choose to stay in the safe side. I probably would too, considering this new 262 still don't have a ejection seat.
But the established permissible flight envelope does not change with more thrust. Excess thrust will not cause an airplane to go too fast. It is the pitch attitude for the thrust applied that can cause overspeed. You can overspeed with less than normal thrust with the nose down, and you can stay under redline speed with extra thrust if you use that thrust to climb. The only time you have too much installed thrust is when the engine mounting structure can't handle it, or there is not enough rudder authority to compensate for asymmetric thrust if an engine fails.
There is the contested claim by Hans Guido Mutke of having exceeded Mach 1 in an uncontrolled dive in a 262 in 1945, along with several other claims of exceeding Mach 1 in a dive in various aircraft, but instrumentation errors as an aircraft approaches Mach 1 put all of these claims into at a greater or lesser degree of doubt, depending on the aircraft and circumstances. Yeager is, however, still clearly the first pilot to exceed Mach 1 in level flight, whether or not someone was able to briefly push past Mach 1 with the help of gravity.
I can imagine that it has less to do with aerodynamics and more to do with the airframe strength. Increase the engine thrust and the strength of the engine pods, wings, wing fuselage connection all have to be checked accordingly. Seems like more hassle than it is worth.
@@martijn9568 They don't have the need or wherewithal to do an engineering program to test or upgrade the structure to handle greater thrust. When the upgraded the C-5 Galaxy with a more powerful engine, they derated the engine a bit because that was all the thrust the wing structure and pylon connection could handle. It was still a very useful 25% increase in takeoff thrust and allowed more reserve for hot and high takeoffs as well as sustaining climb thrust to higher altitude.
Of course they would have to replace the Jumo engines with new ones because the old ones only lasted about 24 hours of flight time and then had to be rebuilt. A most interesting airplane and comment by the pilot.
Fuel stop in Zweibrücken. 🙂Nice, my hometown & long time RCAF base (3 Fighter Wing) during the Cold War. Taken over by USAF in 1969 when the Canadians moved their remaining assets to Baden. Very interesting to find out the engines are a version of the J-85. I worked on CF-5's while in the Air Force and our well known Snowbird Air Demonstration Tutors feature the J-85.
For this application, they're perfect. The mass flow matches, so you don't need to mess with the intakes, the CJ610/J85 fits nicely in the nacelle with room to spare, and since they were the engine used in early Learjets and the Jet COmmander/Westwind, there's lots of 'em around
Man's living the dream, I can't imagine learning how to fly an aircraft that hadn't been flown in decades (yes I'm aware these a newly built). I wonder what the learning curve was like?
I just realized that although both German and Allied piston engined fighters had drop tanks, I don’t recall seeing a single picture or mention of drop tanks for the Me 262, despite it being a fuel thirsty aircraft. I suspect they did have them, but that they were probably rarely used, as SOP was to jettison the tanks as soon as the enemy was encountered and it was rare for them to fly any great distance late in the war before they encountered Allied aircraft, only taking off when they were within their operational sector.
I suppose it was needed overwhelmingly as a short range interceptor by the time it went into service, so drop tanks were not necessary. If it had longer range it might have been useful for reconnaissance, being very difficult to intercept at speed, especially for observing the fall of V1/V2s. But the Germans probably had too much confidence in their spy network.
@@philiphumphrey1548 the jet the Germans used for reconnaissance was the Arado Ar 232, which actually did have drop tanks, and although they did use them to spy on Britain, they wisely confined their missions to the coast. For the V2s, the Germans started to use radios and via triangulation were able to gauge the accuracy of their rocket attacks (I don’t know if they used the same tactic with the V1s, but it wouldn’t surprise me).
@philiphumphrey1548 they didn't need 262 recon as they used very successful AR234B as recon right up to mid April 45 over Britain and Scotland without loss.
My father met Fritz Wendel at his brewery in Germany in 1961. My father asked him where he could find BF 109s for museums in the states....he said "I know where there is six!".......my father said where, where?!.....Fritz said, "at the bottom of the Bodenzee...."
My dad was a WWII B24 pilot with 35 missions. He told me of a time a 232 flew right up behind one his fighter escorts, knocked it down, zoomed ahead and out of sight. He said it was like, “ What was that?”
Many years ago, around 1980, I used to go out to Chino, CA, and the small airfield there, and there was a small mob that had warbirds there, one of which was a ME 262. The F4u's used in Black sheep Squadron were based there as well, plus a P-51 or two, a B 25, a Kawasaki Ki-61 "Tony" being restored and a complete B 17, although I don't think it was airworthy .. There were others but the ME 262 stuck in my mind... If anyone has any information on what became of the company, they may. have been the Planes of Fame, but couldn't remember that well, I have photos stashed away somewhere....
Even though I knew all this from sims it was great to hear it from first hand experience with a real deal frame! Also for an early gen 2 aircraft it sounds like a real dream to fly not sweet heart by any means but a dream never the less!
Good thing they changed the engines, It would be an endless string of overhaul to keep the original engines running. I know most of the problems with the original engines was the lack of durable alloy, but still an modern engine is the better choice since technic has developed and parts is there on the shelf.
. . . You amazingly lucky bastard. Would absolutely LOVE to get a chance to ride along in one of those. . . And as I realize its not an actual ride along, i feel sad, and kinda stupid.
No one can claim that an engine is combat ready with a service life of 10-12 hours, which cannot be rapidly throttled up or down otherwise it stalls, is prone to flame-out and terrifies its pilots. They were underdeveloped and unproven axial-flow jet engines, being near garbage. The British installed axial-flow engines in a Meteor, however dropping them as they were too problematic at the time, requiring years to put right. A war was on, with years in development they could not afford. The problems with German jet engines were not caused by the scarcity of metals in Germany during WW2, as they had access to enough rare metals. To produce a high performing jet engine high-strength alloys are required resisting high temperature. No iron-based alloy is suitable. Germany had no programme to develop such alloys. The British did, developing the nimonic series of alloys, making use of them in the WW2 jet engine programme. That is one, just one, of the reasons why the British jet program had combat potential, with the German program doomed to failure. The Me262 airframe had many serious faults: *1)* high landing speed: difficult to maneuver; *2)* no air brakes; *3)* centre of gravity too far back; *4)* Poor downwards pilot visibility; Those faults made attacking other aircraft far more difficult - at a time when they were desperately short of pilots, particularly pilots with sufficient skill and experience to fly what was a very difficult plane to fly and fight in. The sweep-back of the wing of the Me262 was minimal, only in the leading edge, with a part of the trailing edge of the wing being straight. The swept wing was an insufficient correction for the plane's centre of gravity problem, not aerodynamics, that prompted the slight wing sweep. It was not until years later that properly designed swept-back wings were introduced in combat planes.
