I’m having a bit of a week… I’m a bit cross about something (it has been 48 hours), I’ve had a headache for three days straight now and my brain can’t really focus on a subject to write on.
Nice, even though I wonder why you left out the He-162 which had this alarming tendency to come apart in flight. The best news about it is that it really didn‘t fly much.
One minor remark: Last time I checked the Spitfire also raises its main undercarriage into the wings. ;-)
Yeah the 162 was a rushed design with poor materials and watered down glue that had a habbit of not sticking and the 262 was far from perfect but time was getting on and I’d hit about 2000 words so some choices were made ;-)
I' might circle back and write something on the crappy nature of Wunderwaffen at some point!
Oh, and there is of course the Me-262. Its blistering performance and very heavy armament set it apart from the crowd but soon enough allied pilots found out how easy it was to shoot them down on their final approach, due to the high fuel consumption and bad responsiveness of their engines. The Luftwaffe even had to set up whole squadrons in order to make for defense of the valuable jets against allied fighters.
When I was a kid I read war comics avidly. Commando was one series I particularly remember. I’m pretty sure they had an issue titled “Deadly Defiant” about the Boulton Paul fighter and how it became a fairly effective night fighter. (Could have been Battle Picture Library or something like that). I had an Airfix model in night fighter black. It was a neat looking aircraft if ill conceived.
This is just the nature of military aircraft development. One doesn’t want to be flying obsolete designed aircraft in combat against cutting edge fighters. From the Fokker E.III to the Lockheed F-35, everything in between is obsolete at some point and dangerous to the opponent life. The balance of design performance changed in months in WW1 and WWII
Nice, even though I wonder why you left out the He-162 which had this alarming tendency to come apart in flight. The best news about it is that it really didn‘t fly much.
One minor remark: Last time I checked the Spitfire also raises its main undercarriage into the wings. ;-)
I’d forgotten about the Spitfire lol.
Yeah the 162 was a rushed design with poor materials and watered down glue that had a habbit of not sticking and the 262 was far from perfect but time was getting on and I’d hit about 2000 words so some choices were made ;-)
I' might circle back and write something on the crappy nature of Wunderwaffen at some point!
Oh, and there is of course the Me-262. Its blistering performance and very heavy armament set it apart from the crowd but soon enough allied pilots found out how easy it was to shoot them down on their final approach, due to the high fuel consumption and bad responsiveness of their engines. The Luftwaffe even had to set up whole squadrons in order to make for defense of the valuable jets against allied fighters.
Great article but there another Luftwaffe aircraft/flying coffin you missed - the Me 210/410
I did overlok the 210 but I think the "Destroyer" project deserves its own post... Keep an eye out, I'll have one out on Saturday on it!
When I was a kid I read war comics avidly. Commando was one series I particularly remember. I’m pretty sure they had an issue titled “Deadly Defiant” about the Boulton Paul fighter and how it became a fairly effective night fighter. (Could have been Battle Picture Library or something like that). I had an Airfix model in night fighter black. It was a neat looking aircraft if ill conceived.
This is just the nature of military aircraft development. One doesn’t want to be flying obsolete designed aircraft in combat against cutting edge fighters. From the Fokker E.III to the Lockheed F-35, everything in between is obsolete at some point and dangerous to the opponent life. The balance of design performance changed in months in WW1 and WWII