GERMAN JET FIGHTER REPLICA HEADS OVERSEAS (US Gov. alarmed at "war weapon export")

AOPA Online | 1/13/06

[ctyankee00]

More info at

http://www.stormbirds.com/project/

(apologies in advance if these don't post as links).

If you'd like to 'fly' one online, try Aces High at

http://www.hitechcreations.com

[Sensei Ern]

Maybe your dad thought the P-51 keeping the FW-190's off his plane was the best?

[Doomonyou]

U.S. State Department officials delayed it 60 days because they saw it as a weapon of war.

Right, that's a real threat to an F-16...

[Blood of Tyrants]

Two problems, the Germans couldn't make enough of them to make a difference and the ME-262 flew so fast that they had to slow down in order to shoot at the B-17's. When they slowed down the US piston aircraft were able to defend against them. As a result, the main tactic was to zoom past the B-17's at 500 mph with cannons blazind and hope you hit something.

[meandog]

Boeing built the greatest plane in history with the 17......

You'd find some argument with the B-24 crowd. It was harder to fly but apparently better able to defend itself.

[Lx]

Please don't tell me it's the one at the Smithsonian air and Space museum??????

[Allegra]

Check it out.

[tanknetter]

Please don't tell me it's the one at the Smithsonian air and Space museum??????

No -- it looks like the picture at the top of the thread is just a file photo of the Smithsonian -262.

[Strategerist]

Actually the payload of the B-17 by the time it was being used in numbers in 1943-44 was nothing special; it really was a medium bomber, not a heavy bomber. Contemporary AC like the British Lancaster and Halifax carried a LOT more bombs.

[agere_contra]

The first ever jet combat was a Gloucester Meteor against one of these 262's. The Meteor won, but be very glad that Hitler delayed jet research for about two years. I don't think Germany would have won the war with earlier jets, but the defensive advantage of fast short-time-of-flight fighter jets would have extended the war by about two years IMO.

[Little Ray]

Too cool. Site say the new ones are built to ME-262 specs, but have MUCH better engines than the old Jumo. Biggest problem is that they airframes can't handle the transonic regime... They have to keep it ~500 mph. Better range and acceleration, too!

I think ol' Willy Messerschmidt had some advanced ideas for the M-262 that WOULD have handled transonic speeds. They should try buildin' one o' those!

[Chode]

[Leatherneck_MT]

State Department...

another govt agency that needs an enema.

[Little Ray]

Didn't think there was any jet to jet combat in WWII. The Meteors were stuck in the UK intercepting V1s and didn't have the range to reach Germany, anyway. Is there a link to this?

[Strategerist]

There actually were more B-24s bombing Germany than B-17s.

The B-17 had the greatest Public Relations campaign of any aircraft in history...in the early war it was thus horrendously overrated, particularly against ships.

Very early in the war it was erroneously believed and widely reported in the press that a B-17 out of the Phillipines had sunk the Battleship Hiei. Things were going badly for the US then so everyone just latched on to the good news and weren't skeptical.

And for quite some time after the battle, the media and general public were under the impression that the Japanese carriers at Midway had been destroyed by Army Air Corps B-17s, not Navy dive bombers.

[Sarajevo]

TA-152. Perhaps you meant tp post a different designation.

[A.A. Cunningham]

the aircobra

Airacobra was prop driven.

[fireforeffect]

Correction.

The National Socialist could not make enough ENGINES for them. My dad remembers driving down the Autobahn and seeing revetment after revetment off the road with Me 262's without engines.

We bombed the ball bearing plants.