Download as PDF Printable version. Modifications to the interiors allowed the Comet 2s to be used in a number of different roles. Last month, U. During re-entry jet plane design out was classed like a glider as an unpowered aircraft. Biplane No.

The prospect of this unprecedented surge, plus stricter emissions limits and rising fuel costs, could, at last, bring visible changes to the familiar airliner, says James Heidmann, manager of the Advanced Air Transport Technology project at NASA Glenn in Cleveland. This transformation would be the biggest since the jet was introduced in the mids. NASA's New Aviation Horizons initiative, an effort to explore large-aircraft designs and greener technologies is currently unfunded and on hold.

But the four chief contractors for subsonic concepts — Aurora Flight Sciences, Dzyne Technologies, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing — successfully completed their research contracts, Heidmann reports.

One of the initiative's goals is to craft airliners that burn half the fuel of current jets and generate 75 percent less pollution while being much quieter. Most striking of these futuristic designs are Boeing's and Lockheed Martin's hybrid wing body, and Dzyne's blended wing body. With wings and fuselages melded at various degrees, these efficient flying machines are almost whale-like in appearance, featuring clean lines and voluminous interiors that are particularly suited for carrying military cargo.

Boeing's truss-braced wing concept has a standard tubular fuselage that's a bit more familiar, but it mounts on long, thin, high-efficiency wings supported by diagonal trusses — like a Piper Cub on steroids.

Its glider-like wings are so long that their tips would likely have to fold up to fit at the airport gate, adding unwanted weight and complexity. It's a potentially game-changing technology, Heidmann says, but one that requires moving the engines from the wings to the top of the rear fuselage a layout that mimics Lockheed's L Tristar , a pioneering design of the recent past.

Such a BLI-demonstrator could be possible in five to ten years. Inside its rear-mounted power pod is an electrically driven fan that provides propulsion while also ingesting much of the slow-moving boundary layer air that flows next to the fuselage. This low-energy air enters a front intake vent and is blown out the back, reenergizing the plane's wake to cut aerodynamic drag.

The STARC-ABL carries downsized, less fuel-thirsty turbofan engines on its wings that can produce thrust or generate electric power, allowing the hybrid-electric design to operate like a flying Toyota Prius. During takeoff, the engines would supply 80 percent of the necessary thrust, with the remainder delivered by the aft-mounted, in-line electric fan.

Studies show that the concept airliner offers a potential 10 percent to 15 percent improvement in fuel consumption, even considering the extra weight of the module.

The challenge of the D8 design is determining whether the smaller, lighter turbofans, which are normally engineered to work in uniform air flows, will be able to operate in the unsteady air flows at the back of the plane. In this case, every time the engines' front fan blades swing down toward the airplane's skin, where slower, boundary layer air flows, the blades are exposed to severe stresses. Langford is confident BLI propulsion will work just fine on the D8.

And because the design's double-wide, oval fuselage creates a significant amount of aerodynamic lift and its engines are integrated into its surface, the wings can be smaller, ensuring that the plane will fit at existing airport gates.

Aurora's CEO is likewise sure the D8's wind-cheating features will combine to make it extremely economical to fly.

At the same time, the design's top-mounted engine position and the distinctive tail structure will shield engine noise. Passengers will love this plane. Another concept gaining interest is NASA's X Maxwell, an electric aircraft that features 14 small, electrically driven propellers along its wings.

Intended for exploring the feasibility of electric propulsion a potentially quieter, greener way to fly , the X is one of the several designs and propulsion concepts that have garnered interest among the aviation community. Two more electric plane startups have just come to light in the last month. The Me was so fast that German pilots needed new tactics to attack Allied bombers. Even from astern, the closing speed was too great to use the short-ranged quartet of MK cannon to maximum effect.

Therefore, a roller-coaster attack was devised. The Me s approached from astern and about 1, m higher 5, ft than the bombers. From about five km behind 3. When they were about 1. Target acquisition was difficult because the jets closed into firing range quickly and remained in firing position only briefly, using their standard attack profile, which proved more effective. This was a Blitzkrieg aircraft. You whack in at your bomber. It was never meant to be a dogfighter, it was meant to be a destroyer of bombers The great problem with it was it did not have dive brakes.

For example, if you want to fight and destroy a B, you come in on a dive. The 30mm cannon were not so accurate beyond metres [ yd; 2, ft].

So you normally came in at yards [ m; 1, ft] and would open fire on your B And your closing speed was still high and since you had to break away at metres [ yd; ft] to avoid a collision, you only had two seconds firing time. Now, in two seconds, you can't sight. You can fire randomly and hope for the best. If you want to sight and fire, you need to double that time to four seconds.

And with dive brakes, you could have done that. Eventually, German pilots developed new combat tactics to counter Allied bombers' defences. Me s, equipped with up to 24 unguided folding-fin R4M rockets —12 in each of two underwing racks, outboard of the engine nacelle—approached from the side of a bomber formation, where their silhouettes were widest, and while still out of range of the bombers' machine guns, fired a salvo of rockets with strongly brisant Hexogen -filled warheads, exactly the same explosive in the shells fired by the Me A's quartet of MK cannon.

One or two of these rockets could down even the famously rugged Boeing B Flying Fortress , [58] from the "metal-shattering" brisant effect of the fast-flying rocket's g 18 oz explosive warhead. The much more massive BR 21 large-calibre rockets, used from their tubular launchers in undernose locations for an Me A's use one either side of the nosewheel well were only as fast as the MK 's shells. Though this broadside-attack tactic was effective, it came too late to have a real effect on the war, and only small numbers of Me s were equipped with the rocket packs.

Some nicknamed this tactic the Luftwaffe's Wolf Pack , as the fighters often made runs in groups of two or three, fired their rockets, then returned to base.

On 1 September , USAAF General Carl Spaatz expressed the fear that if greater numbers of German jets appeared, they could inflict losses heavy enough to force cancellation of the Allied bombing offensive by daylight.

The Me was difficult to counter because its high speed and rate of climb made it hard to intercept. However, as with other turbojet engines at the time, the Me 's engines did not provide sufficient thrust at low air speeds and throttle response was slow, so that in certain circumstances such as takeoff and landing the aircraft became a vulnerable target.

Another disadvantage that pioneering jet aircraft of the World War II era shared, was the high risk of compressor stall and if throttle movements were too rapid, the engine s could suffer a flameout. The coarse opening of the throttle would cause fuel surging and lead to excessive jet pipe temperatures. Pilots were instructed to operate the throttle gently and avoid quick changes. German engineers introduced an automatic throttle regulator later in the war but it only partly alleviated the problem.

The plane had, by contemporary standards, a high wing loading Due to poor throttle response, the engines' tendency for airflow disruption that could cause the compressor to stall was ubiquitous. The high speed of the Me also presented problems when engaging enemy aircraft, the high-speed convergence allowing Me pilots little time to line up their targets or acquire the appropriate amount of deflection.

This problem faces any aircraft that approaches another from behind at much higher speed, as the slower aircraft in front can always pull a tighter turn, forcing the faster aircraft to overshoot.

Johannes Steinhoff , Luftwaffe fighter ace. Luftwaffe pilots eventually learned how to handle the Me 's higher speed and the Me soon proved a formidable air superiority fighter, with pilots such as Franz Schall managing to shoot down seventeen enemy fighters in the Me , ten of them American P Mustangs.

Other notable Me aces included Georg-Peter Eder , with twelve enemy fighters to his credit including nine Ps , Erich Rudorffer also with twelve enemy fighters to his credit, Walther Dahl with eleven including three Lavochkin La-7s and six Ps and Heinz-Helmut Baudach with six including one Spitfire and two Ps amongst many others.

Pilots soon learned that the Me was quite maneuverable despite its high wing loading and lack of low-speed thrust, especially if attention was drawn to its effective maneuvering speeds. The controls were light and effective right up to the maximum permissible speed and perfectly harmonised. Too fast to catch for the escorting Allied fighters, the Me s were almost impossible to head off. Combating the Allied fighters could be effectively done the same way as the U. Allied pilots soon found that the only reliable way to destroy the jets, as with the even faster Me B Komet rocket fighters, was to attack them on the ground or during takeoff or landing.

Luftwaffe airfields identified as jet bases were frequently bombed by medium bombers , and Allied fighters patrolled over the fields to attack jets trying to land.

The Luftwaffe countered by installing extensive Flak alleys of anti-aircraft guns along the approach lines to protect the Me s from the ground—and by providing top cover during the jets' takeoff and landing with the most advanced Luftwaffe single-engined fighters, the Focke-Wulf Fw D and just becoming available in Focke-Wulf Ta H.

As the Me A's pioneering Junkers Jumo axial-flow jet engines needed careful nursing by their pilots, these jet aircraft were particularly vulnerable during takeoff and landing. Chuck Yeager of the th Fighter Group was one of the first American pilots to shoot down an Me , which he caught during its landing approach.

Urban Drew of the th Fighter Group shot down two Me s that were taking off, while on the same day Lt. Hubert Zemke , who had transferred to the Mustang equipped th Fighter Group , shot down what he thought was a Bf , only to have his gun camera film reveal that it may have been an Me Hubert Lange, a Me pilot, said: "the Messerschmitt Me 's most dangerous opponent was the British Hawker Tempest—extremely fast at low altitudes, highly manoeuvrable and heavily armed.

They did not intercept the jet, but instead flew towards the Me and Ar base at Hopsten air base. The German response was the construction of a "flak lane" of over emplacements of the 20 mm Flakvierling quadruple autocannon batteries at Rheine-Hopsten to protect the approaches. Adolf Busemann had proposed swept wings as early as ; Messerschmitt researched the topic from Interest in high-speed flight, which led him to initiate work on swept wings starting in , is evident from the advanced developments Messerschmitt had on his drawing board in While the Me V9 Hochgeschwindigkeit I HG I flight-tested in had only small changes compared to combat aircraft, most notably a low-profile canopy —tried as the Rennkabine literally "racing cabin" on the ninth Me prototype for a short time—to reduce drag, the HG II and HG III designs were far more radical.

Messerschmitt also conducted a series of flight tests with the series production Me Dive tests determined that the Me went out of control in a dive at Mach 0. The resulting steepening of the dive would lead to even higher speeds and the airframe would disintegrate from excessive negative g loads. The HG series of Me derivatives was believed [ by whom?

After the war, the Royal Aircraft Establishment , at that time one of the leading institutions in high-speed research, re-tested the Me to help with British attempts at exceeding Mach 1. The RAE achieved speeds of up to Mach 0.

The Soviets ran similar tests. This claim relies solely on Mutke's memory of the incident, which recalls effects other Me pilots observed below the speed of sound at high indicated airspeed, but with no altitude reading required to determine the speed.

The pitot tube used to measure airspeed in aircraft can give falsely elevated readings as the pressure builds up inside the tube at high speeds. The Me wing had only a slight sweep, incorporated for trim center of gravity reasons and likely would have suffered structural failure due to divergence at high transonic speeds. About 1, planes were produced, but a maximum of were operational at any one time.

According to sources they destroyed from to enemy planes, with the Allies destroying about one hundred Me s in the air. Through the end of February to the end of March , approximately sixty Me s were destroyed in attacks on Obertraubling and thirty at Leipheim ; [87] the Neuburg jet plant itself was bombed on 19 March Large, heavily protected underground factories were constructed — as with the partly-buried Weingut I complex for Jumo jet engine production — to take up production of the Me , safe from bomb attacks.

A disused mine complex under the Walpersberg mountain was adapted for production of complete aircraft. These were hauled to the flat top of the hill where a runway had been cleared, and flown out.

Between 20 and 30 Me s were built here, the underground factory being overrun by Allied troops before it could reach meaningful output. Wings were produced in Germany's oldest motorway tunnel at Engelberg , to the west of Stuttgart.

Many Me s were found in readily repairable condition and were confiscated. The Soviets, British and Americans wished to evaluate the technology, particularly the engines. During testing, the Me was found to be faster than the British Gloster Meteor jet fighter, and had better visibility to the sides and rear mostly due to the canopy frames and the discoloration caused by the plastics used in the Meteor's construction , and was a superior gun platform to the Meteor F.

The Me appeared to have a higher critical Mach number than any American fighter. Between May and August , the aircraft completed eight flights, lasting four hours and forty minutes. Testing was discontinued after four engine changes were required during the course of the tests, culminating in two single-engine landings.

The F, designed by engineer Edgar Schmued , used a slat design based on the Me 's. From August , a total of nine Ss and three two-seater CSs were completed and test flown. They were introduced in and in were supplied to the 5th Fighter Squadron, becoming the first jet fighters to serve in the Czechoslovak Air Force. These were kept flying until , [4] when they were replaced in service by Soviet jet fighters.

Both versions are on display at the Prague Aviation museum in Kbely. In January , the American Me Project , based in Everett, Washington , completed flight testing to allow the delivery of partially updated spec reproductions of several versions of the Me including at least two B-1c two-seater variants, one A-1c single seater and two "convertibles" that could be switched between the A-1c and B-1c configurations.

All are powered by General Electric CJ engines and feature additional safety features, such as upgraded brakes and strengthened landing gear. The "c" suffix refers to the new CJ powerplant and has been informally assigned with the approval of the Messerschmitt Foundation in Germany [96] the Werknummer of the reproductions picked up where the last wartime produced Me left off — a continuous airframe serial number run with a near year production break.

Flight testing of the first newly manufactured Me A-1c single-seat variant Werknummer was completed in August The first of these machines Werknummer went to a private owner in the southwestern United States, while the second Werknummer was delivered to the Messerschmitt Foundation at Manching, Germany. This aircraft conducted a private test flight in late April , and made its public debut in May at the ILA The new Me flew during the public flight demonstrations.

Data from:' Messerschmitt Me A Schwalbe [] []. The first Me reproduction a two-seater took off for the first time in December and the second one in August Data from Quest for Performance [22] Original Messerschmitt documents []. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. World's first operational jet-powered fighter aircraft. This section needs additional citations for verification.

Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. June Learn how and when to remove this template message. July Learn how and when to remove this template message. The one above me went into a steep right-hand turn, his pale blue underside standing out against the purple sky. Another banked right in front of the Me's nose. Violent jolt as I flew through his airscrew eddies. Maybe a wing's length away.

That one in the gentle left-hand curve! Swing her round. I was coming from underneath, eye glued to the sight pull her tighter! A throbbing in the wings as my cannon pounded briefly. Missed him. Way behind his tail. It was exasperating. I would never be able to shoot one down like this.

They were like a sack of fleas. A prick of doubt: is this really such a good fighter? Could one in fact, successfully attack a group of erratically banking fighters with the Me ? September Learn how and when to remove this template message. Main article: Messerschmitt Me in fiction. Against multiple jet attackers, effective defense was simply impossible.

The base was closer to the town of Hopsten than the city of Rheine , and is no longer active. Speer: Hitler's Architect. Yale University Press. ISBN The Incomplete Guide to Airfoil Usage. Retrieved: 19 May Retrieved 19 May Retrieved: 25 September Major Ernst Englander.

London, United Kingdom: Amber Books. Journal of Engineering for Gas Turbines and Power.

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