"Emmanuel Gustin" wrote in message ...
"Tex Houston" wrote in message
...

Has there been a follow-on project?

Gee, none of these sound like a German aircraft. Oh, well.

Messerschmitt jet design followed several tracks. One track
was the development of the 'HG' (Hochgeschwindigkeit, high
speed) versions of the basic Me 262. These involved sweeping
back the wings and tail to get a better transsonic performance,
and,

in the HG III project, moving the engine nacelles to the
wing roots.

The HG III used He S11 engines which I believe would have better
resistence to turbulent flows. This was meant to be the original
position.


These designs were intended as heavy fighters or nightfighters.

The more important, for in the long term much more influential,
development track was the P.1101 series. These were swept-wing
jet fighters from start, and directly provided the inspiration for
post-war designs such as the F-86 Sabre. (The P.1101 looked
like a cross between a Sabre and a Saab J29.)

As far as I know the Me 262 HG design never got beyond the
wind tunnel stage, while metal was cut on the P.1101 projects.
(The P.1101 development aircraft was constructed and shipped
to the USA after the war; Bell derived the variable-sweep X-5
from it.) So in practical terms the Me 262 was not a basis for
significant further development; the Germans did not have the
resources left to build the Me 262 HG designs anyway. The
German influence on post-war jet fighter design was very great,
but it came from the more advanced Messerschmitt and
Focke-Wulf projects, not from the Me 262.

But the Me 262 was not any more a 'dead end' than the Meteor
or the P-80. The first jet fighters were simply a poor basis for
further development, because new aerodynamic concepts were
imposing themselves. The design teams did try, of course, but it
was much better to start with a clean sheet of paper. The exception
was the F-97, aka F-94C, which was derived from the basic
F-80/F-94 design as a stopgap nightfighter, and for which speed
of development was the overriding factor.


The Arado 234 is often neglected. The 4 engined (BMW 003) Arado 234C
was easily the fastest jet of WW2 (3 entered troop testing I believe)
at some 568 mph. (this was mach limited: the aircraft could excede
its own mach limit in level flight!)

It's designer Kosin (first name Rainer I think) came up with the idea
of lofting the Ar 234 wing on a computer to join rivets and spars at
points of equal curvature instead of equal chord. This produced an
incredubly smooth surface that is essential in high speed aircraft
swept wings or not. This method was orderd to be studied by the
other German designers.

The 4 engined Ar 234C also had the first modular engine installation.

Kosins reasearch also influenced the double delta seen on the RAAFs
Victor bomber.

Also quite influencial were the German Jet engine designers such as
Franz Anselm (designer of the Me 262a Jumo 004 and T53 for Allison,
Pabst von Ohain Himself and Max Bentley.

The term "after burner" is a derivative of the german "nach-brenner".
The British still often use their own term "reheat". I believe the
jumo 004E was the first afterburning engine to run.