"Gordon" wrote in message
...
Where I can't agree with you yet is over whether the Me-262 is
impressive.
Seems to me that a fighter which has trouble getting airborne, trouble
staying airborne for more than 25 minutes and which is unable to complete
a
turn while over a single county

Hmmmm... can't agree with those statements. It had a far better takeoff
accident rate than the 109 and other than requiring a hard-surfaced
runway,

The earliest Me-262s suffered from notoriously weak and unreliable
nose-wheels assemblies, which led to a number of fatal accidents. It was a
fault of fabrication, not design.The proper materiel in the proper numbers
weren't available. A trainer version was recognized as an urgent necessity
early in the a/c's development.

The Me-109 is acknowledged to have had a poor landing-gear design,
compromised due to the desire to obtain maximum streamlining.

the
greatest difficulty in getting airborne was fighting their way through the
Mustangs over their base.

I suggest instead that the greatest difficulty lay in simply getting the
engines started without a "hot start" occurring. Then the pilot was wise to
keep a keen ear to his radio while accelerating or climbing out for
"Achtung! Tempests!", etc. warnings, and also be alert for a flameout in one
or the other engine. Then, if he reached altitude, he was wise to pray for
smooth engine operation, without a flameout, which could have any of several
causes, no matter how carefully he managed his throttles.

As for its flight duration, 25 minutes was nothing
close to their sortie length. Logbooks I have seen suggest that four or
five
times that was most common.

Perhaps in the "Experten" squadron. Available to that organization was
presumably the best ground-crew and selected replacement parts, etc.
Otherwise, most Me-262s seemed to have to rtb early on account of
malfunctions usually related to the engines, which generally could not be
re-started in the air.

The last comment, concerning their
maneuverability, is not true - while not as nimble as a P-51 or Yak, its
good
to remember that neither of those fine aircraft were as nimble as a Po-2,
or a
Sopwith triplane for that matter. When an aircraft possesses a speed
advantage
that causes the enemy aircraft to "hang in the air as if motionless", such
an
advantage will quite likely cause it to suffer somewhat in other
performance
areas.

Unless the pilot of the opposing a/c is in a fighter, and is reasonably
alert. A typical USAAF tactic, if approached from the rear by an Me-262, was
to allow him to commit to a pursuit curve, then turn hard in one direction
or another. The Me-262 was found to be resistant to entering hard turns and
found to be all but impossible to reverse in turn without using up a lot of
sky, and would scream by, momentarily placing itself in tow of the US
fighter's guns, and rapidly bleed off speed to boot. In general, the
Me-262's preferred not to tangle with Allied escorts if at all possible.
They were supposed to bring down bombers, which were actually hurting
Germany, not insignificant Jabos, anyway.

I think it is fair to say that typically an Me-262 pilot had to devote so
much attention, upon becoming airborne, simply to a/c management, especially
wrt his engines, that his efficiency as a weapons system was severely
degraded.

Maneuverability isn't what kills you - that's usually a defensive skill
- its speed that kills. That, and overwhelming numbers!

In general, the maximum number of Me-262s available at peak numbers was
about 200. Too little. An unperfected airframe and engines. Too little
range. Susceptible to being downed by prop-driven Allied a/co. Too late in
arrival to be other than a "flash in the pan".