Cub Driver wrote in message . ..
Why does everyone get so bent out of shape over the Me-262? Its
contemporary, the P-80 in its two-seat trainer version, is still in
service as a recce and light-attack aircraft with several air forces
around the world, 60 years of continuous service after its first
flight. If that's not the better aircraft, or indeed the best turbojet
ever built, I scratch my head as to what standards are being applied.

I don't think anyone is getting bent out of shape. The Me 262 was the
first jet fighter but unlike the Meteor and P-80 the Me 262 had its
development and the development of its engines cut short and
interfered with by the war. The Junkers & BMW teams were way ahead in
using cooling films in combustion chambers and in hollow blade
cooling. They were also ahead in the use of vitrious and metallic
oxide coatings.

It's not right to triumphantly rubbish completely the technology and
efforts of the Germans: they were ahead in many areas as well as
behined. Often when they failed it was due to absence of raw
materials or the problems of war time construction far more severe
than the ones the allies faced.

The Jumo 004 engine was actualy produced for many decades after the
war in the eastern block (initialy in the junkers factories) then the
Soviet Union as the RD-10 as was the BMW003 as the RD-15 and then also
Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia which used its own versions to power its
trainers. Once given proper materials and improved controls it
performed reliably. In France the Jumo 004 and BMW 003 were studied
and fitted into the Sud-Est S.O. 6000 "Triton" and the Arsenal VG-70.
Both the chief engineers of BMW and Junkers went on to designe great
engines after the war for the west. The Adour of the Mirage, the T53
of the UH-1 Iroqois, T55 of the Chinook and AGT-1500 of the Abrams
came from the designers of the Jumo 004 and BMW 003.

I suspect that the basic Me 262 would have ended up as projected with
more powerfull engines such as the HeS 011 mounted in the armpit
position and remained in use as a heavy figher for quite a while.