- 1 day ago
For educational purposes
During WWII, the Germans introduced the Messerschmitt 262, and the British the Gloster Meteor.
With these first operational jet fighters, a new era in aerial combat had begun.
As jet met jet in the skies over Korea, the MiG-15 proved Russia to be a major power in jet aircraft development.
Featured Aircraft:
- German Messerschmitt Me 262
- British Gloster Meteor
- Russian Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15
During WWII, the Germans introduced the Messerschmitt 262, and the British the Gloster Meteor.
With these first operational jet fighters, a new era in aerial combat had begun.
As jet met jet in the skies over Korea, the MiG-15 proved Russia to be a major power in jet aircraft development.
Featured Aircraft:
- German Messerschmitt Me 262
- British Gloster Meteor
- Russian Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:01Hi, I'm Neil Armstrong. Join me for an adventure through time.
00:52I'm Neil Armstrong.
00:57In 1944, the second great era in aviation history began, an event that was barely noticed
01:06because of the Second World War. In that year, the Germans and the British both introduced
01:13jet fighters. The German entry was this Messerschmitt 262. Before the war's end, the U.S. and Japan
01:23would both develop and fly jet fighters. The theory of jet propulsion had been described
01:30even before the Wright brothers' first flight in 1903. And turbines were in existence earlier.
01:37But they were not yet practical for aircraft. It was not until the 1930s that engine materials
01:45could withstand the high temperatures of gas turbine combustion.
01:54Just four days before the outbreak of World War II, on August 27, 1939, an unconventional
02:01German research aircraft, the Heinkel 178, made the first successful jet aircraft flight.
02:11From that day until 1944, when jet fighters entered combat, allied pilots in the United States,
02:18Britain, and over Germany filed flight reports about strange apparitions in the air, aircraft
02:24without propellers trailing dark smoke and flying faster and higher than anything in the identification
02:30manuals. Gas turbine engines would forever change the nature of fighter aircraft. After years of secret research
02:40and development, the jet age arrived without fanfare. Throughout the previous decade, a young RAF flying
02:54instructor in England, Frank Whittle, and a research engineer for Heinkel aircraft in Germany, Hans van O'Hein, had experimented
03:02with turbo jets for aircraft propulsion. Their early gas turbines were bulky and often couldn't generate
03:08enough power to turn their turbines. Nevertheless, both men persisted until they had howling, screaming banshees
03:16running on test tanks. Often when making initial tests, the primitive jet engines ran away, their inventors
03:25unable to shut them down. The scoffers were many, and the believers few. While Whittle patented the world's
03:36first turbojet in 1931, technical problems and lack of government support hampered its development.
03:45Von O'Hein had more success. He interested aircraft manufacturer Ernst Heinkel in the new venture and was the first
03:52to actually install a jet engine in an aircraft, the Heinkel 178. But the earlier prototypes were eclipsed when the
04:01first jet-powered
04:02fighters entered the war. In July of 1944, the Germans introduced the Messerschmitt 262 and the British the Gloucester Meteor.
04:12Though wrought with problems, these aircraft demonstrated the awesome new power of jet propulsion.
04:21In a jet engine, air is drawn in by a compressor at the front. The highly compressed air is pushed
04:29into the burner section,
04:30where fuel is injected. The fuel and air mixture burns to produce high-velocity gases, which rush out of the
04:39tail cone
04:39at enormous speed, thrusting the aircraft forward. As the exiting gases rush out, they turn the turbine blades, operating the
04:47compressor
04:59with no 004 engines in a Messerschmitt airframe. In July 1942, the aircraft rolled out on an isolated Bavarian runway.
05:09As test pilot Fritz Wendel hurtled down the airstrip, it became apparent that the jet was not going to fly.
05:16The swept wing was blanking out the tail and its elevator controls. At 110 miles per hour, Wendel took a
05:24calculated risk.
05:26He hit the brakes, the nose pitched forward, allowing the tail to fly, and the ME 262 lifted off.
05:34The jet aircraft gained altitude and speed.
05:42Wendel pushed the 262 over 500 miles per hour, rocketing past the world record he had set three years before.
05:51After a 12-minute flight, Wendel landed. When he pulled back the throttle, excess fuel in the engine tailpipes ignited,
05:59more frightening than dangerous. The fires were quickly extinguished,
06:05but the ME 262 would soon face problems that could not be so easily resolved.
06:20Early jet fighters, like the 1944 Gloucester Meteor, were at the cutting edge.
06:29The major challenges were to improve the jet engine's reliability and make the turbine blades strong enough to withstand the
06:38stress of high turbine speed and high temperature.
06:41Yet pilots and designers with vision saw the potential of this new method of propulsion.
06:49An aircraft powered by a jet engine without the drag caused by a propeller could fly beyond 600 miles an
06:56hour toward the speed of sound.
07:10In the summer of 1944, the war was going badly for Germany.
07:15Early June witnessed the Normandy invasion.
07:19Allied troops soon outnumbered Germany.
07:22An Allied aircraft dominated the skies.
07:31Before the end of July, the Allies broke through the German lines.
07:35By the end of August, Paris would be liberated.
07:42When the ME 262 entered combat in the summer of 1944, Allied pilots knew their aircraft were outmatched.
07:51The 262 could fly 100 miles per hour faster than any Allied piston engine airplane.
08:00The Messerschmitt 262 was well designed for an early jet.
08:04Each YUMO engine was mounted in a sleek nacelle under the wing.
08:08The wings had leading edge automatic slats and slotted flaps, features that would become standard on most jets to come.
08:17The wings were angled back to balance the weight of the heavy jet engines.
08:21This coincidentally increased air speed, although swept wing aerodynamics were not yet understood.
08:28As Luftwaffe General Adolf Galland remarked after flying the ME 262,
08:33it felt as if the angels were pushing.
08:39Hitler wanted the 262 as a bomber, not a fighter.
08:44But the main problem that had delayed its entry into the war was the shortage of metals needed to build
08:49high-temperature components for jet engines.
09:01The engines ran so hot, they rarely lasted for more than 5 to 10 hours running time.
09:07By the end of the war, these problems were still not solved.
09:121,400 ME 262s were manufactured, but only 300 flew in combat.
09:22Despite the problems, the 262s were deadly fighters.
09:26During the last months of the war, they shot down dozens of Allied aircraft.
09:34But by then, Germany's situation was hopeless, and even the most lethal fighter aircraft of its day could not turn
09:42the tide.
09:47In England, Whittle had struggled for years to gain government support for his work.
09:53Finally, in May 1941, a Gloucester airframe with a Whittle W-1 engine made Britain's first jet flight, an experimental
10:02aircraft designated E-2839.
10:06The Air Ministry was impressed enough to order a prototype jet fighter, the Gloucester Meteor.
10:13Only 20 first production version Meteors were built.
10:16They had twin Rolls-Royce engines based on Whittle's design.
10:21The first squadron of meteors was delivered in 1944.
10:25They never met Messerschmitt 262s in combat.
10:28But they were the only Allied aircraft that could outfly the German V-1 flying bombs.
10:39The deadly unmanned bombs hurled across the sky from the continent at 300 to 400 miles per hour, daily raining
10:47destruction upon England.
10:51When they could not shoot them down, meteor pilots would maneuver alongside a V-1 bomb, put a wingtip under
10:58it, then bank sharply, tipping it over to dive harmlessly into the sea.
11:04A Gloucester meteor is still flying in Southern California.
11:08Neil talked to test pilots Skip Holm about the flight characteristics of this historic jet.
11:13To me, it's a British airplane.
11:15And you could, I think you could put somebody in a British airplane and never tell them what it is
11:19and let them fly it and they would soon recognize that it's a great airplane because they are really nice
11:24to fly.
11:25And the psychology there is that I always thought the British pilots never wanted to work up a sweat so
11:30they told the engineer to make it easy to fly so we can look good getting in, look good getting
11:34out.
11:36And they were successful.
11:37Oh yes. And it's a real, I mean it's a fast airplane.
11:39You know, it'll hit 200 knots right after takeoff and it'll go to 250 or 300, you know, right away.
11:45And you put the nose down and it'll really go.
12:33I mean it's kind of a cross between an airplane and a tank.
12:36There's a lot of structure in the thing, it appears, and it's probably fairly heavy too for the power, you
12:43know, that those engines put out.
12:47To me, it's still kind of a medium bomber, a B66, you know, a B57 type of airplane.
12:53You know, rates of roll are probably comparable to a World War II airplane, especially a Mustang.
12:58Probably faster than a Mustang, but, you know, for today's arena, it would be considered a light bomber.
13:06And it rolls probably 360 in five seconds, maybe six seconds, something like that.
13:12But the handling qualities are very good.
13:14Stick forces are reasonable.
13:16Yeah.
13:18Pretty impressive though, really.
13:20I mean, for, you know, if I had walked out on the ramp and saw an airplane like this,
13:25when the only thing we'd ever flown before was hurricanes and spits.
13:28I mean, you gotta be, you know, think that they just reinvented the world.
13:32It's a whole new world.
13:33Right.
13:33Yeah.
13:45The Russian MiG-15 was based largely on German high-speed jet technology.
13:50After the war, Russian and American aircraft designers dissected the Messerschmitt 262.
13:57As a result, the MiG-15 and its American adversary in Korea, the F-86 Sabre, had several features in
14:05common.
14:07No allied fighter could stay with the MiG-15.
14:10It could climb faster and higher and had better high-altitude turn radius than the Sabre.
14:16But it also suffered from high-speed instability and poor aileron control.
14:21In a dogfight, the superior roll rate of the F-86 could put a MiG-15 in serious trouble.
14:34The World War II jets arrived too late to change the course of the war, but they initiated a new
14:40era of flight.
14:41A race was on for faster, more lethal jets.
14:47Britain and Germany had established an early lead, but this was soon lost to the United States and Russia,
14:53who became the leading rivals in the development of superior jet fighters.
14:59As World War II ended, the Soviet Union captured German aircraft factories and jet fighters.
15:06Russian engineers recognized the superiority of the Me-262's swept wings and improved upon it in their new fighter.
15:15A Rolls-Royce turbojet purchased from England provided the engine design.
15:20The result was the MiG-15.
15:23Early versions entered service in 1948, and over 1,000 MiG-15s were supplied to China and North Korea.
15:32On June 25, 1950, South Korea was invaded by the armies of the Communist North.
15:39Sixteen United Nations countries sent troops to aid the South.
15:44While soldiers battled on the ground,
15:46Russian-supplied MiG-15s met American F-80 shooting stars in the world's first jet-to-jet air combat.
15:56The encounter ended when Russell Brown shot down a MiG-15, recorded by the gun camera in his F-80.
16:12F-86 Sabre jets, the fastest U.S. fighters, were rushed to the scene to counter the threat of the
16:18MiGs.
16:33In the skies over Korea, MiG-15s and Sabre jets tangled in a faster version of the Spitfire ME-109
16:41dogfights of the Second World War.
16:46The MiG was more maneuverable than the Sabre and had a higher service ceiling, but it was less stable at
16:53high speeds.
16:55The decisive difference that gave the Sabre superiority over Korea was U.S. pilot training.
17:01While most Americans were battle-hardened veterans, the MiG pilots were, on the whole, raw recruits.
17:10Many thousands of MiG-15s were built, forerunners of a long list of high-performance jet fighters.
17:18A restored MiG-15 still flies at Stead Field in Nevada.
17:28As part of the pre-flight preparation, compressed nitrogen is added to the aircraft's pneumatic system, making certain that it's
17:35up to pressure.
17:38This replenishes the pneumatically-activated flaps and brakes.
17:42Oxygen.
17:44Breathing oxygen is also added to the cockpit's oxygen system.
18:10The MiG-15 carries 385 U.S. gallons of fuel internally, augmented by two underwing drop tanks.
18:18The MiG-15 carries 385 U.S. gallons of fuel internally, augmented by two underwing drop tanks.
18:19This capacity gives the MiG-15 a range of about 1,155 miles.
18:28Neil had an opportunity to fly the MiG with pilot Rick Van Dam.
18:31And many of THIS tidbits of the MiG and Kai Rock.
18:33Now in Philippines, we have a big changeăň……
18:33And there's a big change in all the fields just to say.
18:35We're coming out today—
18:48If you're coming out this time, that's a big change!
18:59dear masTY automaton in southern Kristen Kristen Minnesota
19:05Ready to go?
19:06Ready to go.
19:06Okay.
19:07Go ahead.
19:07Release the brake.
19:18Gear is up.
19:35The MiG-15 was the finest fighter of its day for climb, ceiling and high altitude turn
19:40radius.
19:42It did, however, demonstrate basic deficiencies in stability and handling during violent maneuvers.
19:49A common problem with early swept wing designs was the sharp deflection of the airflow towards
19:55the wing tips rather than straight back across the wing.
19:59The simplest and crudest solution is to add a fence or thin wall extending back across
20:05the upper surface to the wing.
20:08The MiG-15 had several of these fences.
20:23Good Maureen.
20:23Let's go.
20:25Do I remember?
20:31I'm going to go right now.
20:32All right.
20:32OK.
20:34See what you mean, it takes a long time.
20:40Okay.
21:06Join me again next time for First Flights.
21:38First Flights
22:03First Flights
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