Colin Heaton: The Me 262 Stormbird

The company also built an experimental four-engine bomber, the Me 264, which was named the “New York Bomber” because they hoped it would have the range to attack New York City and other major locations on the east coast of the United States. However, the Luftwaffe actually chose to use a rival bomber, the Heinkel He 177, which was farther along in its development. The engines of the He 177 displayed a major design flaw, an unpleasant tendency to catch fire in flight, a similar situation facing the British with their Avro Manchester heavy bomber. The He 177 was never produced in large numbers and was rarely flown in combat operations, but it was used as a transport on occasion.

The Messerschmitt company also built the first large transport plane, the six-engine “Gigant ,” which was originally designed as a glider, then upscaled to a powered configuration, a behemoth that weighed a massive fifty tons when fully loaded and was capable of mounting up to fifteen MG-36 or MG-42 machine guns. It was able to carry twenty-two tons of cargo, or one heavy tank, or two light tanks, or up to 120 fully equipped infantrymen. Its wingspan was 180 feet (55 meters). Few were built and it was rarely used.

Messerschmitt made aeronautical history, yet after the war a price would be paid. Willi Messerschmitt was arrested, tried, and imprisoned after the war for using slave labor. However, this was not unique to the Messerschmitt company, due to the fact that all of Germany’s manufacturing centers were required to use whatever manpower was provided, without question. He finally regained his freedom in 1947 and went back into business, initially making sewing machines, drill machines, and even prefabricated housing. In 1958, he was able to return to the production of aircraft, a legacy that would continue long after World War II, and his firm later produced an advanced American fighter under license, the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter.

After 1960, the West German aviation industry consolidated into fewer but economically stronger companies that could compete effectively in the international market. In 1969, it became a large combined corporation, Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm, and Willi Messerschmitt was named as the honorary chairman for life until his death in 1978. Yet all of this was far in the future. Messerschmitt had made a name for himself that would last for all time, just as Ernst Heinkel, Alexander Lippisch, Hugo Junkers, and Kurt Tank had also carved their names into aviation design history.

Regarding German early aircraft development, there was no shortage of young men eager to climb into the cockpits of new and experimental aircraft. As early as 1939, test pilot Fritz Wendel flew a specially built Messerschmitt prototype aircraft and set a speed record of 469 miles per hour (755 kilometers per hour), a record for propeller-driven planes that stood firm for the next thirty years. Wendel would also be one of the first men in history to strap into a jet aircraft and experience what would become an aviation standard for the next century and beyond. When the Me 262 test flights began on March 25, 1942, Fritz Wendel achieved a top-level flight speed of 541 miles per hour (871 kilometers per hour).

Wendel was the first pilot to consistently fly the first Me 262 V1, coded PC+UA, work number 000001, from Augsburg. (See Table 1for dates and duration of each flight test.)

In his own words, Wendel described his perceptions of the Me 262: “I knew that I was sitting in the most important aircraft since the Wright brothers had built theirs. This aircraft was as critical to aviation as was the first flight, as both made history. The aircraft still had a conventional piston engine in the nose in case the jet engine failed so that we would not risk losing the aircraft. As it turned out, I needed that other engine, because I lost both jet engines, they were BMW [003] first one, and then the other.

“They just flamed out. These engines were very slow, and the takeoff distance was incredible. Later it also was learned that had the piston engine not been in the aircraft, thereby reducing airflow, there might not have been the overheating that cracked the fan blades. The jet needed free flowing air coming through the intake, and this was restricted. Well, we learned something, saved the aircraft. I was just very lucky to have been a part of all of this.” {2}

The second full test flight version with both Jumo 004 engines in conjunction with the conventional backup engine was Me 262 V2, PC+UB, work number 000002, and it flew on October 2, 1942, at Lechfeld, with the first flight lasting twenty minutes. This aircraft flew forty-eight times until the crash that killed Wilhelm Ostertag on April 18, 1943, while in a high-speed dive. This incident could have been the result of the high-speed loss of the control surfaces, experienced by a few pilots, such as the incident described by Hermann Buchner.