• The Heinkel He 178 was the first jet-powered aircraft to fly, with its maiden flight on August 27, 1939. However, it never went beyond the prototype stage. • The Messerschmitt Me 262 was the first jet fighter to be used in combat. Its first combat mission occurred on July 25, 1944, when it intercepted an Allied reconnaissance aircraft. • The Gloster E.28/39 (also known as the Gloster Whittle) was the first British jet-powered aircraft, making its first flight on May 15, 1941. It served as a prototype for future developments. • The Gloster Meteor was the first Allied jet fighter to see combat, with its first operational mission on July 27, 1944. It was initially deployed to intercept German V1 flying bombs. For all the bri‘ish geezers out there
@@biernut8723 : The Me 262 was tremendously better than the earliest Meteor F.1 - which had underpowered Welland engines and could only do 417 mph - slower than a Spitfire Mk.XIV. However, the 1945 Meteor F.3 was equal to the Me 262 - and the postwar Meteor F.8 was tremendously better than the Me 262.
Slow acceleration of the engine itself does not require a longer runway. The engine is run up to full RPM prior to brake release. The longer runway is required because early jets had lower thrust compared to the trust provided by propellers at low speed.
Especially the ratio between static and at speed. A propeller, especially a constant speed or variable pitch provides much more thrust at takeoff than a jet of comparable thrust at design speed.
@@allangibson8494 I don’t know what you meant to say in that first sentence, but you don’t have to use a slower approach speed because your engine spools slowly. Approach speed is determined by the wing and is nominally in the area of 1.3 Vstall. Slow engine spool up is not a major problem, it is a feature of early engines that had to be compensated for. Different airplanes used different means to increase drag or attenuate trust during approach so that the engine rpm remined far enough above idle to allow a reasonable spool time. Pilots have to anticipate the need to increase or reduce power more than they do in a prop plane, but they soon get used to it.
@@calvinnickel9995 "It does if you don’t want it to FOD out on an unprepared surface." What the heck does runway length have to do with whether the surface is prepared or unprepared, which is a completely separate subject?
The reason to power a Kamikaze with jet engines is because it would make it less likely to be intercepted by enemy fighter cover and more likely to strike its target. Resources expended on weapons that can complete the mission are often more productive than resources expended on weapons that are unlikely to complete the mission. It was not stupid. (Especially when the engine didn't last more than one flight between overhauls anyway.)
@@daszieherIf it could have been delivered to a target. They had to be carried by a lumbering bomber which was vulnerable to radar, picket ships, and air cover. Sometimes the bomber crew would say f! it and jettison the Ohka before getting in range of a target.
Glad you said this: and a jet fighter is still much cheaper than even a small warship. I am a little wary of the constant claims of Axis "waste of resources". Going to war was the moment of stupidity: to win a war as a small, high(er) tech nation, better weapons is the only option. And the nature of developing better weapons means many will fail and the tech will be pushed to the limit. To this end, the German weapons of 44/45 all make sense given the situation. The Japanese had to try something. Meanwhile, in Britain for example, there were at least half a dozen aircraft in mass production that were a complete- and obvious- waste of resources, and a similar number undergoing development. This is little discussed but could be a good episode in itself!
@@daszieherRockets are very short ranged. That was the vulnerability of the Ohka - the Betty bombers carrying them were sitting ducks if intercepted by American fighters. The turbojet Ohka 43 was developed to overcome this problem.
It would have been a copy, had the sub made it. Later developments would have been inspired by. Still miraculous that with a few drawings and the knowledge in one guy's head, that they got as far as they did. And they might have pulled it off if not for those meddling kids in Gato and Salmon class subs, F4's, Catalina's, etc..., denying Japan's access to strategic materials.
"The Kikka wasn’t a ‘clone’ so much as ‘inspired by’." Yeah. Also, it wasn't a fighter... It was going to get a fighter sub-variant with stronger engines, but the primary variant was a light bomber with no guns.
@@jimmymcgoochie5363 The Japanese also started building an exact 262 clone but it didn’t fly. They also bought a Tiger 1 Tank but it got lost in Cherbourg in July 1944 before it could be shipped.
It is widely misunderstood, but the Kikka is not a copy of the Me262. Research into jet engines had been ongoing for some time, and the Japanese had already made four different types of engines before the materials arrived from Germany. Moreover, all that was sent from Germany were a few photographs of the jet engine's exterior and simple conceptual drawings, with no detailed blueprints or blueprints for the aircraft. When the Japanese designers took one look at the conceptual drawings of the jet engine, they were confident that "we were not wrong," and went on to complete their own original engine and aircraft.
3:35 note the straight wing , the Germans got to the swept wing by accident not design . They had to sweep the wings for centre of gravity units , because the engines where over design weight and underpowered
I don't think that's entirely true, since a German scientist named Busemann already found out in 1935 that a swept wing design was more aerodynamic at higher speeds. Also, the swept wings on the Messerschmitt Me163 was definitely not due to center of gravity, since it didn't have jet engines on its wing.
@@stephenmeier4658That Willy wasn't the best at his job I definitely believe, especially considering that he wasn't a pilot like Kurt Tank for example. However, I think it's more likely that they killed two birds with one stone, they noticed that the weight wasn't distributed evenly, and then decided to go with swept wings because they also carry the advantage of better aerodynamics. Because if what you said is true, then Willy Messerschmitt must have been completely unaware of Busemann's findings, and that seems highly unlikely to me.
@@stephenmeier4658they also did that on the Sunderland flying boat to fix CofG issues, the engines were about 4 degrees off centre but as it didn't seem an issue they were left like it, slightly different performance envelope but the same fix.
OH MAN this one’s long due and I’m surprised very few warplane TH-camrs talked about the Kikka. This, among other things, was further proof that Japanese aviation knowledge was on par with Western ones. Considering their status in 1943-44, knowing how to replicate the complex turbine internals and their metallurgy properties WITH ONLY USING PICTURES OF THE BMW 003 they did a FANTASTIC job. While the very short lifespan of the first jet engines would be a pain and losing the most important day for them, I would imagine this would be a Tuesday morning to the Japanese scientists instead with how they utilized it. A disposable light interceptor packing some heat with it and taking out bombers in a last ditch attempt is very on-brand for late war Japan.
@@onenote6619 Prototype not having guns is perfectly normal thing to see. On top of that, Kikka was not intendent from start to be interceptor (literarly in video).
Imagine calling blueprints/technical drawings and detailed engineering data "jUsT piKsHurz". LOL this is the weebiest comment I've seen on yoo toob to date
Imagine calling blueprints/technical drawings and detailed engineering data "jUsT piKsHurz". LOL this is the weebiest comment I've seen on yoo toob to date
@@onenote6619Ohka 43… Single use interceptor (although some cannon armed examples of the Ohka were used in combat over Japan (they had trouble reaching the B-29’s at altitude)).
The Jumo 004 engine had total life of 25 hrs, which means they went to scrap not rebuild after 25 hrs. So Japan wasn't that far off. This is why the allies (Most notably Frank Whittle) did't try to build axial flow engines.
@@ivanconnolly7332 Lack of high temperature alloys would limit the lifespan of a centrifugal flow engine in much the same way as an axial flow engine. That is because the term centrifugal or axial describes the compressor section of the engine. Both types of engine use an axial flow turbine to extract power to drive the compressor section. The turbine is the section subjected to the very high temperature exhaust gases.
The 25hr of engine life wasn’t a design flaw per se, all jet engines require heat resistant materials that Germany couldn’t produce in large quantities due to resource shortages. The prototype Jumo 004s actually had much longer engine lives because they were built with the right materials. The allies didn’t have these problems because they had much more resources and didn’t really mass produce jets yet anyway
Very nice! The Kikka test pilot, IJN Lieutenant Susumu Takaoka, would also pilot Japan's first post-war jet, the Fuji T-1 Hatsutaka 初鷹 (Young Falcon) a decade later.
Spent many hours studying the 262 and cutaway engine at Wright-Patt National Airforce Museum since childhood. I touch the under wing of Boxscar now; sat at the controls as a kid and pretended to fly with school mates running other controls; was a different time.
You get the impression that a lot of aircraft designers in Germany and Japan were making jobs for themselves in order to avoid being given a rifle and getting sent to the front
Sweden also got hold of the German swept wing research that later was used for the Sabre and the MiG-15. Back in the 40ies all Swedish engineers knew German, so they picked up on the importance somewhat quicker than their counterparts in the superpowers. For a brief moment in time the resulting aircraft Saab J29 was the fastest airplane in the world. Luckily we never needed to use it in a conflict, but it provided the backbone in our air deterrent against a Russian invasion throughout the 50ies. So, "thank you Luftwaffe", I guess.
Just one HUGE problem... The Kikka wasn't a fighter... The primary variant developed was a light bomber with no guns. Also, there was no actual copying, simply because Japan didn't have anything to actually copy from. They had some pictures of the plane and a cut-away drawing of a BMW-003. Even just looking up the very basics of the engine says everything you need to know, as the Ne-20 only weighs 3/4 of the -003 while having 60% of its thrust. The engine's doesn't even have the same number of compression stages... So definitely no copy. And the Kikka itself is also much smaller than the -262. Over 1.5 TON lighter! "engine costs" The total cost of a jet engine was distinctly LOWER than that of regular engine however, thanks to the much smaller amount of precision machining and seals etc required. "add a great deal of weight" The fighter version REMOVED the 500kg bombload and replaced it with two 30mm cannons that was actually a bit lighter than said bombload and bombrack. So no, it would have removed weight, if just slightly.
In addition to what you said, the interceptor variant would have been powered by the still in design stage Ne-20 Kai engines. (20% increase in thrust, higher fuel consumption but lower weight as it reduced the number of compressor stages from 8 to 6) If there was a copy of the Me 262 that would be the Ki-201 and not the Kikka.
The Japanese me 163 rocket fighter copys are also interesting i hope you can cover those as well sometime theh even made some improvements from what ive seen with several models
In a grim fictional alternate history, yeah a rocket powered kamikaze would make much more sense than a jet engine. Rockets are hard to make re-useable, but something like a solid rocket motor is relatively easy to manufacture if you have the inputs and a large industrial base. With a jet engine, you need very high quality materials so the compressor blades don't burn up inside the engine. With a rocket... no, burning up is fine. Limited range, but it would defend the coast from anything that got in range.
Not a copy. The Japanese rocket fighter was substantially larger and was only loosely based on the Me 163. The engine was about the only thing they had in common, other than general layout. The Japanese rocket plane was designed to engage the B-29, which flew roughly 10,000 ft higher than the allied bombers operating in the ETO. So it had to have longer endurance and enough fuel to get to the higher altitude. Also, the Me 163 was way too fast and making something larger kept the speeds down while still having nearly the same climb performance, which is the most important characteristic of a point defense fighter.
@Lurch-Bot the later ki-202 model was definitely a lot larger and much different but the first model the J8M was nearly identical in shape and size to the me 163 they definitely weren't straight copys but were rather like the kikka a reimagining if you will
Indeed, this video started and I was already rolling my eyes going, "Another American pretending like the Gloster Meteor doesn't exist," and frankly, I nearly stopped the video. I wonder sometimes if they're embarrassed that they were behind on jets or if its just the fetishisation of German Wunderwaffe. The latter notion actually being sadder.
@@madmullets … the 262 was a lot sexier. Menacing looking. Fought allied manned aircraft. Whereas the Meteor was chasing down the unmanned V2 flying bomb. Over England. The Meteor stayed in service for over a decade. In different air forces. The 262 was a one and done fighter
The Germans were aided by the fact that Frank Whittlle's work had been published where as the Germans kept their work secret. Frank Whittle's designs showed the Germans how to make effective compressor vanes. In the same way the German rocket scientists took advantage of the publish work of Robert Goddard. It was noted by people familiar with Goddard's work, that they recognized his influence in the V-2 rockets as being upscaled versions. Goddard had developed the idea of high speed pumps and a separate tank of oxygen for his system, something early rocketeers hadn't thought of.
The Kikka would have had the same problem as the Hein "Tony". So much down time for maintenance that few squadrons would ever be fully operational. Even the German jet units had that problem.
@@nektulosnewbiebut something that may be of great benifit after, at that stage the writing was on the wall and forward looking people may well have been planning for the opportunities peace may provide.
@@hektor6766 Powered by indigenous designed and built Japanese engines? Were the F-86s modifed to accomodate certain design features that could trace their evolutionary history back to the Kikka? No, the Kikka was a dead end, and what jet industry Japan later built had little to nothing connected to what was done in WWII. It was useless, and trying to say it had some benefit post-war when it was just a drain on resources without benefit during WWII is trying to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.
Allied navies never did stop Japanese and German submarines making it to France or Singapore. Before the war ended there was a squadron of U-Boats stationed in Indonesia. As unbelievable as that seems. German scientists and engineers were happy to work for America.
If both engines put out 1000lbf and its take off speed was 150 mph (just a guess), both engines would be putting out around 800 horsepower combined at that speed (400 horsepower per engine). At its top speed, both engines would be putting out a combined 2300 horsepower, or 1150 per engine. So it's a little unsurprising that its take off run was very long. Also, that's not a lot of power for that high speed. While it was fast I'm guessing it would have had problems in other areas, like climbing, turning, or accelerating.
Thank you for doing this video, the history of German jet history is well-known, but very little is known of what the Japanese were doing with the jet engine.
11:10 "Japanese aircraft were pretty small..." Im not saying youre wrong as a broad-strokes-comparison, but the Bf 109 is just tiny compared to ANYTHING on ANY side.
While the allies shipped countless men, equipment and supplies across the globe, the axis struggled to exchange anything materially. It really goes to show the superiority the allies had😂
@@luisnunes3863For real. Germans were pacted with Soviets at some point, if they coulda gotten the Japs to focus solely on America... Or if they somehow all allied the US against the Soviets. But to fight both, and at the same time... That was just retarded.
@@luisnunes3863it would be interesting to speculate on a German/Japanese attack solely on Russia, leaving the rest of the world out, would the western allies actually have helped? or just stood and watched, and without western support could the Russians have held out long enough to have blunted the axis attacks, I don't know enough of the detail myself to make a realistic stab at it but would like to see if it could have been viable, any takers?😊.
That was the original goal of Germany and Japan and the two nations agreed upon a preliminary plan to do just that. They figured their respective armies would push steadily inward actoss Russia/Asia and link up somewhere in India or the Middle East. It was a good plan which, if carried out would have defeated the Soviet Union in relatively short order. It also made sense, since Japan’s Kwantung Army had been tied up fighting the Soviets in Manchuria for years at that point. The fly in the ointment… and the cause of the Axis ultimate defeat… was Hitler’s surprise announcement of the Tripartite Pact between Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler. Designed purely as a ruse to set Stalin at ease before Operation Barbarossa could commence, Japan was never made privy to the knowledge that such a pact was in the works, nor did Germany bother to clue their Japanese allies in to the fact that the whole pact was merely a ruse to keep Stalin oblivious to the upcoming Teutonic invasion. When Japan learned of the announcement of the pact, they were stunned… and justifiably took the knowledge as a slap in the face. So they quietly sued for peace with Stalin, pulled their army from Manchuria and turned their attention to the US. The only reason that Stalin was able to finally stem the initial German invasion was because the Soviet forces that were held down in Manchuria (including Zhukov) were no longer required there and were hastily moved west to face the Germans. I believe that ultimately the Axis forces would have been defeated by the atomic bomb. But the few years leading to the gadgets testing would have been FAR more costly for the US, without Russia swallowing up 3/4 of German men, materials and resources.
@@CrusaderSports250 Well, Germany would have to go through Poland to realistically get to Russia, so that means war with the Western Powers is automatic. And the financial connections are such that includes the USA unless UK and France win alone. Japan. Is bogged down in a never ending war in China before it enters a World War. You can't make this s💩💩t. It's quite possible the Japanese could have turned their army around and beaten the forces defending the Soviet Far East, though not very likely. Then they are stuck occupying it, saying goodbye to Northern China, which is the reason why the Kuantung Army pressed for war in the first place... Also, they're at one end of the Trans-Siberian Railway, which the Russians can't really make work reliably all year at this point. All other important parts of the Soviet Union other than Vladivostock are several time zones away. Impasse. Did I mention that the Germans never had the logistics to get to Moscow anyway? In fact, they culminated about 100 km away from where their logistics chief predicted. So, the Soviet union always survives WWII, plus or minus a few bits. So, the only realistic plan for the Axis to win the Great Oil War [aka WWII] is to make peace with the other pariah state, do everything they need to do to keep the Russian oil flowing so they can have a vaguely winnable fight against the powers that control the rest of the world's oil. For example, Germany can mechanize more divisions, Italy can fight her fine ships and Japan can run the industry, get iron that the US and UK can't block. War is logistics, logistics, logistics.
15:00 as to the Kamikaze aspect: 1) what real record do we have that it was actually designed or intended for such use? Strange that practically all documentation would disappear EXCEPT for that. Point me to even Japanese documents if anyone has such sources. 2) What design features does it actually have that a Kamikaze would need? 3) You mention it was stupid to use jet engines for such a purpose but my understanding is that the jets were actually like 1/10 the man-hours and cost of the piston engines, but they might only operate 10 hours or something given poor materials and machining in wartime DE/JP. If those facts are correct, then arguably it'd be a GREAT engine for use-once missions, whether Kamikaze or one-way Amerikabomber.
It's a shame the Kikka didn't get farther in its development. If it had been more well known, there's a very real possibility that we'd have a Kikkachu flying around at air shows today.
Crazy to think that the Nakajima Kikka was built from Blueprints of German engines, pictures, and primarily eyewitness reports. From the submarine that did survive as the other one sank. After being destroyed by Catalina's. Besides that, because they did not have a physical version of the Me-262, this was also considered smaller than the original would have served in a Jet Bomber role, irl, unlike war Thunder which was never armed nor intended to be. That would have gone to the Ki-200. While in appearance are very similar to the Me-163, they were very different rocket crafts.
@@stringpicker5468 And by “working out how to make them themselves”, the British sent an engineer over who pointed out they had left out an oil passage in the castings…
I have one of Nakajima Aircraft Company products in my garage - great to fly, or in this case , drive... a Subaru Forester by Fuji Heavy Industries (what Nakajima eventually became today) .. :) LOL
Just to clarify its almost certain the gloster meteor was first into operational service and it almost certainly achieved the first kills (the ME262 first kill couldn’t have happened as no mosquitos were lost that day or any aircraft in that area) Also the ME262 was great in a straight line but crap are turning, landing, taking off and pretty much anything rlse
“Almost certain” has nothing to do with the history. The fact is - Me-262 officially went into service on April 17th while Meteor did so on July 17th. What’s more important is that the Meteor’s war “service” was a joke - merely practicing on essentially training targets called V1 in friendly skies while Me-262s were fighting the real battles. I can see why Meteor F.1 was kept away from the real service - the poor thing was slower than most of the contemporary piston fighters. But there’s no good excuse for F.3 when it finally went into service in 1945. The “it might fall into the German hands” is just lame since by then almost lost ability to produce what they’ve had, let alone copy some latest tech. The more real explanation is that F.3 still sucked in the first months of its service, and then the war ended.
@sergeychmelev5270 The 262 was mostly getting shot down by slower P-51s, P-47s, and Tempests. And having its engines changed every 50 hours and sitting on the ground for lack of fuel, parts, and pilots.
@@sergeychmelev5270The first confirmed Me262 kill occurred on August 8,1944. The first flew with Testing Command (Erprobungskommando) 262 on 19 April, 1944. (Not an actual operational squadron). The Me262 didn’t actually enter squadron service (as opposed to test flights) until November 1944 with KG51. The Meteor on the other hand entered squadron service with 616 Squadron on 12 July 1944 with its first operational sortie on 27 July 1944.
@@sergeychmelev5270 no the Me262 was delivered to 2 Luftwaffe squadrons In April 44 the first claimed kills where in august (but no allied aircraft recorded as lost to corroborate those kills. It was only in October 1944 that ME262 claims start matching the allied losses. Also the meteor was pushed into service a bit quicker than was liked to as it was one of the few allied aircraft with guns that could catch a V1 in level flight and that’s what it was used against. Once that threat receded the RAF slowed its introduction as yes some issues were found with it. Also they didn’t want the Germans to capture one or a wreck and either takes its technical details and copy or give them away to Japan. These are provable facts that are on record.
The 1992 MS-DOS game Aces of The Pacific had an expansion pack titled 1946 that let you fly the Kikka, or fight against it. It also has the F-80 Shooting Star in combat much earlier than real life. Super cool game, and how I found out about the Kikka.
Technically the Gloster Meteor was the first to be put into operational service. But they only ever intercepted V-1 flying bombs over England, and did some light ground attack at the very end of the war. They never engaged german aircraft in the air, and were actually prohibited from flying over German territory for most of the war due to fears of the plane falling into enemy hands. The 262 was the first jet to fight other aircraft in the air so it often gets the title for being the first jet fighter.
@allangibson8494 The V1 isn't a fighter aircraft though, which is the whole point of the discussion. There's a big difference between shooting down a manned fighter aircraft, and a flying bomb.
@@mathieudelmar6112 Shooting down a flying bomb is actually harder and more dangerous. Fighters are four times the size, slower and don’t contain a ton of explosives. Me262’s were largely ineffective against piston engined fighters too and like the Meteor, stayed on their side of the front line.
In terms of looks, the Kikka is actually pretty cool looking imo. I really like the tail section and vertical stabilizers the Japanese went with at the time. Kind of square looking but still "sporty".
11:55 - The Tsu-11 can't really be called a jet engine except in the most generic sense. Today, we would call that a Ducted Fan... a propeller inside a tube, powered by a small piston engine rather than a turbine. The Tsu-11 was installed on the MXY7 Ohka-22 "Cherry Blossom" kamikaze plane, intended to replace its original solid rocket motors with something an engine offering greater range.
There is no meaningful difference in "leaping" to a jet engine from an inline piston engine or a radial piston engine. A turbojet engine had more in common with a turbosupercharger than a piston engine.
At least one person has mentioned this in passing, but a single jet fighter operated by a single pilot is much less resource-intensive than anything it might be used to target in a kamikaze attack. In addition, the methods kamikaze attacks seem to have used to reach their targets, namely avoiding and/or spoofing Allied IFF signals, would not allow them to return home anyway. Late-war Allied anti-aircraft fire and combat air patrols were simply too effective. That is why kamikaze raids developed into a full-fledged tactic the way they did. Nothing about the greater resource-intensivity of a Kikka detracts from the goal of a kamikaze mission, because even a smaller ship like an Allied destroyer (often the target of a kamikaze pilot) would have taken far greater resources to build and crew than the jet and its pilot. Much like later missiles, the effectiveness of a kamikaze attack was great enough that it was worth the vast amount of resources it took to enact, especially with such a small chance a conventional delivery system, including its pilot(s) and crew, would survive to fight again.
The Ki-61 was loosely inspired by the BF-109 and used the same engine. Another reason to make the Kikka smaller was the fact it had to engage bombers flying a couple of miles higher than the ones the Germans were engaging in the ETO.
21:50 Jets have a huge, huge, HUGE advantage in speed while climbing, and can totally out-run (or, catch up to) any prop plane. The TH-cam channel Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles spends like two hours beating that horse to death, chopping into hamburger and burning it to ashes. They may not have the fastest climb RATE in terms of feet per second (the piston Bearcat's climb rate was unbeaten by jets for 10-20 years) but it's extreme. You continue to talk about armament: these would have been used against B-29s so wouldn't have had machine guns, I'm pretty sure, only 20mm. Also, that 20mm would have been central so they'd have been easy to aim.
It appears that this first German jet from 1939 had a rather complex and interesting retractable landing gear. A bit strange for a prototype that is essentially designed to "just fly".
Ministry: We need a jet-fighter. Designer: Yes, we can build a jet-fighter Ministry: We also want it multi-role. Fighter-bomber. Designer: Tricky, but maybe . . . Ministry: and also scout-transport-amphibious, carrier operations, do 700mph at sea level and 40,000 feet, 3000 mile range, carry 3 tons of bombs, with multiple turrets with combined 12.7mm machine guns, 30mm cannon, and maybe some rocket-tubes. Oh, and torpedoes. Designer: ummm....
The Kikka was a last ditch measure, and it wasn’t really possible for Japan to produce large numbers of them. But it was still a good effort. The Japanese Army Air Force was also working on a smaller, fully swept wing version to be called the Karyu (Fire Dragon), but it never got past the drawing board.
Why is it people make claims without even understanding what they mean? The definition of an operational aircraft means a type delivered to an operational squadron in full numbers with spare parts for regular operation and servicing plus fully trained technicians. The Me 262 which flew in combat in July fit none of those definitions. First of all they were delivered to Erprobungskommando 262 in April 44 which was a test unit. Aircraft arrived in small numbers given the fact the Jumo 004B would never enter series production until August 44. When the commander of Erprobungskommando 262 was killed in action Walter Nowotny was assigned to replace him changing the unit name to Kommando Nowotny which remained a test and trials unit. It would be until December 1944 before the 262 reached an operational unit fitting the definition of operational. That said RAF 616 squadron was equipped with Meteor F1 in July 44 tasked with shooting down V1 rockets. This being a operational unit with a full compliment of aircraft and training along with tools and spares makes the Meteor the first operational jet aircraft in the world and not the 262. Now the 262 can claim to be the first jet fighter to engage in combat but it was not the first operational jet aircraft. Since Jg 07 only became operational in December as I stated earlier. Also the delay wasn't Messerschmitt's fault as they had the airframe ready but it was the waiting for BMW to produce a reliable jet engine which they failed to deliver then the job was given to Jumo. Jumo produced the 004A engine which was suitable but it used to much restricted material so they had to go back to the drawing board and make a turbojet engine with very little of the common known metals that could handle high temperatures used in the 004B engine. The fat that it worked at all is a great credit to the Jumo team, though it would not run long at full throttle it ironically mirrored the high performance piston aircraft of the day which could only run emergency boost for a short time before they could cause serious damage to their engines. So combat with either engine type was waged with strategic use of full power deciding who went home not just by the use of the gun sights. Given the lack of restricted metals and that Jumo 004 engines were often built with slave labour they were known for being seriously unreliable. Post war one series of test flights by the USAF used no less than eight jumo engines to reach six hours of test flight. This unreliability made the Me 262 and Jumo 004B in no interest post war after testing determined how fragile they were. The only notable post war activity was in Czechoslovakia where they inherited a complete German factory with drawings, jigs and so on. They would produce somewhere shy of 15 aircraft in the hopes of producing them for export yet no sales would come. By 1950 half the fleet we destroyed in accidents or unserviceable. The type was quickly retired and sent for scrap with the other 262's junked post war. of the over 500 claimed kills by Luftwaffe pilots more than half were shown to be false when checked against Allied loss records. In the end it had a 1.5 to 1 kill ratio which was pretty poor compared to the BF 109 or FW 190. The large problem Germany had in the last six month to year of the war was a lack of aviation fuel for their piston fighters which were more capable than the 262. The Jumo 004b engine ran of any kind of fuel Germany had. The largest source of fuel was a synthetic coal derived fuel somewhat like Kerosene called J2. It was available in some amount as Germany still had access to coal reserves while all other types of fuel were drying up. That's why Germany turned to an unreliable engine in a aircraft plagued with problems.
In the cold light of day , what did the Me 262 accomplish ? NOTHING . If it had been introduced by the spring of 1943 , then it may have been a game changer. This is pure supposition , but with an air superiority fighter against you , the Americans may well of abandoned their daylight bombing offensive. If that had happened Germany could have won the war . My reasoning , the Luftwaffe fighter arm was destroyed in 1944 by USAAF fighter numbers . Allied bombing was devastating but not war winning , control of the air was vital. Air power proved itself on DDay and afterwards . The Germans could do nothing to stop it , even with their Jets. Even taking into account the limited number of 262's available , and also the huge number of allied aircraft to shoot down . The first combats were against RAF unarmed PR Mosquito's . The first evaded the attacks but the second on 8/8/44 killed the crew of 540 sq over Munich. 262 pilots claimed 582 allied aircraft , losing 180 of their number in combat. Probably justified in adding another 50 in losses through accidents. A lot of hype , which go's with most German fighters . Always perceived to be better then they actually were.
If they had managed to get it into production,it would have been developed, and it would have got a more powerful engine that would have increased its top speed.
If you factor in the point that the engines would probably be worn out by the time the Kikka arrived at it's intended target then maybe using it as a kamikaze isn't as crazy as it first sounds as it would not be able to make it home anyway. 🤔
In the early 1940s the German engines were far more advanced axial flow type vs the allies centrifugal compressors. The Jumo and BMW get engines only suffered from the lack of correct materials to make them last longer than a few sorties, or only one sortie if the thrust lever was not handled carefully. All of the engines of the period were using flame can combustion chambers for simplicity as well but the German research on annular combustion chambers truly gave GE, PW and RR a great start on much better engines in the postwar era. It is also incorrect to say it's stupid to put a jet engine on a kamikaze (except to say the entire program was stupid) but according to postwar records the Jumo-004 was significantly faster and cheaper to make, and required less skilled labor than their high performance piston engine counterparts so a Kika was possibly more cost effective than building kates, zeros, or the like for the same purpose.
I'm curious why MOD airarm didn't take the KIKA or 262 and install centrifugal compressor Whittle turbines onto pylons intended for BMW seems best of all worlds.
Kikka, a ship too late to save a drowning witch. Ironic that while it was waiting to get off the ground Richard Bong is killed in an early jet Lockheed P-80 in the United States
14:37 the whole purpose of late ww2 jetplanes is that the engines are easy to make and easy to replace. Therefore jet planes were ideal Kamikaze-planes.
• The Heinkel He 178 was the first jet-powered aircraft to fly, with its maiden flight on August 27, 1939. However, it never went beyond the prototype stage.
• The Messerschmitt Me 262 was the first jet fighter to be used in combat. Its first combat mission occurred on July 25, 1944, when it intercepted an Allied reconnaissance aircraft.
• The Gloster E.28/39 (also known as the Gloster Whittle) was the first British jet-powered aircraft, making its first flight on May 15, 1941. It served as a prototype for future developments.
• The Gloster Meteor was the first Allied jet fighter to see combat, with its first operational mission on July 27, 1944. It was initially deployed to intercept German V1 flying bombs.
For all the bri‘ish geezers out there
The first actual successful kill on the Me262 didn’t occur until August 8.
The Mosquito attacked on July 25th successfully returned to base…
It wasn't operational! The first operational jet fighter was actually the British Meteor NOT the ME262!
@@antony3678Kurwa, Meteor was .45, the 262 was 44
@@antony3678 It doesn't matter because the Me 262 was better.
@@biernut8723 : The Me 262 was tremendously better than the earliest Meteor F.1 - which had underpowered Welland engines and could only do 417 mph - slower than a Spitfire Mk.XIV.
However, the 1945 Meteor F.3 was equal to the Me 262 - and the postwar Meteor F.8 was tremendously better than the Me 262.
Slow acceleration of the engine itself does not require a longer runway. The engine is run up to full RPM prior to brake release. The longer runway is required because early jets had lower thrust compared to the trust provided by propellers at low speed.
Especially the ratio between static and at speed. A propeller, especially a constant speed or variable pitch provides much more thrust at takeoff than a jet of comparable thrust at design speed.
Slow acceleration is a major problem on landing however - it means you HAVE to make a slow approach and only get a single shot at landing.
It does if you don’t want it to FOD out on an unprepared surface.
@@allangibson8494 I don’t know what you meant to say in that first sentence, but you don’t have to use a slower approach speed because your engine spools slowly. Approach speed is determined by the wing and is nominally in the area of 1.3 Vstall.
Slow engine spool up is not a major problem, it is a feature of early engines that had to be compensated for. Different airplanes used different means to increase drag or attenuate trust during approach so that the engine rpm remined far enough above idle to allow a reasonable spool time. Pilots have to anticipate the need to increase or reduce power more than they do in a prop plane, but they soon get used to it.
@@calvinnickel9995 "It does if you don’t want it to FOD out on an unprepared surface."
What the heck does runway length have to do with whether the surface is prepared or unprepared, which is a completely separate subject?
The reason to power a Kamikaze with jet engines is because it would make it less likely to be intercepted by enemy fighter cover and more likely to strike its target. Resources expended on weapons that can complete the mission are often more productive than resources expended on weapons that are unlikely to complete the mission. It was not stupid. (Especially when the engine didn't last more than one flight between overhauls anyway.)
Rockets were simpler. The Baka (Okha) was a better choice for the Kamikaze role.
@@daszieherIf it could have been delivered to a target. They had to be carried by a lumbering bomber which was vulnerable to radar, picket ships, and air cover. Sometimes the bomber crew would say f! it and jettison the Ohka before getting in range of a target.
Glad you said this: and a jet fighter is still much cheaper than even a small warship.
I am a little wary of the constant claims of Axis "waste of resources". Going to war was the moment of stupidity: to win a war as a small, high(er) tech nation, better weapons is the only option.
And the nature of developing better weapons means many will fail and the tech will be pushed to the limit.
To this end, the German weapons of 44/45 all make sense given the situation. The Japanese had to try something.
Meanwhile, in Britain for example, there were at least half a dozen aircraft in mass production that were a complete- and obvious- waste of resources, and a similar number undergoing development. This is little discussed but could be a good episode in itself!
@@daszieherRockets are very short ranged. That was the vulnerability of the Ohka - the Betty bombers carrying them were sitting ducks if intercepted by American fighters.
The turbojet Ohka 43 was developed to overcome this problem.
Jet engines take less resources than a piston engine of the same power (about a quarter the labor based on German data).
The Kikka wasn’t a ‘clone’ so much as ‘inspired by’.
They started the design based on magazine photos long before they actually got drawings.
It would have been a copy, had the sub made it. Later developments would have been inspired by. Still miraculous that with a few drawings and the knowledge in one guy's head, that they got as far as they did. And they might have pulled it off if not for those meddling kids in Gato and Salmon class subs, F4's, Catalina's, etc..., denying Japan's access to strategic materials.
@@rob6052 And the fact the Japanese I-29 was actually sunk by Japanese forces in an “own goal” attack…
"The Kikka wasn’t a ‘clone’ so much as ‘inspired by’."
Yeah. Also, it wasn't a fighter... It was going to get a fighter sub-variant with stronger engines, but the primary variant was a light bomber with no guns.
“We have Me262 at home”
Me262 at home:
@@jimmymcgoochie5363 The Japanese also started building an exact 262 clone but it didn’t fly.
They also bought a Tiger 1 Tank but it got lost in Cherbourg in July 1944 before it could be shipped.
The Kika is cool and all, but it has nothing on that paper airplane I made in 8th grade. This is because the paper airplane actually flew
The first prototype flew. And crashed on the second flight.
And Cody's 8th grade paper airplane flew, crashed, and flew again probably a dozen times over. Kikka's got nothing on it
My dad won the world paper airplane competition so there you go, amateur paper aircraft builder.😛
@@brealistic3542Is he the guy on the 60 Minutes story?
But did it carry 50 cals?
It is widely misunderstood, but the Kikka is not a copy of the Me262. Research into jet engines had been ongoing for some time, and the Japanese had already made four different types of engines before the materials arrived from Germany. Moreover, all that was sent from Germany were a few photographs of the jet engine's exterior and simple conceptual drawings, with no detailed blueprints or blueprints for the aircraft.
When the Japanese designers took one look at the conceptual drawings of the jet engine, they were confident that "we were not wrong," and went on to complete their own original engine and aircraft.
3:35 note the straight wing , the Germans got to the swept wing by accident not design . They had to sweep the wings for centre of gravity units , because the engines where over design weight and underpowered
I don't think that's entirely true, since a German scientist named Busemann already found out in 1935 that a swept wing design was more aerodynamic at higher speeds. Also, the swept wings on the Messerschmitt Me163 was definitely not due to center of gravity, since it didn't have jet engines on its wing.
@@vornamenachname989It is entirely true. The wings were swept to fix the center of gravity. Willy couldn't design a properly balanced aircraft
@@stephenmeier4658That Willy wasn't the best at his job I definitely believe, especially considering that he wasn't a pilot like Kurt Tank for example. However, I think it's more likely that they killed two birds with one stone, they noticed that the weight wasn't distributed evenly, and then decided to go with swept wings because they also carry the advantage of better aerodynamics. Because if what you said is true, then Willy Messerschmitt must have been completely unaware of Busemann's findings, and that seems highly unlikely to me.
This is simply untrue, the Horten brothers were working on the flying wing design in the 30's. The Ho 229 is truly a beautiful thing.
@@stephenmeier4658they also did that on the Sunderland flying boat to fix CofG issues, the engines were about 4 degrees off centre but as it didn't seem an issue they were left like it, slightly different performance envelope but the same fix.
OH MAN this one’s long due and I’m surprised very few warplane TH-camrs talked about the Kikka. This, among other things, was further proof that Japanese aviation knowledge was on par with Western ones. Considering their status in 1943-44, knowing how to replicate the complex turbine internals and their metallurgy properties WITH ONLY USING PICTURES OF THE BMW 003 they did a FANTASTIC job.
While the very short lifespan of the first jet engines would be a pain and losing the most important day for them, I would imagine this would be a Tuesday morning to the Japanese scientists instead with how they utilized it. A disposable light interceptor packing some heat with it and taking out bombers in a last ditch attempt is very on-brand for late war Japan.
An interceptor with no guns. Try again.
@@onenote6619 Prototype not having guns is perfectly normal thing to see. On top of that, Kikka was not intendent from start to be interceptor (literarly in video).
Imagine calling blueprints/technical drawings and detailed engineering data "jUsT piKsHurz". LOL this is the weebiest comment I've seen on yoo toob to date
Imagine calling blueprints/technical drawings and detailed engineering data "jUsT piKsHurz". LOL this is the weebiest comment I've seen on yoo toob to date
@@onenote6619Ohka 43… Single use interceptor (although some cannon armed examples of the Ohka were used in combat over Japan (they had trouble reaching the B-29’s at altitude)).
The Jumo 004 engine had total life of 25 hrs, which means they went to scrap not rebuild after 25 hrs. So Japan wasn't that far off. This is why the allies (Most notably Frank Whittle) did't try to build axial flow engines.
Was a scarcity of chromium not a major cause of accelerated wear on on the Jumo 004.
Not a serious limitation when fighters defending German airspace had a combat lifespan of about 25 hours.
@@ivanconnolly7332 Lack of high temperature alloys would limit the lifespan of a centrifugal flow engine in much the same way as an axial flow engine. That is because the term centrifugal or axial describes the compressor section of the engine. Both types of engine use an axial flow turbine to extract power to drive the compressor section. The turbine is the section subjected to the very high temperature exhaust gases.
All worn out Jumos were rebuilt not scrapped during war. The factory for Jumo 004 rebuils was located in Zittau at ZIT works.
The 25hr of engine life wasn’t a design flaw per se, all jet engines require heat resistant materials that Germany couldn’t produce in large quantities due to resource shortages. The prototype Jumo 004s actually had much longer engine lives because they were built with the right materials. The allies didn’t have these problems because they had much more resources and didn’t really mass produce jets yet anyway
I really enjoy your presentations. A great mix of info and just the right amount of humour.
Is that Jay Leno photobombing Goering @2:20? He must be a time traveler! /S
"...that work began in honest". (6:10) ? I earnestly do not comprehend that statement.
Perhaps he meant to say ‘in earnest’ but that doesn’t really work either.
Very nice! The Kikka test pilot, IJN Lieutenant Susumu Takaoka, would also pilot Japan's first post-war jet, the Fuji T-1 Hatsutaka 初鷹 (Young Falcon) a decade later.
Spent many hours studying the 262 and cutaway engine at Wright-Patt National Airforce Museum since childhood.
I touch the under wing of Boxscar now; sat at the controls as a kid and pretended to fly with school mates running other controls; was a different time.
6:15 - "...in honest." WTF??? The phrase is "in earnest," meaning seriously and with determination.
Everything is going to be okay.
You get the impression that a lot of aircraft designers in Germany and Japan were making jobs for themselves in order to avoid being given a rifle and getting sent to the front
🎯🎯🎯
In that case these designs were very successful.
@@mpetersen6 And a lot of German Designs were later used by the US and USSR in the culmination of what would become the Mig-15 and F-86 Sabre
ya' think?
Sweden also got hold of the German swept wing research that later was used for the Sabre and the MiG-15. Back in the 40ies all Swedish engineers knew German, so they picked up on the importance somewhat quicker than their counterparts in the superpowers. For a brief moment in time the resulting aircraft Saab J29 was the fastest airplane in the world.
Luckily we never needed to use it in a conflict, but it provided the backbone in our air deterrent against a Russian invasion throughout the 50ies.
So, "thank you Luftwaffe", I guess.
Holy shit that 262 with a Jumo 210 looks cursed as hell
A pair of failed engines made it very useful (a common occurrence until they fixed the engine design problems).
and it's also a tail dragger
I guess you've never seen a He 162 with a Jumo engine, lol.
@@Lurch-Bot i was not ready for that lmao
Make a video about J7w1 Shinden please!!! I became addicted to this channel, keep up with the great work!
Just one HUGE problem... The Kikka wasn't a fighter...
The primary variant developed was a light bomber with no guns.
Also, there was no actual copying, simply because Japan didn't have anything to actually copy from.
They had some pictures of the plane and a cut-away drawing of a BMW-003.
Even just looking up the very basics of the engine says everything you need to know, as the Ne-20 only weighs 3/4 of the -003 while having 60% of its thrust.
The engine's doesn't even have the same number of compression stages... So definitely no copy.
And the Kikka itself is also much smaller than the -262. Over 1.5 TON lighter!
"engine costs"
The total cost of a jet engine was distinctly LOWER than that of regular engine however, thanks to the much smaller amount of precision machining and seals etc required.
"add a great deal of weight"
The fighter version REMOVED the 500kg bombload and replaced it with two 30mm cannons that was actually a bit lighter than said bombload and bombrack.
So no, it would have removed weight, if just slightly.
In addition to what you said, the interceptor variant would have been powered by the still in design stage Ne-20 Kai engines. (20% increase in thrust, higher fuel consumption but lower weight as it reduced the number of compressor stages from 8 to 6)
If there was a copy of the Me 262 that would be the Ki-201 and not the Kikka.
@@alexsv1938 Exactly.
The Japanese me 163 rocket fighter copys are also interesting i hope you can cover those as well sometime theh even made some improvements from what ive seen with several models
If they were launched from a "mother ship" they could have been very effective Kamikaze craft.
In a grim fictional alternate history, yeah a rocket powered kamikaze would make much more sense than a jet engine. Rockets are hard to make re-useable, but something like a solid rocket motor is relatively easy to manufacture if you have the inputs and a large industrial base. With a jet engine, you need very high quality materials so the compressor blades don't burn up inside the engine. With a rocket... no, burning up is fine. Limited range, but it would defend the coast from anything that got in range.
Not a copy. The Japanese rocket fighter was substantially larger and was only loosely based on the Me 163. The engine was about the only thing they had in common, other than general layout. The Japanese rocket plane was designed to engage the B-29, which flew roughly 10,000 ft higher than the allied bombers operating in the ETO. So it had to have longer endurance and enough fuel to get to the higher altitude. Also, the Me 163 was way too fast and making something larger kept the speeds down while still having nearly the same climb performance, which is the most important characteristic of a point defense fighter.
@Lurch-Bot the later ki-202 model was definitely a lot larger and much different but the first model the J8M was nearly identical in shape and size to the me 163 they definitely weren't straight copys but were rather like the kikka a reimagining if you will
In the proces of finishing finemolds' 1/48 scale Kikka. Good lookin' aircraft.
Whittle developed the 1st jet engine that operated.
IIRC the Gloster Meteor was both in squadron service and combat before the Me 262. The combat being against V1 flying bombs
yeah idk why he said that
Thank you. People get all ooohhh ME 262 first fighter jet and have no or little knowledge oh the Gloster Meteor.
Indeed, this video started and I was already rolling my eyes going, "Another American pretending like the Gloster Meteor doesn't exist," and frankly, I nearly stopped the video. I wonder sometimes if they're embarrassed that they were behind on jets or if its just the fetishisation of German Wunderwaffe. The latter notion actually being sadder.
@@madmullets … the 262 was a lot sexier. Menacing looking. Fought allied manned aircraft. Whereas the Meteor was chasing down the unmanned V2 flying bomb. Over England. The Meteor stayed in service for over a decade. In different air forces. The 262 was a one and done fighter
@@starlight2098 Apparently being sent to a test unit and spending most of the time on the ground is "operational"...
The Germans were aided by the fact that Frank Whittlle's work had been published where as the Germans kept their work secret. Frank Whittle's designs showed the Germans how to make effective compressor vanes. In the same way the German rocket scientists took advantage of the publish work of Robert Goddard. It was noted by people familiar with Goddard's work, that they recognized his influence in the V-2 rockets as being upscaled versions. Goddard had developed the idea of high speed pumps and a separate tank of oxygen for his system, something early rocketeers hadn't thought of.
The Kikka would have had the same problem as the Hein "Tony". So much down time for maintenance that few squadrons would ever be fully operational. Even the German jet units had that problem.
Nice job! I like the presentation style ❤
Dang why is the first picture so dark? I was tapping my screen thinking it auto-dimmed super fast! 😂
The plane was NOT pointless, Japanese engineers gained great knowledge about jet engines - cutting edge tech !!! How can you say it was pointless ? f
Yes, such important things when your nation is losing a war with your country is burning down around you.
@@nektulosnewbiebut something that may be of great benifit after, at that stage the writing was on the wall and forward looking people may well have been planning for the opportunities peace may provide.
@@CrusaderSports250 that's getting into pedantic territory that's rather extreme, especially given that the Kikka led nowhere developmentally wise.
@@nektulosnewbie What did Japan produce post-war? North American F-86 Sabres for the USAF.
@@hektor6766 Powered by indigenous designed and built Japanese engines? Were the F-86s modifed to accomodate certain design features that could trace their evolutionary history back to the Kikka?
No, the Kikka was a dead end, and what jet industry Japan later built had little to nothing connected to what was done in WWII. It was useless, and trying to say it had some benefit post-war when it was just a drain on resources without benefit during WWII is trying to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.
Allied navies never did stop Japanese and German submarines making it to France or Singapore. Before the war ended there was a squadron of U-Boats stationed in Indonesia. As unbelievable as that seems. German scientists and engineers were happy to work for America.
The Japanese are very spiritual and poetic and have a great love of nature, so it's not surprising their military aircraft had poetic names.
Unfortunately, they couldn't launch it from "Auspicious Crane" (Zuikaku) or "Soaring Crane" (Shoukaku), since they'd been sunk by this time.
If both engines put out 1000lbf and its take off speed was 150 mph (just a guess), both engines would be putting out around 800 horsepower combined at that speed (400 horsepower per engine). At its top speed, both engines would be putting out a combined 2300 horsepower, or 1150 per engine. So it's a little unsurprising that its take off run was very long. Also, that's not a lot of power for that high speed. While it was fast I'm guessing it would have had problems in other areas, like climbing, turning, or accelerating.
That pic of Herman, Bugger was meme then and he still is. 😄
Thank you for doing this video, the history of German jet history is well-known, but very little is known of what the Japanese were doing with the jet engine.
One of my favorite aircraft of the war, such a unique R&D and fate fitting for its environment in the late Pacific war
11:10 "Japanese aircraft were pretty small..."
Im not saying youre wrong as a broad-strokes-comparison, but the Bf 109 is just tiny compared to ANYTHING on ANY side.
If you haven't already done so, I would like to see a video on the HE 280. Thank you for the informative video.
Came looking for comments and there were none yet lol
Hurry up and do the dedicated video on the ME-262! Make it long and detailed!
While the allies shipped countless men, equipment and supplies across the globe, the axis struggled to exchange anything materially. It really goes to show the superiority the allies had😂
And the utter stupidity of attacking that giant country between them, aka Russia.
@@luisnunes3863For real. Germans were pacted with Soviets at some point, if they coulda gotten the Japs to focus solely on America...
Or if they somehow all allied the US against the Soviets. But to fight both, and at the same time... That was just retarded.
@@luisnunes3863it would be interesting to speculate on a German/Japanese attack solely on Russia, leaving the rest of the world out, would the western allies actually have helped? or just stood and watched, and without western support could the Russians have held out long enough to have blunted the axis attacks, I don't know enough of the detail myself to make a realistic stab at it but would like to see if it could have been viable, any takers?😊.
That was the original goal of Germany and Japan and the two nations agreed upon a preliminary plan to do just that. They figured their respective armies would push steadily inward actoss Russia/Asia and link up somewhere in India or the Middle East.
It was a good plan which, if carried out would have defeated the Soviet Union in relatively short order. It also made sense, since Japan’s Kwantung Army had been tied up fighting the Soviets in Manchuria for years at that point.
The fly in the ointment… and the cause of the Axis ultimate defeat… was Hitler’s surprise announcement of the Tripartite Pact between Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler. Designed purely as a ruse to set Stalin at ease before Operation Barbarossa could commence, Japan was never made privy to the knowledge that such a pact was in the works, nor did Germany bother to clue their Japanese allies in to the fact that the whole pact was merely a ruse to keep Stalin oblivious to the upcoming Teutonic invasion.
When Japan learned of the announcement of the pact, they were stunned… and justifiably took the knowledge as a slap in the face. So they quietly sued for peace with Stalin, pulled their army from Manchuria and turned their attention to the US.
The only reason that Stalin was able to finally stem the initial German invasion was because the Soviet forces that were held down in Manchuria (including Zhukov) were no longer required there and were hastily moved west to face the Germans.
I believe that ultimately the Axis forces would have been defeated by the atomic bomb. But the few years leading to the gadgets testing would have been FAR more costly for the US, without Russia swallowing up 3/4 of German men, materials and resources.
@@CrusaderSports250 Well, Germany would have to go through Poland to realistically get to Russia, so that means war with the Western Powers is automatic. And the financial connections are such that includes the USA unless UK and France win alone.
Japan. Is bogged down in a never ending war in China before it enters a World War. You can't make this s💩💩t. It's quite possible the Japanese could have turned their army around and beaten the forces defending the Soviet Far East, though not very likely. Then they are stuck occupying it, saying goodbye to Northern China, which is the reason why the Kuantung Army pressed for war in the first place... Also, they're at one end of the Trans-Siberian Railway, which the Russians can't really make work reliably all year at this point. All other important parts of the Soviet Union other than Vladivostock are several time zones away. Impasse.
Did I mention that the Germans never had the logistics to get to Moscow anyway? In fact, they culminated about 100 km away from where their logistics chief predicted.
So, the Soviet union always survives WWII, plus or minus a few bits.
So, the only realistic plan for the Axis to win the Great Oil War [aka WWII] is to make peace with the other pariah state, do everything they need to do to keep the Russian oil flowing so they can have a vaguely winnable fight against the powers that control the rest of the world's oil. For example, Germany can mechanize more divisions, Italy can fight her fine ships and Japan can run the industry, get iron that the US and UK can't block.
War is logistics, logistics, logistics.
15:00 as to the Kamikaze aspect: 1) what real record do we have that it was actually designed or intended for such use? Strange that practically all documentation would disappear EXCEPT for that. Point me to even Japanese documents if anyone has such sources. 2) What design features does it actually have that a Kamikaze would need? 3) You mention it was stupid to use jet engines for such a purpose but my understanding is that the jets were actually like 1/10 the man-hours and cost of the piston engines, but they might only operate 10 hours or something given poor materials and machining in wartime DE/JP. If those facts are correct, then arguably it'd be a GREAT engine for use-once missions, whether Kamikaze or one-way Amerikabomber.
The wing sweep angle was the same as the DC-3/C-47. Not to emply that the Gooney Bird was a high performance airframe.
There is a Kikka in the collection of the National Air and Space Museum, part of the Smithsonian.
It's a shame the Kikka didn't get farther in its development. If it had been more well known, there's a very real possibility that we'd have a Kikkachu flying around at air shows today.
😂 who's the cross eyed officer? I hoped you noticed him to and boy, you did not dissapoint!
The closing commentary is the highlight of the show
Allied evaluation of captured aircraft detetmined that the fit and finish of Japanese planes was far better than German.
This is because the Germans cannot build a good vehicle
This aircraft? Or in general? Because it flew twice and crashed on the second flight.
because the german ones were slave labour products
Allied evaluations had many flaws and where often downright wrong.
@@onenote6619 Compared to the Me262 (which had hundreds of crashes due to engine failures…)…
Crazy to think that the Nakajima Kikka was built from Blueprints of German engines, pictures, and primarily eyewitness reports. From the submarine that did survive as the other one sank. After being destroyed by Catalina's.
Besides that, because they did not have a physical version of the Me-262, this was also considered smaller than the original would have served in a Jet Bomber role, irl, unlike war Thunder which was never armed nor intended to be.
That would have gone to the Ki-200. While in appearance are very similar to the Me-163, they were very different rocket crafts.
really weird how the germans saw the HE 178 and yawned when basically all jet fighters would independently return to its form
0:56 wrong, US was producing engines for the P-80 in WW2. Modified specifically for mass production and massively improved over the British version.
The British engines were on par with the best of the American ones.
The P-59A beat the P-80 into production but its American engines let it down…
Wrong the US were using Halford engines until they worked out how to make them themselves.
Mig-15. My dad's plane. British engine. Rolls-Royce Nene.
@@stringpicker5468 And by “working out how to make them themselves”, the British sent an engineer over who pointed out they had left out an oil passage in the castings…
@@allangibson8494 Ssssh, don't use reality...
I have one of Nakajima Aircraft Company products in my garage - great to fly, or in this case , drive... a Subaru Forester by Fuji Heavy Industries (what Nakajima eventually became today) .. :) LOL
My Subaru Outback is nice, but I really liked my mitsubishi-too bad someone came left of center and totalled it.
Just to clarify its almost certain the gloster meteor was first into operational service and it almost certainly achieved the first kills (the ME262 first kill couldn’t have happened as no mosquitos were lost that day or any aircraft in that area)
Also the ME262 was great in a straight line but crap are turning, landing, taking off and pretty much anything rlse
“Almost certain” has nothing to do with the history. The fact is - Me-262 officially went into service on April 17th while Meteor did so on July 17th. What’s more important is that the Meteor’s war “service” was a joke - merely practicing on essentially training targets called V1 in friendly skies while Me-262s were fighting the real battles. I can see why Meteor F.1 was kept away from the real service - the poor thing was slower than most of the contemporary piston fighters. But there’s no good excuse for F.3 when it finally went into service in 1945. The “it might fall into the German hands” is just lame since by then almost lost ability to produce what they’ve had, let alone copy some latest tech. The more real explanation is that F.3 still sucked in the first months of its service, and then the war ended.
@sergeychmelev5270
The 262 was mostly getting shot down by slower P-51s, P-47s, and Tempests. And having its engines changed every 50 hours and sitting on the ground for lack of fuel, parts, and pilots.
@@sergeychmelev5270The first confirmed Me262 kill occurred on August 8,1944.
The first flew with Testing Command (Erprobungskommando) 262 on 19 April, 1944. (Not an actual operational squadron).
The Me262 didn’t actually enter squadron service (as opposed to test flights) until November 1944 with KG51.
The Meteor on the other hand entered squadron service with 616 Squadron on 12 July 1944 with its first operational sortie on 27 July 1944.
@@sergeychmelev5270 no the Me262 was delivered to 2 Luftwaffe squadrons In April 44 the first claimed kills where in august (but no allied aircraft recorded as lost to corroborate those kills. It was only in October 1944 that ME262 claims start matching the allied losses.
Also the meteor was pushed into service a bit quicker than was liked to as it was one of the few allied aircraft with guns that could catch a V1 in level flight and that’s what it was used against. Once that threat receded the RAF slowed its introduction as yes some issues were found with it. Also they didn’t want the Germans to capture one or a wreck and either takes its technical details and copy or give them away to Japan.
These are provable facts that are on record.
@@calvinnickel9995engines on the 262 were changed every 10 hours in service shockingly
7:50 What plane is that?
Awesome research, thank you.
The 1992 MS-DOS game Aces of The Pacific had an expansion pack titled 1946 that let you fly the Kikka, or fight against it. It also has the F-80 Shooting Star in combat much earlier than real life. Super cool game, and how I found out about the Kikka.
recently ive seeing people saying that the 262 is not actually the first operational jet, could ya make an video explaining this?
They would be wrong.
Technically the Gloster Meteor was the first to be put into operational service. But they only ever intercepted V-1 flying bombs over England, and did some light ground attack at the very end of the war. They never engaged german aircraft in the air, and were actually prohibited from flying over German territory for most of the war due to fears of the plane falling into enemy hands.
The 262 was the first jet to fight other aircraft in the air so it often gets the title for being the first jet fighter.
@@mathieudelmar6112The V-1 is a jet aircraft…
@allangibson8494 The V1 isn't a fighter aircraft though, which is the whole point of the discussion. There's a big difference between shooting down a manned fighter aircraft, and a flying bomb.
@@mathieudelmar6112 Shooting down a flying bomb is actually harder and more dangerous.
Fighters are four times the size, slower and don’t contain a ton of explosives.
Me262’s were largely ineffective against piston engined fighters too and like the Meteor, stayed on their side of the front line.
In terms of looks, the Kikka is actually pretty cool looking imo. I really like the tail section and vertical stabilizers the Japanese went with at the time. Kind of square looking but still "sporty".
11:55 - The Tsu-11 can't really be called a jet engine except in the most generic sense. Today, we would call that a Ducted Fan... a propeller inside a tube, powered by a small piston engine rather than a turbine. The Tsu-11 was installed on the MXY7 Ohka-22 "Cherry Blossom" kamikaze plane, intended to replace its original solid rocket motors with something an engine offering greater range.
OK, this is very petty but I can't unsee it. In the painting @13:27, the landing rear is reflected in the right engine pod, but inside out.
Ai art?
Any chance on doing a video about the Yokosuka R2Y2 or Mitsubishi C8M Shusui ?Hope so !
I've got the 1/48 Fine Molds kit! Great box art.
13:42 does anybody know what those two tubes under the fuselage are?
rockets
There is no meaningful difference in "leaping" to a jet engine from an inline piston engine or a radial piston engine. A turbojet engine had more in common with a turbosupercharger than a piston engine.
I loved Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Honest".
2:26 - Behind Herman that smugly smiling fellow might be Doug Demuro’s distant relative.
Honestly, I’m impressed that they even tried this
8:22 That’s a boat to boat transfer. One does not see that often… 🤔
So where does the Meteor fit in the jet timeline?
Being developed simultaneously.
The Gloster Meteor had Almost exactly the same timeline as the ME262.
Herman Goering wasn’t know for good decisions in WW2
He rode on his WWI rep.
5:01. His friends called him Cocaine Klaus 😂
Kokain Klaus, ja
This man will make a video about every paper plane related to the 262 except for the 262 itself
At least one person has mentioned this in passing, but a single jet fighter operated by a single pilot is much less resource-intensive than anything it might be used to target in a kamikaze attack. In addition, the methods kamikaze attacks seem to have used to reach their targets, namely avoiding and/or spoofing Allied IFF signals, would not allow them to return home anyway. Late-war Allied anti-aircraft fire and combat air patrols were simply too effective. That is why kamikaze raids developed into a full-fledged tactic the way they did. Nothing about the greater resource-intensivity of a Kikka detracts from the goal of a kamikaze mission, because even a smaller ship like an Allied destroyer (often the target of a kamikaze pilot) would have taken far greater resources to build and crew than the jet and its pilot. Much like later missiles, the effectiveness of a kamikaze attack was great enough that it was worth the vast amount of resources it took to enact, especially with such a small chance a conventional delivery system, including its pilot(s) and crew, would survive to fight again.
I say again, I love your sarcastic narration!
Lol I’m still laughing at “two years later before the work began in honest” lol thx for not knowing English! Lol you made my day!
6:16 Work began ".....In HONEST"? Hee, hee, hee! 😝
Cool as always! Love your work!
Btw, the term is, "began in earnest", not, "began in honest".
The Ki-61 was loosely inspired by the BF-109 and used the same engine.
Another reason to make the Kikka smaller was the fact it had to engage bombers flying a couple of miles higher than the ones the Germans were engaging in the ETO.
You scared me at 5:00 👀
21:50 Jets have a huge, huge, HUGE advantage in speed while climbing, and can totally out-run (or, catch up to) any prop plane. The TH-cam channel Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles spends like two hours beating that horse to death, chopping into hamburger and burning it to ashes. They may not have the fastest climb RATE in terms of feet per second (the piston Bearcat's climb rate was unbeaten by jets for 10-20 years) but it's extreme. You continue to talk about armament: these would have been used against B-29s so wouldn't have had machine guns, I'm pretty sure, only 20mm. Also, that 20mm would have been central so they'd have been easy to aim.
It appears that this first German jet from 1939 had a rather complex and interesting retractable landing gear. A bit strange for a prototype that is essentially designed to "just fly".
Interesting. Didn't know about this.
Ministry: We need a jet-fighter.
Designer: Yes, we can build a jet-fighter
Ministry: We also want it multi-role. Fighter-bomber.
Designer: Tricky, but maybe . . .
Ministry: and also scout-transport-amphibious, carrier operations, do 700mph at sea level and 40,000 feet, 3000 mile range, carry 3 tons of bombs, with multiple turrets with combined 12.7mm machine guns, 30mm cannon, and maybe some rocket-tubes. Oh, and torpedoes.
Designer: ummm....
Sounds like the French ministry specification, Rexs Hanger has done two great French interwar design posts, well worth watching.
The Kikka was a last ditch measure, and it wasn’t really possible for Japan to produce large numbers of them. But it was still a good effort. The Japanese Army Air Force was also working on a smaller, fully swept wing version to be called the Karyu (Fire Dragon), but it never got past the drawing board.
Why is it people make claims without even understanding what they mean? The definition of an operational aircraft means a type delivered to an operational squadron in full numbers with spare parts for regular operation and servicing plus fully trained technicians. The Me 262 which flew in combat in July fit none of those definitions. First of all they were delivered to Erprobungskommando 262 in April 44 which was a test unit. Aircraft arrived in small numbers given the fact the Jumo 004B would never enter series production until August 44. When the commander of Erprobungskommando 262 was killed in action Walter Nowotny was assigned to replace him changing the unit name to Kommando Nowotny which remained a test and trials unit. It would be until December 1944 before the 262 reached an operational unit fitting the definition of operational. That said RAF 616 squadron was equipped with Meteor F1 in July 44 tasked with shooting down V1 rockets. This being a operational unit with a full compliment of aircraft and training along with tools and spares makes the Meteor the first operational jet aircraft in the world and not the 262. Now the 262 can claim to be the first jet fighter to engage in combat but it was not the first operational jet aircraft. Since Jg 07 only became operational in December as I stated earlier. Also the delay wasn't Messerschmitt's fault as they had the airframe ready but it was the waiting for BMW to produce a reliable jet engine which they failed to deliver then the job was given to Jumo. Jumo produced the 004A engine which was suitable but it used to much restricted material so they had to go back to the drawing board and make a turbojet engine with very little of the common known metals that could handle high temperatures used in the 004B engine. The fat that it worked at all is a great credit to the Jumo team, though it would not run long at full throttle it ironically mirrored the high performance piston aircraft of the day which could only run emergency boost for a short time before they could cause serious damage to their engines. So combat with either engine type was waged with strategic use of full power deciding who went home not just by the use of the gun sights. Given the lack of restricted metals and that Jumo 004 engines were often built with slave labour they were known for being seriously unreliable. Post war one series of test flights by the USAF used no less than eight jumo engines to reach six hours of test flight. This unreliability made the Me 262 and Jumo 004B in no interest post war after testing determined how fragile they were. The only notable post war activity was in Czechoslovakia where they inherited a complete German factory with drawings, jigs and so on. They would produce somewhere shy of 15 aircraft in the hopes of producing them for export yet no sales would come. By 1950 half the fleet we destroyed in accidents or unserviceable. The type was quickly retired and sent for scrap with the other 262's junked post war. of the over 500 claimed kills by Luftwaffe pilots more than half were shown to be false when checked against Allied loss records. In the end it had a 1.5 to 1 kill ratio which was pretty poor compared to the BF 109 or FW 190. The large problem Germany had in the last six month to year of the war was a lack of aviation fuel for their piston fighters which were more capable than the 262. The Jumo 004b engine ran of any kind of fuel Germany had. The largest source of fuel was a synthetic coal derived fuel somewhat like Kerosene called J2. It was available in some amount as Germany still had access to coal reserves while all other types of fuel were drying up. That's why Germany turned to an unreliable engine in a aircraft plagued with problems.
16:36 I had no idea about this
In the cold light of day , what did the Me 262 accomplish ? NOTHING . If it had been introduced by the spring of 1943 , then it may have been a game changer. This is pure supposition , but with an air superiority fighter against you , the Americans may well of abandoned their daylight bombing offensive. If that had happened Germany could have won the war . My reasoning , the Luftwaffe fighter arm was destroyed in 1944 by USAAF fighter numbers . Allied bombing was devastating but not war winning , control of the air was vital.
Air power proved itself on DDay and afterwards . The Germans could do nothing to stop it , even with their Jets.
Even taking into account the limited number of 262's available , and also the huge number of allied aircraft to shoot down . The first combats were against RAF unarmed PR Mosquito's . The first evaded the attacks but the second on 8/8/44 killed the crew of 540 sq over Munich. 262 pilots claimed 582 allied aircraft , losing 180 of their number in combat. Probably justified in adding another 50 in losses through accidents.
A lot of hype , which go's with most German fighters . Always perceived to be better then they actually were.
06:14 *in earnest* 🙏🏻
For prestege purposes! It did put Japan on the map as a WWII Jet country.
If they had managed to get it into production,it would have been developed, and it would have got a more powerful engine that would have increased its top speed.
Nakajima had become " SUBARU " after WAR Ⅱ YOU KNOW
If you factor in the point that the engines would probably be worn out by the time the Kikka arrived at it's intended target then maybe using it as a kamikaze isn't as crazy as it first sounds as it would not be able to make it home anyway. 🤔
In the early 1940s the German engines were far more advanced axial flow type vs the allies centrifugal compressors. The Jumo and BMW get engines only suffered from the lack of correct materials to make them last longer than a few sorties, or only one sortie if the thrust lever was not handled carefully. All of the engines of the period were using flame can combustion chambers for simplicity as well but the German research on annular combustion chambers truly gave GE, PW and RR a great start on much better engines in the postwar era.
It is also incorrect to say it's stupid to put a jet engine on a kamikaze (except to say the entire program was stupid) but according to postwar records the Jumo-004 was significantly faster and cheaper to make, and required less skilled labor than their high performance piston engine counterparts so a Kika was possibly more cost effective than building kates, zeros, or the like for the same purpose.
I'm curious why MOD airarm didn't take the KIKA or 262 and install centrifugal compressor Whittle turbines onto pylons intended for BMW seems best of all worlds.
2:45 - Wasn't that Frank Whittle and one of his daughters?
I don't think the first operation jet was the 262 I think the first jet kill was a RAF Meteor on a V1
*Do not let this history be forgotten or rewritten. Thank you.*
"mamasan, i want an me 262!"
mamasan; "we have me 262 at home."
me 262 at home; kikka.....
Kikka, a ship too late to save a drowning witch. Ironic that while it was waiting to get off the ground Richard Bong is killed in an early jet Lockheed P-80 in the United States
The 262 looks like a shark, way cool
14:37 the whole purpose of late ww2 jetplanes is that the engines are easy to make and easy to replace. Therefore jet planes were ideal Kamikaze-planes.
Everybody gangsta until they realise that their jet plane is slower than the Ki 87 (which I do wish to see in a video of yours).