The Jet that Secretly Flew Over Europe in WW2
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ต.ค. 2024
- In the hot summer of 1943, a conspicuous circus tent was erected within Lockheed's Burbank compound. Downwind from a pungent plastics factory, the tent was strategically placed to deter prying eyes.
Lockheed Chief Engineer Kelly Johnson covertly gathered an elite cadre inside this makeshift workspace. The handpicked team received their orders: Commit to relentless hours crafting a new aircraft prototype, entirely under Johnson's directive, facing seemingly insurmountable deadlines.
While the specifics remained undisclosed, the urgency was palpable as German jet fighters threatened to eclipse all aerial combatants in the European theater.
Rising to the occasion, this dedicated team embarked on a mission to birth America's first operational jet fighter: the P-80 Shooting Star.
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My dad was a AF 2nd Lt. during the Korean War. He flew a ton of missions in the F-80 and was praised the plane for it's manuverability. He even tangled with a Mig-15 taking a round through the vertical stabilizer. In one of life's little quirks, he retired flying Lockheed's F-104 Starfighter.
Dad talked of F-80’s flying close escort on their missions, F-84’s flying far escort. I think the F-84’s were allowed to go farther from the bombers. Everyone’s fighters were quite short range at that point. The F-86’s came later, at least initially in small numbers.
In the 2nd War they spent a lot of time on aircraft recognition. They had this slide projector affair that gave you just a flash of an image. One thirtieth of a second, to if my memory is correct one sixtieth of a second. That’s my memory, but it seems implausible. At Korea the jets were just too fast. If you pointed your nose at a B-29, you got fired on. Your sky would be filled with tracers.
@@billsmith5109 Hello Bill. Most of my dad's missions were air to mud in nature. After Korea, he flew the F-84 for a short time. He said you would pass out from excessive g's before the airframe would warp.
😅
He probably flew the F80C not the P80. Different jet engines…
@@jcole4 Correct.
During the war, my mom (a brit) was a mathematician calculating wing formulae for the first supersonic jets. That was in '44. The Brits already had jets flying then. The Gloster Meteor was the first Allied jet to see action in WWII.
That was for the Miles M.52 project but it never flew. The technical data was handed over to Bell to build the X1 which went supersonic piloted by Chuck Yaeger.
Weren't all early jets SUB-sonic, airspeed below the speed of sound? Not "SUPER-sonic," which would've meant having flown at speeds faster than the speed of sound?
@@michaelw2288The data was supposed to be handed over to America as part of a mutual exchange but the Americans refused to hand over their data citing 'national security'. Some ally, huh?
'Presume the @@B-A-L
@@michaelw2288 it is hard to believe this myth is still alive. OK bellX1 and Miles look like twins (:-)@michaelw2288
I worked on some F-80's and later the AT-33 fighter trainer. The wildest things about them was the annual termite inspection because the floor was plywood. and the modification of one prototype AT-33 to carry a Vulcan 20 MM cannon on the center-line. After modifing the center rack and the nose landing gear we took the acft to the boresite range to test fire it. The gun worked well and the AT-33 was going on a test firing flight to the gunnery range. The jet came back on emergency and I parked it and saw the pilot was white and not normal looking. He told me This f**ing thing almost stalled when I fired a short burst and almost went out of control. So ended the experiment to build a close air support for Vietnam. Davis Monthan AFB 4453 Combat Crew Training Wing "A" section 1966.
Interesting...thx for sharing. I would never think in such a "problem" in a plane...
Frank Whittle's engine was a centrifugal design, the Me 262 had axial flow jet engines, completely different. The Whittle designers were gifted to the USA and sold to the USSR and also built by China. Lockheed in the USA were also developing an axial flow engine to power their L133 fighter design, begun in 1939, it was not completed but the design information was used to speed up the development of the P80
Note there are no centrifugal flow engine designs in use today. That is an indication of the significant difference between German and British design function. I used to have a cockpit comparison of the English Electric Canberra that went into American service as the B-57. The English cockpit, with its odd, fixed, bubble canopy* that necessitated entry through a fuselage door, was a nightmare of discontinuity. None of the instruments or controls were grouped. Apparently the Canberra cockpit was laid out with a stick-it-wherever-it-will-fit design concept. By contrast, the American cockpit, with its traditional hinged canopy egress, had a well laid out design with grouped controls, flight and engine instruments. To be fair, there are actually a couple of highly modified WB-57s still flying today, almost 75 years after the design's first flight.
*The fixed, bubble canopy was later replaced by a more conventional hinged canopy that for some odd reason was offset to port. Maybe it made it easier for polo riders to get in and out of the aircraft.
@@leroyabernathy9934 and yet America was happy to copy the overall design of the Canberra rather than develop its own jet bomber.
Also, the German axial flow engines had a service life of ten hours unlike British powerplants. As the Germans lagged behind the British in alloy development, they had to use aluminium coated steel turbine blades in an ablative fashion.
@@leroyabernathy9934 The off set canopy was applied to one particular variant of the Canberra.And no, despite what you assert, the British cockpit layout was not a case of "stick it anywhere where it will fit" The Canberra was originally conceived as a fast unarmed bomber very much along the same lines as that of the earlier Mosquito bomber, and like the Mosquito was also designed to have a fixed canopy. In effect, the Canberra was a jet version of a Mosquito. Furthermore, the Canberra outlived the F-80 in both service and production life span, serving with multiple military services worldwide, with the last examples finally being withdrawn from service in the early 2000s, something which was not emulated by the F-80 and its T-33 derivative. In the cold light of day, the F-80 was at best a mediocre aircraft, owing its adoption into service simply due to the USAF urgently needing an alternative to the disappointing and abysmal P-59 Aircomet..
@@leroyabernathy9934 The only reason Centrifugal flow engines are not in use today is due to the fact that such engines are bulky and difficult to aerodynamically incorporate in to a airframe. All the aircraft that used centrifugal flow engines had bulbous fuselages or engine nacelles to accommodate the engine. Centrical engine powered aircraft continued in service well in to the 1960s, the DH Ghost engined De Havilland Vampire being one such example
Amazing stuff. Blows me away at how FAST these planes went from the drawing board to the skies. By the THOUSANDS. Talk about an industrial powerhouse.
First car 1898 , a Merc I think it was . Man on the moon in 1969 . That really is amazing . So why did the impetus of technology seem to slow down ? Less economic , political and military pressure would be my guess , but maybe we just have not been told the whole story yet . Yes certainly 'rocket science' advanced and certain weaponry /defence systems evolved due to the so called Arms Race . But no Mars landing by humans as yet .
Kelly Johnson was THE MAN!
Kelly was indeed a terrific engineer and a superb innovator. His other talent was recognizing and recruiting people with similar a mindset, each expert in one or more aspect of engineering aircraft. I have infinite respect for his leadership and his work, but equally I admire the way that he gathered some truly amazing people to work with him as part of the team. And some of the "solutions" Kelly used are reminiscent of a maxim of NASA Flight Director, Gene Krantz. Krantz, who was "Flight" on the Apollo 11 landing, and likewise at the time of the Apollo 13 tank explosion. Gene Krantz said (and wrote), "If you don't know what to do, Don't Do Anything." That, believe it or not, is far more difficult than it sounds!
One example from Kelly was the 'solution' to the tendency of the A-12 / SR-71 to leak fuel when parked. Since there was no separate internal tankage, the aircraft fuselage was also the fuel tank. Many ideas were thought up, tried, and discarded - none survived actual testing, or became part of operational aircraft. The 'solution' - as Kelly described it in one lecture - was to simply 'let it leak.' Since the JP-8 (?) fuel had a very high ignition temperature, it was not a major safety hazard as it was a P.I.T.A. Once the plane was airborne, and the metal fuselage panels had expanded from the heat of air friction, all the leaking stopped. One of those 'strange but true' bits of engineering trivia.
Probably the biggest reason why P-59 was so lackluster was due the paranoid levels of secrecy around it. They would not even allow the use of wind tunnels for the design.
The RCAF retired their Canadair licence built T-33’s in 2004, 60 years after the first flight of the XP-80. It goes to show how well engineered this plane is.
In my days at Tyndall AFB, Fl. in the late 1970s, I worked as an avionics instrument tech on the T-33A. A couple times a shiny Canadian T-bird would fly in, for some maintenance. Beautiful birds, and the RR jet engine was a thing of beauty. It had more pep than our birds. 😎👍
The Airforce retired it's T-33 s in 1988.
I'm Canadian & we're purchasing Australian F-18's to offset our current fleet due to airframe fatigue
The T-33 was an extensive redesign of the P-80 with a different engine to the P-80.
@@clearcreek69We already did and have purchased the F-35. What's your point?
the point is our air force is a joke now.@@gryph01
What is amazing is how fast the tech went from 1940's designs to the 1960's SR-71.
1940s Canberra 50s Lightning
I've seen a few excellent interviews of Frank whittle. Really worth the listen. They are on YT
The first British and German jets had a single engine mounted in the fuselage. Both the British and the Germans chose underwing engines due to reliability issues and power limitations of existing designs. They wanted working aircraft first, engine development would allow for better designs later. The P-80 was never risked in combat over German territory because it was less capable than the Meteor, which was also held back - partly due to the potential propaganda win for Germany if one were shot down, but they were also concerned that the Germans might capture and improve on their engines.
the usual nonsense, examening a Meteor german designers first would have laughed and then sent a letter to London asking if they should sent some designers to show the brits how things should be done and show them the future of jet engines (:-)
@@michaelpielorz9283 You missed the point - the P-80 was inferior to the Meteor, which was the most reliable of the 3 fighters mentioned.
I don't think the Germans would have laughed, either. For several reasons, German jet fighter designs were rushed into production, and poorly constructed (as Germany lacked essential resources). As a result, the Me-262's airframe mixed aluminium and steel, etc, without regard to galvanic corrosion. The airframes themselves were only good for 100 or so hours, whereas there are still original Meteors flying today.
I came too the comments for this exact reason too see if anyone else thought that and new that, so I completely agree 110% 🫡
@@andrewstrongman305 I think the reason isnanother one, namely that Germany lost the war and therefore more Axis than Allied planes were destroyed during or (on order) after the war. It is also difficult to find an original Fokker D VII because they were explicitly diminished by the Versailles Treaty. Plus, their aircraft industry was practically non-existent after war for decades.
This also holds for oldtimers and air shows, to this day. There just ist no "Battle of Britain" or D-day annual memorial event or something like that in Germany. Do the British celebrate the anniversary of Gallipoli / Dardannelles? In Paris, there is a Gare d'Austerlitz but no Waterloo station or Trafalgar Sqare, as opposed to London. There is still als bad taste (conscience) in many minds about WW 2, which makes it hard to commemorate the Luftwaffe airplanes of that time, even harder than on British or American air shows, which are more relaxed in this regard.
@@goldfing5898 WTF does any of that have to do with my comment?
You'd not really guess from this video that the Glostor Meteor was the first, indeed only, Allied jet fighter to see true (and, by the end, considerable) operational service during WW2?. Nearly 4,000 were built, and whilst (initially at least) not as fast or as sophisticated as the advanced, swept-wing ME262 (as neither was the Shooting Star), later versions just after the war broke the world airspeed and other records and outclassed the Shooting Star. You'd also not really appreciate that the UK gave the US the engine technology, without which the US would have been well behind, since the video seems to disparage the British engine. As indeed it does the Meteor,. A lot of this video is in any case verbatim from Wikipedia. Sort of.
Completely downplays the fact that Whittle invented the jet engine, a US production methinks? 😉
@@wobblybobengland
Heinkel in Germany had a jet engine at the same time as Whittle and flew first.
1. It was acknowledged in the video that the engine technology used in the P-80 came from the Brits.
2. As this particular video was about the P-80 and Americas struggle to catch up I would not expect it to be full of facts and info about the Meteor.
And was used in Korea
The Meteor was used in Korea
Every aviation docco becomes 12% better the moment that 'Kelly' Johnson is mentioned.
Only 12%! LOL
@@nelsonphilip4520 haha, might have got the number a bit low, eh?
Correction our Boffins here in Blighty agree it is over 14% . Their actual figure is 14 , 365% if Mr Johnson is mentioned and it will crack 15% if Frank Wittle is included in the docco .
Or Will Messerschimt or Kurt Tank. In Britian we don't have charismatic figures, we have team work!
@@barrycooper9451 Look up Eric 'Winkle' Brown
The Americans were not "inspired by Whittle's design", it was literally given to them by the British government. Along with the cavity magnetron for radar and a whole host of other technology.
Plus info on the Miles supersonic aircraft that had a fully flying tail…..later used by USA ….seems quite a bit of information only traveled in one direction……
@@brianperry yes, much like the later TSR-2 and the Avro Canada F-105, the US was happy to take technology from its supposed allies and then shit all over them. Those designs (including the Miles 52) all mysteriously disappeared despite in some cases being advanced prototypes. The UK finally finished paying off its WWII debt to the US in 2006. I'll let people draw their own conclusions.
Yeah, all after America invented the airplane.
@@memonk11 and China invented gunpowder. Not sure what your point is.
@@Squodgamullis Of course you are.
Yes, those two American P-80s flying reconnaissance missions in Italy during the last few days of the war played such an immensely 'pivotal role', it completely altered the outcome of WWII. Where would the world be today without the photos these two jets took?
Lol!
The Komet wasn't a Heinkel it was a ME Messerschmit
Me-163, yep. As dangerous to it's pilot as to it's opponents. 😎👍
I've come to the conclusion that every Dark Skies video deliberately includes such howlers as suggesting that Heinkel designed the 163 rather than Messerschmidt just to see who's paying attention. Heinkel isn't pronounced Henkel either - I think Henkel is a brand of fizzy wine.
@@richardmale3191 😂
@@richardmale3191it's to increase interaction through comments to Up the algorithm, Henkel is a German company that produces glue, dishwashing liquid, detergents, Hair Spray, Shampoos and such
Melts pilots
My dads crew in Italy assembled those 2 P80s late in the war. By that point there was not much opposition to the bombers going north. But they did a lot of testing after the initial missions. .
I maintain a collection that has 3 different versions,
a standard early T-33
The P-80 (5123) that set the speed record
And Old Hodgpodge, that started out as a P-80a, added a second cockpit and became YP-80b, later to be redesignated YT-33a, (the 1st T-33), then it had an afterburner added (usaf 1st afterburner aircraft) and redesignated YF-94a, then various other mods to make it an F-94b, then F-94c
It's next up on the schedule for restoration
P-80s flew a few reconnaissance flights over Italy in February and March of 1945. They never saw combat in WWII.
Sounds like they did. At least they operated in a combat theater.
Oh and go tell a recon pilot he's not seeing combat flying over enemy territory.
2 were sent to Italy to take out the German Arotto recon. planes . That interaction never happened.
The gloster meteor was the first jet allied fighter in WW2
In 1958, I flew as a passenger in a Meteor T.7 trainer...a very nice ride in an aircraft that was pleasant, few vices, ( except one; no ejection seat. )...and Derwent 8 engines, because of their simplicity, kept on churning!
Te germans thought it a joke
@@michaelpielorz9283
Presumably, they preferred aircraft engines that only flew once.
Actually , the first British Jet fighter to fly was the Gloster E.28/39
@@carltonstidsen8806 it was a proof of concept aircraft not a fighter.
The Goblin engine was actually built by De Havilland. The role of this company in early jet aviation is often forgotten.
F-80 Shooting star: Chock-full of Lockheed's super secret Kelly Johnson sauce
I'm surprised he didn't call the P80 a Messerschmitt.
Kelly Johnson was an absolute genius!!!! Can’t help to think what would he design with today’s technology.
The Bell P-59 was primarily a test bed to demonstrate how jet engines could operate, giving engineers and pilots a chance to find out their characteristics. Bell was chosen since they had demonstrated a willingness to explore new configurations, and were no heavily committed to other production. The P-59 was equivalent to the Gloster E9/40, or the Heinkel 178.
The XP-80 had a hiccup during development when the intake duct collapsed because of underestimated pressure profile destroying the engine. The British took the engine out of a de Havilland Vampire prototype and shipped it to Lockheed. The P-80 was a conservative 1st generation jet, a reasonable aircraft, but the T-33/F-94 series were arguably more significant. It’s history is primarily a measure of how fast aviation was evolving in the post -1945 years
0:55
"... like the Heinkel He-162 Volksjager..."
Whatever is on screen over that is not an He-162
0:59
"... and the Heinkel He-163 Komet ..." That's the Messerschmitt Me-163 Komet"
02:27
"... aircraft like the P-80 would play a pivotal role in WW2..."
Bit of a stretch to claim two P-80s played a pivotal role IMHO.
I do think the worst error is failing to mention in the P-80 / Me 262 comparison a the end that the Me 262 had engines that were glass dog shit. If the pilot who flew the plane before you didn't baby those engines just right, they could crack and then shred themselves when you fly it next. Granted, this problem was a resource problem more than a fundamental design problem (as they couldn't produce the heat-resistant alloys required), but I can't imagine the P-80 requiring more than a fraction of the maintenance of the 262.
One thing I am curious about is the cost of the P-80 compared to premier fighters of the day, such as the F-4U, P-51, or P-47. The 262 was cheaper and simpler to make than Fw 190s or Bf 109s, which is often overlooked.
It's a Messerschmitt Me 163, not Heinkel!
The P-80/T-33 was a beautiful aircraft as were many of the early jets when the relatively low power and slow throttle response made aerodynamically clean lines to reduce drag were a priority.
America's top scoring ace of WW2, Richard Bong (All while flying the P38 Lighting), was killed while test flying a P80 just before the war ended.
He allowed his own fame and belief in his ability to be his end. He missed a simple fuel setting that would have been caught in a preflight checklist, but he was one of those seat of the pants I don't need no stinkin checklist pilots. Not unusual for the time.
@@300guy True !!!
The first British flying jet prototype had a single engine within its main body. This flew quite well. The P-80 may have been sent to Italy to shoot down German jet reconnaissance aircraft. The P-80 was a great design that flew very well. So it was developed into a training jet that saw decades of service. Trainer performance can be very different to a fighter jet. Apparently, Kelly Johnson wanted to design and build a jet engine. Instead he was told to build a jet fighter and he would be provided with a secret jet engine.
13:50 - _“The P-80 Shootings Star’s influence on jet aviation cannot be understated”;_ I beg to differ. If I say “The P-80 was of no importance to jet aviation” then I have surely just egregiously _understated_ its importance.
Your narrative mentioned the "Heinkel 163 Comet"! As I recall, the 163 Komet was preceded by Me! It was a Messerschmit, not a Heinkel design. Is this an "oops" or have I been wrong for over 60 years?
Heinkel built a jet before Messerschmit and the 163 Comet was a rocket aircraft.
Dang those P-80s are PRETTY in flight. When they break out of formation I get chill bumps.
One of my high school teachers was in the Army in Italy in WWII. He told me the first time one of the Arados overflew them it scared the crap out of them.
One of these days Dark Skies is going to post a video that's not riddled with basic errors. I'm not holding my breath though.
Post some yourself and show us how it's done. Can't have to many great Aircraft vids.
@@LurchLures Dumb comment, but I agree about great aircraft content. Unfortunately Dark Skies has never managed to produce any. People who know sweet FA about the history of aviation do tend to like his lazy nonsense though. Enjoy.
The sheer speed of aeronautical advancement at the time never fails to astound me, as does America’s industrial capacity to then produce vast quantities.
80% of Americas tech was sourced from the UK.
The P-80 was truly a pretty little airplane.
A high school classmate's father was assigned to the first AAF P-59 unit at Santa Maria airfield early in the war. She has the letters to prove it.
The British sent an example of Whittle's jet engine to the US with a note: 'see what you can do with this" no one had seen one before and at first didnt know what it was. This was in the same shipment as the Cavity Magnetron - which someone in the US later commented was "The most important thing to ever be shipped across the atlantic". The ME 262 also came into being because German engineers were able to access Whittle's design drawings because the British Air Ministry failed to realise its significance so did not patent it. Had they seen it for what it was and adequately funded Whittle, Britain could have had the Jet in time for the Battle of Britain - radically changing the war.
no, whittle's jet was not axial flow. That was Griffith, who the Air Ministry should have backed starting in the '20s.
Do you really think that patents are respected during wars?
@@andrewnielsen3178 between the US and Britain, of course. BSA was prevented from producing the 50 cal MG because of excessive licencing fees. With germany and USSR, not so much. The point is that Whittle had no impact on the Me262 "axial flow" engine.
No mention in the video about the fact that the first XP-80 destroyed its own engine the first time they ran the engine up to full throttle, the intake skin was too thin and was literally sucked into the engine, as a result De Havilland gave Lockheed the engine that was supposed to go into their new Spider Crab fighter, later renamed the Vampire, delaying testing of the prototype and thus the Vampire’s introduction into service until after the war ended.
BAHAHAHAHAHAHA ...
JETS. During WWII a man named Frank Whittle, an engineer born, raised, and educated in England, invented the Jet Engine. Not reverse engineered, not took someone else's concept and improved on it, he "invented the jet engine". Frank leased a shop where he fine-tuned his invention to a point where he was convinced it had great military potential. Frank went to the Royalty for funding to advance his product, which went all the way to Winston Churchill, and was rejected. He went to the Russians, and was rejected, he went to the Americans, and was rejected. He then went to the Germans who instantly recognized the value and funded Frank's invention. That decision led to the German production of the ME262, the worlds 1st Jet Aircraft. After the war was over, the British, Russians, and the Americans all came to Frank and the Germans to advance their development of Jet aircraft. Noteworthy is that the Americans hired a man named Wernher Von Vraun (whom I met in 1959) before he could be kidnapped by the Russians at the end of WWII. So who is Wernher Von Braun ? He was the lead scientist for the Germans who developed the V1 and V2 rockets and went on to be a Chief Engineer at NASA while developing the Saturn V rocket.
Heinkel came up with a jet engine the same time as Whittle and it was a different design.
@@barryh3547 Which makes perfect sense because #1 Germany was very limited on the material resources to dissipate heat, #2 You are correct that Henkel produced a jet engine, but it was a "rethink" of Frank's engine. That's no surprise either. The Germans were far superior when creating WAR Planes that had to be serviced in the field under minimal conditions. Their bearings for instance were far superior to anything produced at the time. From what I have read, the TBO (time before overhaul) on the ME262 engine was 12 hours, a lot of which was due to the fact the engine was rushed into production. In a fairly short period, the TBO had been increased to 25 hours (48% increase). In many cases, today's jet engines operate into the multiple thousands of hours and are overhauled under an "on condition" basis, with no TBO published.
@@barryh3547 One other interesting thing I found out about from a German Pilot (resident of Toledo) is that during the development of the ME262, since the plane originally had a tail-wheel configuration, the test pilots couldn't achieve take-off speed due to the angle of incidence on the engine during the take-off run. I believe it was Adolf Galland that actually "slammed" on the brakes which forced the tail-wheel up, which then allowed the engines to develop full power. Shortly after that, the nose wheel was installed. The pilot was quick to point out that nose wheel strut was quite weak and suffered casualties.
Correction; Whittle invented it long before the war. His first patent was 1930, but there was great resistance until the war came.
Whittle didn't "sell it to the Germans." They recognized the potential of a turbine powerplant and invested in the technology, producing their own design. Meanwhile, the British government was too busy ridiculing Whittle's requests for tools and resources, telling the American cousins that Whittle was crazy.
The Shooting Star saw zero actual combat in WW2, so a typical over-hyped, breathless video from Dark Skies. At least the British Gloster Meteor was used for shooting down V1 flying bombs.
P-80's flew some photo recon missions over Italy before the war ended. Closest they came to combat.
P/F80 saw service in Korea !!!
This longtime subscriber was pleasantly surprised by the lack of a 1-minute spoiler at the start of this video. I hope it's the new format.
The P-80 was just a Test Bed. It never lived up to any Fighter Tac Mission. It got relegated to Training as an Intro to Jet Propulsion. The F-86 was the fist
Serious Jet Fighter. And notice the final drop of "P" or Pursuit to "F" for Fighter. And man was the f-86 a FIGHER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
silverwings BULLSHIT !!!! The P/F80 went to Korea and served until the F86 came on line, Nothing wrong with the P80 for a first gen jet fighter, a good design and many produced !!!
Well, the He-178, with an Hydrogen powered turbine, flew in 1939.
Hahn, from Heinkel, applied for an US Patent that was granted after 1940, it had both a centrifugal and radial turbine sections, both in same part.
Ground Control Intercept of the Arado over Italy wasn’t up to the challenge. The P-80 never intercepted an Arado
The allies were so determined to get a jet engine flying, they never thought of sweeping the wings back until the early fifties when our planes were getting shot down. The Germans had figured out with the 262. We figured it out with the Saber Jet.
The wings on the ME262 were swept back to maintain the desired C of G of the aircraft, it wasn't realised until later, that this improved performance.
Likely getting a production version in under 150 days. They had to keep it simple & no room for structural problems. KISS Keep It Simple.
You Yanks didn't figure anything out about swept wings, you merely incorporated captured German research in to your designs. And I would add, that you yanks deliberately refused to disclose any of that captured research to the British.
@@EVISEH Funny coming from a island nation that doesn't even have a space program, and was dependent on the US for 80% of its military equipment, oil & food during WW2.
@@cs7th As I read, there were other reasons, namely that the wings started vibrating too much at higher speeds, and they recognised that the problems could be reduced (shifted to higher velocitiy ranges) by changing the wings this way. I doubt that the German engineers didn't realize what the advantages are.
Oh dear... He really said Heinkel 163
I rate the British jets over German. The steel of 1945 could not survive the heat and stress of an axial compressor. So German jets had the logistical burden of oft replacing the engine. The British jet engine was more durable.
That's the only thing the meteor does better max speed me 262 armement 262 combat action 262
Engine reliability issues due to lack of proper raw materials is not an aircraft design flaw. Engines by Junkers, airframe by Messerschmitt. Other than that, Me-262 was better than contemporary Meteor in every aspect.
Successful technology in war depends on how it is used and supported. German airplane production was stressed and had to be considered in using jets. See also the Battle of the Bulge when German armor, including Tigers, was defeated by lack of fuel. @@ottovonbismarck2443
@@ottovonbismarck2443nope German metallurgy war behind Britain
The early jet engines were real fuel gulpers, not very efficient, and had shorter durability, but made a significant difference in speed and altitude.
Wait....the Heinkle 163 Komet? Try Me163. Sheesh...
Was hoping this would be about some top secret engagement between P80s and 262s.
At 11.25 that aircraft is a Lavochkin LA15, T tail and high wing, not a Mig15.
The US *could* have had a all jet AF by the time they entered the war. The Lockheed J37 engine was already past the design phase by 1930 but USAAF thinkers still believed that improvements in propeller driven designs was the way to go. A opportunity lost.
No, the Brit engineer Griffith developed the axial flow engine. Info given to the US after the Tizard Mission 1940.
The problem with early US and UK jet aircraft was that designers basically tried to incorporate a jet engine into a conventional straight wing design,when Willi Messerschmitt clearly demonstrated that a swept wing was the optimum means of getting the most out of the jet,plus the centrifugal flow engine was inferior to those of the axial flow type.Had the lockheed swept wing design been selected,that would have given the US an enormous advantage in jet fighter design.
British knew that axial flow was superior, ... on paper. It needed advanced alloys that Germans didnt have, which is why their engines lasted so few flying hours. Also at subsonic speeds swept wings made no difference. And it is well known that Me262 had swept wings for centre of gravity reasons, not to increase speed
Early US jet aircraft?
@@B-A-L Yes,the Bell airacomet and Lockheed shooting star as well as early naval jets such as the Grumman panther,all were straight wing ,centrifugal flow engined aircraft.
@markshakespeare5146 Swept wings were very far from being irrelevant in subsonic aircraft. Those flying at transonic speeds were subjected to compressibility as they flew at high mach numbers,swept wings delayed or eradicated compressibility stalling.
@@darkknight1340but as you said this only occurred at transonic not subsonic speeds so my argument is perfectly valid
nice video just a little mistake, is not Heinkel He 163 but Messerschmitt Me 163 komet
The Idea that the p80 was pivotal in ww2 is not correct.
Yeah it was as it was a first gen jet fighter just too late for WWII but very pivitol in jet fighter development !!! ! DUUUUUHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!
Man, such a shame that the Ilyushin P-262 and Embraer Do-163 never met the Boeing Me-80 in the sky ...
They took an Airbus ride together once, though.
@jurestormchaser5382 -Yeah, or the ultimate WWII fighter plane, the giant, super sonic, 6 engined hydrogen peroxide rocket powered Air Bus HO 229 delta winged flying boat that first flew in 1943 but because of a top secret 4-way agreement between the Masons, the Illuminati, the Allies and Nazi Germany never saw combat!🤣🤣🤣
It is strange that Frank Whittle made a working jet engine and patented it in 1929 then wrote a book yet the British never took on the Jet engine until 1941 The Gloster was built just one single engine plane. in 1943 the Gloster meteor about 620MPH was built and flying with four 20mm cannons at the same time the De Havilland Vampire flew but was never used had four 20mm canons and very maneuverable top speed about 550 MPH
waiting for the comments that tell us all the mistakes in the video.
"Dark Skies": The Gold Foil Standard for easily corrected goofs/strange history/outright errors for way too long.
I long ago joined the crowd in the belief the errors or at least most of them are on purpose. Certainly makes one pay closer attention to try and catch them all.
13:10 "The P80 Shooting Star influence on jet aviation cannot be understated" ???
I thought that was a rather startling flat-out statement, when you look at other jet aircraft innovation and design development. It was a successful design, within its limitations, but looking at the developments that came soon after, the importance of the P-80 seems to be overstated. When you consider that the Canadian Avro Arrow - a huge technological advance on many fronts - was flying only 14 years later, or that the Lockheed A-12 (later to re-emerge as the SR-71) came less than 17 years after the P-80, or any of many jet aircraft that were produced in large numbers, it adds a bit of perspective.
@@flyingbeaver57 The biggest influence of P-80 was that it was the first jet aircraft designed by Kelly Johnson. The management methods he used for producing the P-80 were finely honed by the time he was chief designer of the A-12 and the SR-71. Performance-wise it was not quite as significant.
I wish people would stop using phrases like "cannot be under/over-stated". Too many use them wrongly.
My brother, who was born in 1934, was an avid reader of the World War II juvenile book series. He had an almost full collection of Yankee Flyer, Dave Dawson, and Red Randall books. Anyway one of the Yankee Flyer books had the boys flying jets in Italy. Info of P-80s overseas was always hard to come by. This is actually the best I've come across although I've seen brief comments about P-80s. Leave it to the Yankee Flyers gang to have it right.
Another greT one. Thank you
New Allied weapons of all types were coming to fruition in 1945. Even if the war had continued these new weapons were far advanced than the German or Japanese weapons. From jets to tanks the allies would have better weapons from 1945 onwards.
Many of our immediate postwar weapon systems took advantage of the German technologies.
This is of course a self deception. The Allies had better weapons after 1945 for the main reason that they copied revolutionary German designs after their surrender.
A new week, a new video, a new collection of mistakes...
A shooting star, how right you are ! 🤪🤪🤪
Fast and loose with facts
Would of been interesting if the shooting star managed combat against the Me 262 we will never know what the outcome would of been good interesting video thank you 👏🤝✊
@8:48 integrated ground crew. World War 2 or the Korean Conflict?
According to this video, no jet aircraft were deployed to the Pacific during WWII. Is this true? And why not, if the US jets already saw
action in Europe?
Not sure it changed the course of the war as you put it.
It played a "pivotal" role---BULL
its like a Pre-Skunk works era of Lockheed
Anyone else notice that the ME 163 became the HE 163?
Whittle's engine was nothing like all the jet engines used since World War II. The German design is what has been used ever since.
Breathless delivery of fiction masquerading as fact - the 163 was a Messerschmitt NOT a Heinkel; the Gloster E.28/39 was a BRITISH design from 1939 [design 28 of 1939 hence 28/39] NOT an allied design; the XP80 did not break new ground in having a fuelage mounted engine - the Gloster E28/39 and the de Havilland Vampire [first flight 20 September 1943] both had fuselage mounted engines; the design and development timetable of the P80 was lethargic compared to that of the "high tech" Volksjaeger...
Ironic. Years of research. The British and Germans get there for a jet plane. USA puts a circus tent up thinks they can duplicate years of research in a circus tent 🎪 😂
You " forgot " about henri Leduc work on stratoreacteurs....
God bless those 'mericans; they have invented absolutely everything haven't they?
@@anglo-saxonenglish3565Exactly
The comet had less than 60 seconds of actual fuel and it was a rocket not a jet it in 60 seconds however could reach 34,000 feet altitude and has 50 35mm cannon rounds in one cannon and 40 25mm rounds split between 2 x 25mm cannons it would scramble dropping its under carriage rocket to ceiling dive through straffing 1,2 or 3 bombers, cut out and clumb again to an elevation above the target while holding 80% of ita speed and dive through again one or 2more times until guns were empty then on its final pass would unleash the 6 20mm dumbfire rockets in a salvo or 2 into the formation and go land on a skid empty it was during approach and landing that the escort fighters could exact revenge
That is if the plane did not blow up when being refueled . A youtube video I watched claimed that the two fuel components could ignite each other when refuelling and that caused more deaths than the rocket plane caused to their enemies ! Crazy machine and even crazier pilots and crew , large gonads or what !
@@davidyendoll5903 yeah they fuel one set of tanks. Then they get the fire hoses then let it dry watch for leaks and If it looks good fill the other set. Liquid rocket fuel unlike jet fuel (kerosene) is very volatile and self igniting.
I believe one liquid was denatured alcohol and the other one is hydrogen peroxide (much higher concentration then at Walgreens)
Bong forgot to turn on fuel pump. John Denver did same thing.
"its importance cannot be OVERstated". For Pete's sake, why don't Americans understand that UNDERstated is wrong in this and so many other contexts? However if they were to say " SHOULD not be understated", that would make a lot more sense.
As long as the U.S. has walked on the moon, history must be viewed very critically.
I recall hearing the claim, many years ago that, unbelievably, the first jet fighter was from Italy.
Johnson was a unique American genius.
Pivotal role my fucking ass.
In the days after 911 T-33's flying out of CFB Greenwood, N.S. were the only planes in the air. Probably the last serious operational flights of this aircraft. Long gone now.
I would love to see why the British government gave Frank Whittles jet and other classified radio designs etc to the Americans during WW11 ?. Exchange for Destroyers for example or their vast manufacturing capability , to provide the RAF with more aircraft. Perhaps we'll never know !!. Subscribers should be given a pat on the back for their contribution to. Thank you all. Dave
Simply trading invaluable technology for manufacturing capacity
i think one of the coolest looking jet planes germany had was the Arado 234 bomber
or something like that ....
1:00 -- 'Heinkel 163 Komet'?
1 :20 correct, it was in Rostock(:-)
Interesting video, but the Me 163 Komet, was not a jet fighter, as it was rocket-powered.
I never knew that the American’s had a jet in WWII! I knew the British and obviously the Germans did
The Americans had two. The P-59A and P-80.
The Japanese had three but got nuked before they got operational.
First again we love your channel, sir
Is that what you're here for? You should look again, seek attention elsewhere.
All P-80 engines were "nestled" internally.... Who writes these scripts..?? My father loved flying the T-33 in advanced pilot training... right after transitioning to tricycle gear in the T-28...
What would 50 sci-fi movies be without some P 80s ?
Messerschmitt designed and built the 163, not Heinkel
How do the wing tip fuel tanks attach to the wings?
Superglue, what'd you think.
One big problem is we tried to make it work with one engine, the Germans did make it work very well with two.
It's too early.
00:56 - Heinkel He 163 Komet (sic!). O tempora, o mores...