Easier to build ME 262 or HO 229?

Using the same engines wouldn't it have been more cost effective to build the HO229? It seem to me that the wood construction would have been easier and faster than the metal of the Me 262.

It certainly had better parameters as far as range and altitude.

 

What's a HO229?

 

You mean the Horten? or Gotha as its sometimes known...If so...huh? The 229 was really a bomber (sort of)...and a poor fighter in comparison to the 262...262 airframe was ready long before the 229 was...The wing was still in its developmental stage but like everything, ticked for approval and production...A wooden design would have limited its structural ability and reduced its performance...or what it could do...safely... : )

 

Hairog - the Me262 was, under the surface, a very "traditional" airframe...and very easy to produce, there was nothing out of the ordinary about the materials used to build the actual aircraft; SO much so that the Germans were able to distribute building/assembly work to the many "forest factories" building them in disguised factories with the minimum of facilities across Germany....AND producing airframes in far greater quantity than there were ever engines for them! On several occasions the USAAF destroyed dozens parked up awaiting delivery at these sites, and at the end of the war took possession of literally hundreds more parked up rusting and engineless.

On the contrary - the Ho229 did IIRC suffer from the same delamination issues as plagued the control surfaces of the He162! And I think a failure of control surfaces would be far more critical on a flying wing than on a conventional airframe...! Also, the Jumo 004s' many and various faults did for at least one Ho229, the V2 aircraft that crashed terminally injuring test pilot Erwin Ziller after a failure of one of the Jumos...something that was, after all, all TOO common in them!

Plus, like it or not - there's no way to get round that fact that the 262 was flying and fighting in 1944...whereas - the better aircraft or not - Gotha was only assembling the third prototype Ho229, the V3 aircraft, when the war actually ended!

 

Some samples:
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More pics
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Oi! Rabid Alien!...Thats my avitar! : )

 

Hehehe...just one of many! I had a 229 as a wallpaper on the pc at work, but it was pointed out that, while the image looked great (it was a digital image, not an actual photo, of a 229 flying), the nice little swastika painted on the wing showed up really well on the 27" LCD screen. So I took it down. I despise the Nazi party for all that it did and stood for, but the German engineers really turned out some great products, I gotta admit. The 229 and the 262 are two of my favorite planes ever (the P-38, P-61, B-24, and Vampire cover the Allied side).

 

The majority of the Luftwaffe were "a little put out" at having the Swastika painted on their craft...in the end it was agreed to be affixed to the tail...small...Quite a bit of to-ing and fro-ing over that from memory...

 

Erwin Ziller flew the Ho229 about a dozen times and it was reported flew a simulated dog fight with a Me 262 and reported it was faster and more maneuverable and basically kick the Me 262 butt.

How serious was the delamination? Once discovered how hard would it have been to use say a metal part for those particular parts?

How much harder would it be to fly this plane on one engine than the Me 262? Would both crash if on one engine?

 

Not to cast apsirtions Hairog...but i doubt that...it simply doesnt HAVE the control surfaces to give it that sort of manouverability...same reason why we dont have a flying wing fighter today...Im sure the tall story was from your source not you...

 

It seems clear that since it took 30 years of tech innovations to produce a practicle flying wing (F-117), that the HO 229 was little more than an interesting curiosity, rather than a viable combat aircraft.

 

Hmm...stealthy yes...but the F-117 a flying wing? Close i spose...i agree with your point though %100.

 

An airframe designed to be flown on a pair of engines can not easily be modified to fly on just one engine, the design of the airframe is based on particular stress points which will change if the number of engines and therefore their mounting positions change.

The third test flight for the Ho229 was 12th Feb 1945 (first flight 2nd Feb) in which Erwin Ziller crashed receiving injuries which he subsequently died from so the claim that the aircraft outperformed the ME262 would have been in one of the first two test flights which also showed up lateral instability.

Due to problems with engines and lack of certain materials aircraft like the HE162 were developed using mainly wood and with a single engine.

 

The Meteor actually suffered from the same catastrophic handling as the Me262 when one engine went out - the problem was the engines' position; years later the same thing would affect the Canberra

Technically - with it's two engines mounted close to each other in the "fuselage", the failure of one on the 229 should reduce the tendancy to "crab"....but in the case of the 229 it had no vertical control surfaces to allow it to be re-trimmed! Hence, single engine failure would be in reality more catastrophic...!

 

This is a test. For some reason my last two posts have disappeared.

 

Well I guess that one worked.

Does anyone have the book...Horten Ho 229 Spirit of Thuringia: The Horten All-Wing Jet Fighter?

I believe that's where I read about the dogfight with the 262 and the dozen flights.

It's only $600 in Amazon. I almost swallowed my tongue.

 

The first prototype Ho229 flew several flights before the Ho229 V2 flew its first flight with Ziller, the Ho229 V2 was the first one to fly under power though as the Ho229 V1 was an un-powered glider. Therefore the Ho229 may have technically flown a dozen flights before Ziller crashed the second prototype.

Seems unlikely to try dogfighting with a ME262 on the first couple of test flights though with a valuable prototype aircraft especially as it has some stability issues.

 

....and of course - flying as a glider would hardly show up any single-engine-out stability issues!

For those interested, James Hamilton-Paterson's excellent Empire Of The Clouds is an invaluable study of both early British jet aircraft postwar and the British aero industry that built them....but also the problems of jet development in the 1940s and 1950s generally. And he makes the point on several occasions that the jets of the 1940s were beyond the cutting edge of technology at times - accidents were happening and people dying because the jet's development was only in the process of discovering the right solutions to a whole range of problems in jet and transonic flight. There was of course no computer modelling - and scale testing turned out to be problematic on occasion; real, deadly difficulties and problems with particular aircraft didn't show up UNTIL they were actually flown for real with a live but soon to be deceased human at the controls.

 

With most prototypes you had no one to teach you the characteristics so you had to find out the limits yourself, little by little testing every aspect of the aircraft and design, its handling and characteristics.

I have read this book many times in which Don Robertson (RN Pilot and test pilot in WW2 who had a spell with Supermarine as a test pilot) describes what it was like to be a test pilot and the various aircraft and types of tests they had to do.

Those Magnificent Flying Machines: A Pilot's Autobiography: Amazon.co.uk: Don Robertson: Books