Comments by "Keit Hammleter" (@keithammleter3824) on "MOST DEADLY: WW2 Fighter Jet - Me 262 - Forgotten History" video.

update; Youtuber WWII US Bombers this morning released a new video on the Me262, and as is usual for him, it's based on actual wartime data. It shows conclusively that the Me262 was not a war winner, not even close. Pilots in gun-equipped Me262's had to show down to bomber speeds to have much chance of hitting them, and that made them vulnerable to bomber defensive fire. Me262's equipped with the latest air-to-air rockets had about a three-times better kill rate, but it was still too low to win the war even if available much earlier. I said earlier that if the Me262 had been introduced earlier, it would have decimated USAAF bombers. I was wrong. It would have considerably increased the rate at which bombers were shot down, but it could not decimate them. To get a reasonable chance of hitting a USAAF bomber, Me-262 pilots had to slow down to near bomber speeds, and that made them vulnerable to bomber defensive fire.
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@les3449 : Yes, I understood that. Memories fade and get distorted over time though. Quite possible, too, the first time a gunner, experienced in shooting at BF-109's, saw an Me-262 coming at him, he could get thrown by the speed. and it probably took a bit of experience for Me262 pilots to learn they had to show down to hit a target.
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You probably meant "collaborate", not "calibrate". But, in actually, "calibrate", which means to improve accuracy, is appropriate. both Felton and Forgotten History are sloppy with their facts. In this video, FH begins by saying politics and rivalries killed Whittle's opportunity to win accolades. That Whittle engine was rejected by ignorant government officials is well known bit of fake news. The reality is that Whittle's engine was rejected because it was no good, due to woeful fuel consumption. It took Rolls Royce to devise the design changes than made a British jet engine practical. Politics didn't kill Whittle's opportunities, his rotten engine did. FH is wrong in saying the first German jet was an improved Whittle engine. Obain may have been triggered to work on a jet engine by Whittle, but his engine was a completely different design.
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@FORGOTTENHISTORYCHANNEL ; you have made a basic mistake often made by amateur historians - you didn't go back to original sources and you did not take the trouble to understand the technology, or get advice from someone who does. The trouble with Whittle's design was that combustion temperature has to be kept low otherwise the chambers would soften/melt. This meant the compression ratio had to be kept very low and this in turn meant very excessive fuel consumption. That is why the authorities rejected it - it was not worth putting research into because it was known in advance from basic thermodynamic theory that the engine could never be any good. Later, Rolls Royce invented the air-spaced double wall combustion chamber, thus splitting what needed to take high temperature and what needed to have the strength to cope with the reaction pressure. That allowed an increased compression ratio and fuel consumption that was not a total disaster. Not until bypassed turbofans were devised did fuel consumption come close to competing with piston engines. Ohain's first engine (known as the "garage engine"), which was radially compressed like Whittle's, was purely a trial/demonstration, and never intended to be the basis of a ususable engine. It was hydrogen powered to simplify things, and a cursory look at the cross-section drawings of both engines will show that they are completely different. Because Ohain said he was aware of the Whittle patent, people have been saying he copied Whittle, but it's just not true.
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Never the less, USAAF combat records show that an Me-262 had a 1 in 9 chance of being shot down. If the Me-262 had been deployed earlier in sufficient numbers, it would have decimated the USAAF bomber force. But to win an all-out war, you have to take the fight to the enemy land - that was something the Me-262 could not do. It did not have the range. It could be destroyed by the American Navy's radar controlled VT-fuzed anti-aircraft gun, as was the V-1.
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