AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 87 / 163

Plate 87 of 163 · Second World War · Jet fighter and fighter-bomber

Messerschmitt Me 262 A-2a

Me 262 A-2a, painted as Werknummer 112372, the RAF Museum’s Messerschmitt Me 262 A-2a, assembled at Leipheim and delivered to JG 7 in March 1945, flown to Fassberg and surrendered to the British on 8 May 1945, evaluated at Farnborough as VK893, later instructional airframe 8482M, shown at Cosford, St Athan and Hendon and back at Cosford since 2017 (the museum notes some doubt over its exact wartime identity): the first operational jet fighter, a single-seat fighter-bomber of 41 ft span with two Junkers Jumo 004 axial-flow turbojets slung under a swept wing, a rounded-triangle fuselage, gun ports for 30 mm MK 108 cannon in the nose and a tricycle undercarriage, shown standing on its wheels with the hood and gun-bay covers closed and no bomb pylons fitted: the ‘yellow 4’ scheme applied in 2003, olive green upper surfaces and fuselage sides over light blue-grey undersides, the nacelles grey below a soft wavy edge with green tongues, a blue and red JG 7 band on the rear fuselage, white outline crosses on the fuselage and upper wings with a yellow ‘4’ ahead of the fuselage cross, a red ‘2’ in a shield ahead of the windscreen, a yellow fuel triangle on the port side and a black swastika edged white and ‘112372’ on the fin; the shield’s colours and the marking sizes are taken from photographs and are approximate.

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as Werknummer 112372, the RAF Museum’s Messerschmitt Me 262 A-2a, assembled at Leipheim and delivered to JG 7 in March 1945, flown to Fassberg and surrendered to the British on 8 May 1945, evaluated at Farnborough as VK893, later instructional airframe 8482M, shown at Cosford, St Athan and Hendon and back at Cosford since 2017 (the museum notes some doubt over its exact wartime identity): the first operational jet fighter, a single-seat fighter-bomber of 41 ft span with two Junkers Jumo 004 axial-flow turbojets slung under a swept wing, a rounded-triangle fuselage, gun ports for 30 mm MK 108 cannon in the nose and a tricycle undercarriage, shown standing on its wheels with the hood and gun-bay covers closed and no bomb pylons fitted: the ‘yellow 4’ scheme applied in 2003, olive green upper surfaces and fuselage sides over light blue-grey undersides, the nacelles grey below a soft wavy edge with green tongues, a blue and red JG 7 band on the rear fuselage, white outline crosses on the fuselage and upper wings with a yellow ‘4’ ahead of the fuselage cross, a red ‘2’ in a shield ahead of the windscreen, a yellow fuel triangle on the port side and a black swastika edged white and ‘112372’ on the fin; the shield’s colours and the marking sizes are taken from photographs and are approximate. Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (1.3 MB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (A-2a); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Me 262 A-2a modelled here.

History

The Me 262

Messerschmitt began work on a twin-jet fighter in 1938, when the German Air Ministry asked for an airframe to use the new turbojets being developed by BMW and Junkers. The design, Projekt 1065, put an engine under each wing of a slim fuselage with a rounded triangular section, and the outer wings were swept back, at first mainly to correct the balance as the engines grew heavier. The jets were far behind the airframe, so the first prototype flew on 18 April 1941 with a piston engine in the nose. Its BMW engines failed on their first try in March 1942, and the Me 262 first flew on jet power alone on 18 July 1942, when Fritz Wendel took off from Leipheim in the third prototype with two Junkers Jumo 004s.

The Jumo 004 was the first axial-flow jet engine put into quantity production, but it was built from materials short of nickel and chromium, and it might run for only ten to twenty-five hours before it needed replacing. The fighter was ready for production long before its engines were, and in late 1943 Hitler, who wanted a fast bomber to strike back at the invasion beaches, ordered that it carry bombs. That led to the A-2a Sturmvogel, a fighter-bomber with racks under the nose for two 250 kg bombs and often only two of the four 30 mm MK 108 cannon. Erprobungskommando 262 took the first aircraft into action in July 1944, Kommando Nowotny flew them as fighters that autumn, and KG 51 used the A-2a against Allied troops.

At about 540 mph the Me 262 was more than 100 mph faster than the Allied piston-engined fighters, and with R4M rockets and its four cannon it could break up a formation of bombers. But Allied fighters caught it as it took off and landed, the bombing campaign wrecked its factories and fuel supplies, and there were never enough trained pilots. Jagdgeschwader 7, formed in late 1944, was the only full jet fighter wing. About 1,430 were built, but probably never more than about 200 were in service at once, and the Allies took the survivors home in 1945 to study the first jet fighter to go to war.

This airframe

Me 262 A-2a Werknummer 112372

Werknummer 112372The airframe modelled

Werknummer 112372 was assembled at Leipheim in March 1945 and delivered to Jagdgeschwader 7. On 8 May 1945 it was flown to Fassberg and surrendered to the British, and it was given the RAF serial VK893 and evaluated at Farnborough and Brize Norton. It later became the instructional airframe 8482M and joined the RAF Museum, which has shown it at Cosford, at St Athan, where it was stripped and repainted in 1987, and at Hendon, before it came back to Cosford in 2017. The museum notes some doubt over its exact wartime identity. The model shows it in the scheme applied in 2003, as photographed at Cosford: olive green upper surfaces and fuselage sides over light blue-grey undersides, the engine nacelles grey below a wavy edge, a blue and red JG 7 band round the rear fuselage, white outline crosses on the fuselage and upper wings, a yellow “4” ahead of the fuselage cross, a red “2” in a shield ahead of the windscreen, and a black swastika edged white and “112372” on the fin. It is shown with the hood, gun-bay covers and engine cowlings closed and no bomb racks fitted, as most photographs show it. The shield’s colours and the sizes of the markings are taken from photographs and are approximate.

See it at Royal Air Force Museum Midlands

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Me 262 in one UK collection. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 163 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.