Macky Steinhoff talks about the P-38

[funked]

I think Steinhoff was just trying to save face.

[Widewing]

 

Originally posted by GRUNHERZ:
This prolly wont go too well with some here, but I read a story of an Me262 pilot who experienced the same instrument anomyly as Welch did in the XP-86 in a very steep dive sometime in early 1945. Maybe he did it too??

No, he didn't get anywhere near Mach 1. Understand that the Me 262 could not exceed Mach .85 and still retain its wings or tail.
Even the Me 163 Komet was not capable of speeds any higher than this. Both aircraft suffered from rudder flutter and bending-torsion wing flutter can be added to the 262's list of reasons why you don't want to push it into a terminal velocity dive. Both could, and would eventually lead to airframe failure. Even though both the 163 and 262 appear to employ swept wings, these were not designed, nor were efficient at delaying compressibility. Messerschmitt used wing sweep to correct the Cg. I don't believe that
either employed laminar flow airfoils either.

My regards,

Widewing

[Widewing]

 

Originally posted by funked:
I think Steinhoff was just trying to save face.

Naw, he had already lost his face in a burning Me 262.

My regards,

Widewing

[funked]

I was aware of that.  

[chisel]

 http://www.unsere-luftwaffe.de/mach1/mach1.htm

Never say never

[Jigster]

 

Originally posted by chisel:
http://www.unsere-luftwaffe.de/mach1/mach1.htm

Never say never

That page is so full of holes toward the end it's not even funny.

The entire X-1 project was taken over by the military because of Goodlin. He was averaging over 100,000$ per flight in hazard pay from Bell under military supervision, and was trying to renegotiate with Bell and the Military for even more money before exceding the .94 Mach point in powered flight. The Military grew impatient, and handed the project over to Boyd, who chose Yeager, Ridely, and Hoover to continue the project. All were on basic military pay at that.


What I find extrememly interesting is there were no witnesses to sonic booms on any of the flights before Yeager's ... even 30 miles away at 55,000ft everyone at Mojave heard the boom (even if they had no clue what it was at the time) from Yeager's flight, yet there are no instances of this during Welch's or the Me-262 pilot's accounts of supersonic flight.

I believe the Mutke's flight in the 262 was simple entering buffet from the intial forming of shockwave, followed by loss of control, only to reach denser air again where the controls unlocked, as would be expected in a dive.

 
------------------
   

[Widewing]

 

What I find extrememly interesting is there were no witnesses to sonic booms on any of the flights before Yeager's ... even 30 miles away at 55,000ft everyone at Mojave heard the boom (even if they had no clue what it was at the time) from Yeager's flight, yet there are no instances of this during Welch's or the Me-262 pilot's accounts of supersonic flight.

For the record, there were many witnesses to the sonic booms laid down by Welch, hundreds in fact. These included an Army Major General, who informed Stuart Symington of Welch's forays beyond Mach 1. Efforts were made to attribute these booms to V-2 testing at White Sands, mining in the surrounding mountains and even none-existant thunderstorms. 45 years later, Walt Williams of NACA, (who timed Yeager's run) admitted that they had heard several double booms in the weeks before Yeager set his record. More importantly, Williams recalled that a far more powerful boom than Yeager's was heard and felt just minutes before The XS-1 was released from its mothership on the 14th of October. He associated these booms with the XP-86, which just happened to be flying when the booms were heard. He cites this as a primary reason for NACA deciding to instrument the XP-86 less than a month later. On November 13, the XP-86 was officially recorded during two dives at Mach 1.02 and 1.04.

My conversations with Flight Engineers at NASA's Dryden Research Center confirmed that Welch's in-house test report (written for the North American XP-86 Engineering team), dated 1 October 1947, is the first recorded instance of a pilot witnessing 'Mach jump'.  According to Al Bowers (at Dryden), is "irrefutable proof that Welch took the XP-86 beyond Mach One".

My regards,

Widewing

[Pongo]

Oh..
A boom heard in 1945 in Germany lead to large scale concern and a government investigation. Which led to the acknoledgment of the 262 going supersonic in a dive....
think about it.

[Jigster]

I'm just another air force conspiriter trying to see to that the only reason Yeager was given credit was to give the newly formed Air force branch a reason to exiest. That's also why the Navy's attempts are all but gone from the record books.

 

[Westy]

<punt> for Naudet

[Tac]

Widewing, BadBoy, anyone... where can I get a description of the clover lead manouver? How to do it, etc?

[Jack55]

I try the cloverleaf turn, but end up doing snap rolls.  What am I doing wrong?

[Westy]

 Would love to help but I have only a vague idea what a clover leaf is. And I'm probably wrong. I've asked before but cannot remember ever receiving an explicit or definate answer from anyone.

 -Westy

[LJK Raubvogel]

We've been through this Galland and Lowell thing before. All evidence points to it not being Galland in the cockpit, and it was certainly not a 190D-9.

 http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/Forum9/HTML/001196.html

[juzz]

 

Steinhoff has also written:

"....the Lightnings loomed up terrifyingly fast in front of me...."

".... I tried to follow a Lightning's tight turn, but...."

".... If a Lightning turned into your attack, it was advisable to continue on
past...."

Keep in mind that those specific comments are in reference to fighting the P-38 in the Me 262, and not with a prop fighter.