“The Me 262 will have the usual poor performance of a jet at low speed. Thus, it can be attacked most easily by fighters now in service when it is cruising or climbing. In maneuvers, the Me 262 should be forced into tight turns or into a zoom, unless the altitude at which it is encountered is near its ceiling of the attacking aircraft.
“When conventionally-engined aircraft are avoiding the Me 262 they should not dive, since the Me 262’s acceleration in a dive will be larger than that of a conventional fighter, enabling it to escape the attack, or to press home an attack on its opponent. If jet-propelled aircraft are used against the Me 262 [something that never happened], diving tactics may of course be employed. In fact, both aircraft can carry the same maneuvers. British jet-propelled fighters now in service [Gloster Meteors] have a lower wing loading than the Me 262, and thus better turning qualities. They should be able to outmaneuver the Me 262.”{1}
Georg-Peter Eder explained what it was like to fly the jet from takeoff to landing, including tight maneuvers:
“The throttle response was slow, and if pushed forward too soon resulted in flameouts, so in combat we just set the throttles at full forward and only reduced power gradually as required, such as landing. To bleed off airspeed, we just raised the nose and left the throttles alone. We operated the throttle gently to prevent any quick changes to the engines. Later the automatic throttle regulator was installed on some aircraft, but it did not always solve the problem. The technology was just so new, and we were the guinea pigs, so that was the problem. The one and most important benefit was the great speed we could achieve, that was what made the Me 262 so incredible.
“However, if you go up you must come down. Takeoff was OK, as you had perfect visibility forward, unlike in the tail draggers. One thing that was critical was that once you took off, you had to trim the aircraft immediately upon reaching operational speed. Landing was OK, better than in the Me 109, and coming down ass first was a new feeling from landing front first, where upon reducing power the tail wheel made contact. This was just the opposite; we came down at a fifteen to twenty degree angle, and then reduced power to drop the nose.
“Now—and this was important—landing also placed a great stress on the nose gear. I cannot tell you how many times I witnessed jets coming in and striking the nose gear too hard. It was the one weak point, and it was very unforgiving. The visibility was perfection, with the canopy still opening and closing in the coffin lid method as we had on the Me 109, but the shape and form of the canopy was more along the lines of the Fw 190. We had three-hundred-sixty-degree vision pretty much and that alone will keep a pilot alive in battle.
“In combat, I would want to avoid a turning fight, the 262 just did not have it, and any enemy fighter could turn inside it. That was not so good. In attacking head to head, the four thirty-millimeter cannons meant you always won the fight. I once killed a Mustang in a similar head-on fight. I had just attacked a B-17, in thick clouds, and I emerged below the formation, never knowing if I killed the bomber, and when I pulled up level I had a Mustang coming right at me, about a thousand meters away. This gave me a split second to win or die. If I pulled up or dropped the nose, or banked away, I was dead. I just quickly placed the Revi on him and fired one short burst, perhaps eight cannon rounds, and he just disintegrated. I know, because I flew through the wreckage, and the left turbine ingested some debris and flamed out. I brought the jet back to Achmer and it flew again in a couple of days.”{2}
Hermann Buchner mentioned his experience in trying to land the Me 262 when things went wrong: “I learned that when landing you had to be below three hundred kilometers [per hour] before you lowered the flaps, and then less than two hundred [per hour] for the landing gear to land properly and safely. There was none of this using flaps at high speed to tighten your turn in a dogfight, unless you were well below this speed. I did this one time and the result was almost fatal. I lost the left engine once and managed to finally land, and I was not alone. Mustangs had been on a bomber escort mission, and I think they took a real interest in me, because I brought them home, so to speak.”{3}
Buchner also wrote about one of his landings where the weak nose gear lived up to its notorious reputation: “We were just about to set down and the snow shower had now reached the middle of the airfield. I slammed my 262 onto the landing strip doing two hundred sixty kilometers per hour and suddenly saw a wheel running in front of me. It had broken off the end of the axle during the hard landing and the wheel had now separated. The aircraft swerved to the left, but, with a great deal of effort and additional help from the left engine, I succeeded in keeping the machine going more or less in the right direction and steered past a fuel truck. After a few frightening seconds I brought my jet to a standstill. All went well, and the machine only needed a new undercarriage.”{4}
In Dorr and Jones’s book Hell Hawks, Eder’s comments are vindicated regarding Allied fighters being able to out-turn and score hits on the jets. Citing comments from Charles R. Johnson, regarding Capt. Valmore J. “Val” Beaudrault’s encounter with a jet:
“After the unidentified aircraft passed in front of him, the captain bore down on its tail, at which the [German] pilot made a sharp 360 degree turn. Beaudrault had no trouble turning inside of him with his P-47D28. During these maneuvers, Capt. Beaudrault still failed to identify the aircraft, so he held his fire. The plane then rolled out of the turn and applied full throttle and started to pull way away even though the P-47’s throttle was to the firewall.” Beaudrault took pictures of the jet, and finally identified the Me 262 for what it was. “Nearby, 1st Lt. William F. Peters engaged a second 262 but was soon left behind as the jet outdistanced him in a climb.”{5}
Erich Hohagen also gave his impression of taking off, flying and landing in the Me 262: “When you first powered up the left engine, and then the right, in that order, you could feel the aircraft start to vibrate, not like in a 109 where the entire aircraft would shake, but a slight vibration, soft, like something that would put a baby to sleep with the gentle motion. However, and this was important, you had to easily move those throttles forward, I am saying almost by creeping millimeters. This was a very challenging thing to do when taking off under an alarm, or when you knew that enemy fighters were only a few minutes away. One had the tendency of thinking about just jumping out of the aircraft rather than wait for it to power up, to get you rolling down the runway.
“In combat, the climbing maneuver was the chosen method of escape. This allowed you to gain the altitude advantage while leaving the enemy aircraft far below you, only you had to make sure that you were at least five hundred meters away, since the weapons on the American fighters could reach you, and they could arc their rounds into you unless you were out of range. This method also used up a lot of fuel, and our greatest problem was watching that fuel gauge, although we had a reserve tank, and you had to manually switch that thing, otherwise you would starve the Jumos. That would not have been good.
“When landing, reducing power was much easier, especially if you were aligned with the strip and correctly in the glide slope, and like with all aircraft, landing into the wind was the best way, but we did not always have that option. Even if you lost power, the wide landing gear and aerodynamic qualities of the 262 made landing a sheer pleasure, unless someone was behind you firing you up. That tended to become annoying, if you survived it. Most of us did not.”{6}