Messerschmitt Me 262 Facts for Kids

Quick facts for kids Me 262 Schwalbe

Messerschmitt Me 262 A-1a late production model
Role	Fighter aircraft and fighter-bomber
Manufacturer	Messerschmitt
First flight	18 April 1941 with piston engine (Junkers Jumo 210) 18 July 1942 with jet engines
Introduction	April 1944
Retired	1945, Germany 1951, Czechoslovakia
Primary users	Luftwaffe Czechoslovak Air Force (S-92)
Number built	1,430

The Me 262 was a German fighter aircraft flown during late World War II. It was the first jet to be used in war. It began test flights in 1942, but was not used in combat by the German air force, the Luftwaffe, until 1944. Very few were built because Germany's enemies were bombing factories. It saw little action because the war was nearly over. The jet engines of the new machine often caused problems, that's why a lot of machines had deathly accidents.

Jet aircraft

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Hans Guido Mutke's Me 262 A-1a/R7 on display at the Deutsches Museum
Silhouette of the V3 prototype – V1 through V4 similar. Note retracting conventional tail wheel gear
Me 262 cockpit
Me 262 A in 1945
Me 262 A-1a on display at RAF Cosford. Some A-1a aircraft (including this example), like the A-2a bomber variant, attached additional hardpoints for extra weapons near the ejector chutes of the cannons, such as a bomb rack under each side of the nose.
Me 262B-1a/U1 night fighter, Wrknr. 110306, with FuG 218 Neptun antennae in the nose and second seat for a radar operator. This airframe was surrendered to the RAF at Schleswig in May 1945 and taken to the UK for testing.
This 15th Air Force Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress of the 815th Bombardment Squadron was lost on the mission to Ruhland, Germany on 22 March 1945. Damaged by flak, it was finished off by an Me 262. Eight of the crew survived as POWs.
Mock-up of an Me 262A-1a/R7 with R4M underwing rocket racks on display at the Technikmuseum Speyer, Germany
This airframe, Wrknr. 111711, was the first Me 262 to come into Allied hands when its German test pilot defected on 31 March 1945. The aircraft was then shipped to the United States for testing.
Scale model of one of the Me 262 HG III versions at the Technikmuseum Speyer
Underground manufacture of Me 262s
Reproduction of a Messerschmitt Me 262 (A-1c) at the Berlin Air Show 2006
Avia S-92, Kbely Museum, Prague, 2012
Me 262 (A-1c) replica of (A1-a), Berlin Air Show, 2006
Collings Foundation's replica Me 262 B-1a, Marana, Arizona., 2013
Me-262 variants
Me 262A-2a (Black X), Australia, 2012
Me 262B-1a/U1 (Red 8), South Africa, 2008
Me 262 B-1a (White 35), at Willow Grove, Pa., in 2007; relocated to and on display in Pensacola, Florida
Me 262A and its Junkers Jumo 004 turbojet engine (Yellow 5), NMUSAF-Dayton, 2007

Messerschmitt Me 262 facts for kids

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