YM fails its history GCSE

Malish

Malish

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Page 14 of the current edition

"... trying to track down the crew men on a lightship attacked by Luftwaffe fighter jets in 1940......"

JETS in 1940! they would have give Spitfire pilots a brown trouser moment.

Must be a young correspondent with no historical knowledge I thought ... in the mag Dick Durham is identified as the point of contact......

Oh for a little accuracy..

ahh, thats better /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
Very late in the war, a Heinkel jet fighter finally took to the air as the Heinkel He 162, but it had barely entered service at the time of Germany's surrender.

avhe162_1.jpg
 
Spelling & grammar also a bit dodge. Headline on page 66: "The acquatic (sic) sea creature...." Aren't most sea creatures? Aquatic, that is?
 
I'm sure thats the one ,the undercarriage falls away on take off,lands on a skid along the length of the fuselage




and then blows up /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
[ QUOTE ]
no a single engine jobbie launched from a "fall-away" undercarrage then straight up through Bomber Formations then land ( if the pilot was lucky )

[/ QUOTE ]

Isn't that the one powered by hydrogen peroxide that would disolve the pilot if it leaked?
 
I don't think they could find enough bits of pilot to find out /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif
 
[ QUOTE ]
ME 162

[/ QUOTE ]

ME 163

Actually the Luftwaffe had quite a number of jet aircraft.

The Me 262 was the first to go into service. Twin-engined, it was first seen in service early in 1944. Hitler was said to have insisted on its being made as a bomber, but its main actual use was in attacking the large formations of bombers in the American daylight raids.

The Heinkel He 162 was a single-engined interceptor with the engine mounted above the fuselage. It was intended to be very quickly designed and built; design started in September 1944 and the first flight was on 6 December 1944. Heinkel were given a contract for 1000, but only about 100 had gone into service before the German surrender in May 1945.

The Arado Ar234 was a reconnaisance bomber, the B variant with 2 jet engines and the C with 4. 210 Ar234s went into service.

The Junkers Ju287 flew before the surrender, but never went into service. It was the first jet-propelled heavy bomber to be developed anywhere. The production version was to be twin-engined, but the two prototypes were four-engined. Could carry a 4 tonne bomb load at more than 500 mph.

In addition to the jets, the Luftwaffe had two rocket types. The Messerschmitt Me163 was a small tailess aircraft with a top speed of 550 mph, burning hydrogen peroxide and a hydrazine hydrate / ethanol mix. Its rate of climb was such that it could reach 30000 ft in 2.6 minutes, allowing bomber formations to be sighted from the ground before it was launched.

In some ways the most interesting of all was the Bachem Ba 349 Natter (Viper). A single-engined interceptor with a wing span of only 13 ft, it was launched using an 80ft long ramp, horizontal when loaded (complete with pilot) but then lifted almost to the vertical for take-off. The initial rate of climb was 37000 ft/minute. The armament was a battery of air-air rockets in the nose, covered by a jettisonable nose fairing. During the climb the aircraft was said to be radio-controlled from the ground; after the manually controlled attack the pilot ejected from the aircraft and parachuted to the ground.
 
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