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orld War
II saw the introduction of jet aircraft. One of the most prominent jets of the
conflict was the "Messerschmitt Me-262", a twin-jet fighter of
advanced design. The Me-262 was recognized after the war as generally superior
to anything the Allies had, and helped point the way to postwar aircraft
development. This document provides a history of the Me-262.
The
Messerschmitt Me-262 was an outgrowth of German turbojet-engine development
work that had begun in the mid-1930s, with the initial concepts conceived by an
engineer named Hans-Joachim Pabst von Ohain, whose efforts paralleled
those of Frank Whittle of Britain. In 1933,
while von Ohain was working on his doctorate at the University of Goettingen,
he began investigate the gas turbine as a basis for an advanced aircraft
engine. Although most of the feedback he received suggested that gas turbines
would be too heavy for such a role, he pressed on anyway, developing a
demonstrator model of a "turbojet" engine in his garage, with the
help of a mechanic named Max Hahn.
