What would have been the outcome of the war in Europe if in 1940 the potential of Messerschmitt's Project 1065 had been appreciated by high authority? If a crash programme had been originated to put this turbojet-powered aircraft into service at a much earlier date, would the Luftwaffe have regained the initiative of the first two years of World War II?
Unfortunately the answers are not clear cut and there is no space here to discuss the pros and cons. It must suffice that the Me 262 (as the P.1065 became designated) was the world's first turbojet-powered aircraft to enter operational service - at Juvincourt, France on 10 July 1944. By then, however, the end of hostilities in Europe was only ten months away: the lack of a real plan for the deployment of these aircraft and the
inadequacy of tactics to gain full benefit of their' speed advantage could not be rectified in so short a time - especially under the chaotic conditions existing in Germany and with dwindling supplies of fuel .
Messerschmitt's P.1065 design had originated as early as 1938 when the Reichsluftfahrtministerium had requested the company to design a twin-engined fighter able to utilise the new turbojet engines being developed in Germany. After inspection of the mock-up, three prototypes were ordered on 1 June 1940. But because the engines to power the Me 262 had not been developed sufficiently, the first prototype flew initially with piston engines. It was not until 18 July 1942 that the first flight with all-turbojet power was recorded. (The Heinkel 280, which did not enter production, had flown before the Me 262, on 2 April 1941, so becoming the world's first twin-engined jet.)
Of conventional all-metal stressed-skin construction, the wing had moderate sweepback, long-span ailerons, trailing-edge flaps, and full-span automatic leading-edge slots. The engines were mounted beneath the wing to preclude a complex wing-spar structure and the landing gear was of retractable tailwheel type. The fifth prototype introduced a non-retractable nosewheel unit and the sixth was the first to have a fully retractable tricycle-type landing gear.
First major version was the Me 262A-1a Schwalbe (Swallow) interceptor, armed with four 30mm MK 108 cannon mounted in the nose. It was powered by two 8.825kN Junkers Jumo 109-004B-1 eight-stage axial-flow turbo-jets. A number of variants were built with differing armament. The other major version was the Me 262A-2a Sturmvogel (Stormbird) bomber. This was produced at the insistence of Adolf Hitler - a decision which caused considerable overall production delays. It carried, in addition to the standard MK 108 armament, one 1,000kg, two 500kg or two 250kg bombs. As with the Schwalbe, there were a number of variants, mainly for armed or unarmed reconnaissance.
