I certainly don’t believe any of the dubious claims that a Me262 exceeded Mach 1, and the Me163 was uncontrollable at Mach 0.84.

Quite right the Me262 could not have exceeded Mach 1 for the same reason as the XF-92 and the F-102 prototypes couldn’t – area rule.

So even if the Me262’s rather poor engines were replaced with better ones it still couldn’t have done it.

The Ta-183 (not built) and the Me-1101 (built but not flown IIRC) were true swept wing designs but I suspect even those would, at best, only got over Mach 1 in a dive like the early F86. And even then would have neeeded much better engines than were on offer.

I assume this has been done before but a quick search didn’t turn up any hits so…

The British sale of jet engines to the Soviet Union after WW2 is described by many books and sites as a massive bonus for the Soviet Union – was it as significant as the books and websites suggest?

Well it certainly gave them a reliable engine to work with (the Nene). This powered the Mig 15, under a different name, and offered much greater reliability than the Soviet engines under development, which powered the first generation of Russian jets (Mig 9 etc.) and which appear to have followed the captured German technology. Bear in mind that the first US engines were simply developments of the technology that created the Nene, and that the F86 was powered by a similar style engine.

The German technology, while interesting and pointing to the future, relied on axial flow, unlike the centrifugal flow in the early British engines, and the component development was simply not advanced enough at that time to allow axial flow engines to operate reliably. Later of course they did, but this was only after metallurgical advances allowed the creation of better alloys for the blades. The Me-262 was noteworthy for its unreliable engines.

I believe that is the very rare and obscure Dassault Flamant Hec. One of the first French airliners to offer a full restaurant service on all flights.

Unfortunately the weight of the galley equipment kept it permanently grounded.

I rather found this story on that site quite amusing

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/7095134.stm

😀

If your knees bent the other way what shape would aircraft seats be?

Well, after the end of WW1, the US & UK paid Krupps back royalties on several shell fuze patents, and the US paid Mauser back royalties for the bolt design on the Springfield M1903.

Actually the US continued to pay royalties to Mauser throughout the war. The money went through a Swiss bank.

Our MMP Hurricane book mentioned says:

“Hurricane with a rear gunner
One Hurricane (Canadian-built Mk XI BW948) supplied to USSR was fitted in 1942 with an open rear gunner’s position with a flexibly mounted ShKAS machine gun just behind the pilot’s cockpit. The sliding canopy was removed.”

Cheers,

Of course it could be reverse evolution asserting itself with a Hurricane metamorphosing back into a Hart 😀 Attach the Hills slipwing and voila.

But seriously I wonder what it’s performance was?