Re: Me-264 Amerikabomber Book
- From: Eunometic <eunometic@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2007 00:52:29 -0700
On Jun 10, 3:03 am, Rob Arndt <teuton...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
http://www.historicaviation.com/historicaviation/product_info.po?ID=1...
Rob
Interesting book. I'll be ordering it.
There was never that much interest from the German Aviation Ministry
for an "America Bomber" and the project was pushed along more by Willy
Messerschmitt (as a technical challenge and business opportunity) than
anyone else. In essence it was inadequately funded and resourced
because it was not a political priority and because the limited
attacks would cause more aggravation than real damage and becuase
there was no direct conflict with the USA. A good source for this is
Manfred Griehl's "Luftwaffe over America". The two 'prototypes' were
not funded sufficiently to complete development of such a complicated
aircraft: nevertheless Messerschmitt kept putting forward
proposals.
It was an interesting design of great potential. The 4 engined
version; the Me 264 was more a reconnaissance and maritime patrol
aircraft whereas the 6 engined stretch known as the Me 264/6m or Me
364 which has provision for heavy tail armament was the model with the
performance and armament Messerschmitt thought necessary for
penetrating American airspace. As the war developed turbo-prop, jet
boosted and fully jet derivatives were proposed to provide for the
perceived performance necessary. At one point the focke-wulf ta 400
won out over the Me 264 despite its lower performance due to higher
weight, the ta 400 eventually evolved to a TA 400 with 6 engines, a
Lancaster style glass house and a pair of BMW jets. Penetrating US
airspace fully requires a range of about 17,000km. The Germans also
conducted, apparently successful, in flight refueling experiments
using a probe and drogue (actually a ball) style system. Minutes
indicate that Erhard Milch scoffed at the system because he couldn't
see past the problem of rendezvous in bad weather.
One of the more interesting aspects of the Me 264 series was that a
series of studies on the effect of using regenerative heat exchangers
made on the Me 262, a '3 hour' jet bomber and the Me 264 showed a
phenomenal increase in range possible in the latter aircrafts turbo-
prop. Development proposals came in from both AEG and Brown-Boveri.
Successful experimental work was carried out on heat exchanger
development (ceramics, back pressure, thermal shock resistance) but no
such exchanger was integrated into a functioning engine.
Illustrations are found in Kays German gas turbine and jet engine
development."
No aircraft but a big winged jet capable of enormous altitude and good
speed could have survived over american airspace.
There has recently been some attempts to use the existence of long
range bomber proposals to demonstrate that there was some kind of
territorial threat of the USA from the Reich. Reading the extensive
transcripts of meetings provided for in Griehls books shows that the
upper hierarchy considered the America bomber unnecessary and even
ridiculous and gave it little tangible support. Nevertheless the
German industry had the know how and talent to produce such a
machine. It remained more an engineers dream.
.
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