Imperial Overlord

It's no wonder that the ME-262 fighter was changed into a night fighter. After all, after the introduction of British jet technology, no one could have imagined that the German jet engine technology would mature rapidly.

Germany's current jet engines can almost guarantee the safety of flight. At least it won't be damaged casually, resulting in an accident that crashes and kills people.

Under this premise, single-seat and single-engine jet fighters are more in line with the requirements of the Air Force, while twin-engine fighter jets are obviously flawed in performance.

However, in this era, at least the twin-engine jet fighter also has an advantage, that is, the part of its nose is vacated, and the radar can be installed for night combat.

But in this way, only the ME-262 fighter can be equipped with radar and used as a night jet fighter.

As a result, in the process of modification, there were not too many troubles due to insufficient preparation in advance. For example, the radar that could be installed on the ME-262 jet fighter did not have very good performance.

After all, today's radar is very large, and the performance of the radar after the compressed volume is actually not very good. Moreover, this radar has to be installed on a fast jet fighter, and its actual combat performance has yet to be tested.

Moreover, the radar of this era is not the advanced equipment of the 21st century. It can give the pilots of the fighter jets a very intuitive response to the scanned targets.

Therefore, a fighter with a radar installed must have a co-pilot to operate the radar, and this requires a lot of space. Obviously, a single-seat, single-engine fighter does not have such conditions.

Sadly, the ME-262 doesn't seem to have the same conditions - its fuel consumption is not low, and its range is not sufficient. Even the size of the fuselage cannot actually meet the modification.

Under such conditions, it is absolutely impossible to install a radar with enough firepower, and finally put one more person in.

In other words, if the above conditions are met, a large amount of fuel in the aircraft will be reduced. As a result, the range of the ME-262 will be greatly shortened, and it will really become a veritable "airport defender".

After taking off, it can only climb at the fastest speed, and then reach enough altitude to fight, and then it can only face the situation of no fuel...

Obviously, such a combat procedure is not what the Luftwaffe wants. It is almost the same as launching a rocket for air defense, but the rocket is hundreds of times cheaper.

So, the final result of the experiment was to convert the ME-262 into a larger aircraft with a volume increase of 30 percent.

The engine is the same model as the Raven, can carry more fuel, and supports carrying heavy firepower.

After such a modification, the ME-262 has undergone significant changes. The first is that the Yagi antenna is installed on the nose part, unlike the previous installation of multiple large-caliber cannons.

This radar antenna can guide the ME-262 to rush to the target with the fastest speed and launch the most effective interception.

In the process of interception, the jet fighter will give full play to its advantages in speed and climbing, easily approach the target group, and gain a positional advantage.

Then, the modified ME-262 will use the aviation rocket mounted on the wing to straf the target, and one aircraft can carry 6 rockets of the same type.

After disrupting the formation of enemy night bombers with these rockets, the ME-262 fighter jets were able to take out lost enemy planes with four 20mm cannons mounted in their wings.

This modification moved the cannon that was originally in the nose to the wing. On the one hand, it was to make room for the placement of the radar. On the other hand, the cannon that had to be moved back was moved to the position behind the cab. .

After all, when firing at night, the light will affect the pilot's vision, so all the weapons of the night fighter must be placed behind the pilot.

There is also a radar operator's position in the modified ME-262 fuselage, but this position has only a small porthole and can hardly see anything outside.

This design is on the one hand because the radar operator does not need to see the outside scene at all, on the other hand, it is also because he does not see anything at night.

Therefore, in order to protect the strength of the fuselage and increase the protection of the radar operator, the improved ME-262 night fighter, the radar operator is almost lying on his back in the fuselage.

Obviously this is not ergonomic, with a distinctly wartime coping style. But this little detail, no one cares at all.

The ME-262 night fighter does not need to fly in the sky all the time. According to the speed at which it can fly more than 800 kilometers per hour, it can only fly in the sky for more than 2 hours at most before running out of fuel.

So even if the pilot is not comfortable, he only needs to endure 2 hours of cruising time.

The MiG-15 fighter jets and F-86 fighter jets of later generations were actually not very comfortable, including the later MiG-17 and MiG-21 aircraft, which did not compromise the comfort of the pilots.

The United States has not advanced much in this regard. It was not until the end of the Vietnam War that the F-16 generation of fighter jets entered service, which was a precedent for comfort considerations.

Of course, after such a change, the official service time of the ME-262 fighter jet has also been greatly delayed.

The already mature ME-262 was enlarged, then increased the thrust of the launch, gave up some performance, and finally became a mediocre night interceptor fighter.

Its advantages are actually not many, at least compared with the mature JU-88 night interceptor fighter, its technical advantages are actually very general.

The only motivation to support this project~www.wuxiaspot.com~ is actually the prospect of jet fighters, and the slightly better data.

Sometimes, when a new technology is just popularized, there is not much performance advantage.

It seems that in the beginning, the calculation speed of the computer may not be faster than that of the abacus - but with the development of technology, there is no longer any comparability between the two sides.

In any case, Germany has made a great leap forward this time, with jet fighters and night jet fighters coming together.

What is even more gratifying is that the performance of the two aircraft is not bad, at least the reliability is not as pitted as the ME-262 in real history.

That is the real plane that was shot down, and there are not many "widow makers" who crashed by themselves - the "ace killer" in the mouth of German pilots, and it is a pit-daddy plane that specializes in killing his own ace...

At least for now, it seems that whether it is a night bomber like the ME-262 or a new day fighter like the Raven, it is gradually maturing.