Talk:Messerschmitt Me 209 (1943)

Me 262

Although this information is taken from David Irving's biography of Erhard Milch, so may be unreliable, Irving gives a reasonably convincing account of the Me 209 being the reason that the Me 262 arrived too late for Germany, and not Hitler's 'obsession' with making the new jet into a bomber.

Apparently Messerschmitt himself was loath to give up on the Me 209 even after it was rejected, and continued to employ skilled workers on it when the company should have been concentrating on the Me 262. This was after he, the Messerschmitt board, and Milch, had already decided that the company should concentrate on getting the Me 262 into production as quickly as possible. This was not helped by Messerschmitt having already tooled-up for production of the Me 209 to the point that it was 95% ready to be mass produced. Messerschmitt had assumed that the Me 209 would be bought for the Luftwaffe during Milch's predecessor, Ernst Udet's, years in charge, presumably before the aircraft's performance defects were known, and that was why the factories had already tooled-up for production.

The 209 BTW, was rejected, apart from other reasons, because it had a poorer rate-of-climb than either the Me 109G or the Fw 190D. By that stage of the war climbing performance had become more important because Germany was increasingly being put on the defensive in the air.

BTW, according to Irving's account, the Me 262 had been designed to carry bombs from the beginning, and when Messerschmitt was asked how long it would take to fit pylons for carrying bombs he replied " ..say, fourteen days".

The Milch biography BTW, is quite a good read, which rather surprised me considering the author's reputation. There is an online legitimate (i.e., publisher's) pdf copy of the book, "The Rise and Fall of the Luftwaffe - The Life of Field Marshal Erhard Milch" here: [1] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.112.68.219 (talk) 19:57, 17 July 2011 (UTC)