"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
news
Brian Thorn wrote:

True, but look at our *second* jet, coming down the pike not far
behind and really intended to be the first US jet to go into combat.
The Lockheed P-80. The odds would have been even.

It would have been fascinating to see those two mix it up, and see who would
win. The engine on the P-70 was certainly a lot more reliable than those on
the Me-262.
According to Eric Brown in his "Wings Of The Luftwaffe" book, the little
He-162 could fly like a bat out of hell, and might have been a real problem
for a P-70 to run into: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinkel_He_162


Looking at that pic of the 162, my first question is how did they bail out with
the intake right behind the seat? I found this, seems the Germans were first
at ejection seats too....

"The first ejection seats were developed independently during World War II by
Heinkel and SAAB. Early models were powered by compressed air and the first
aircraft to be fitted with such a system was the Heinkel He 280 "

"In late 1944, the Heinkel He 162 featured a new type of ejection seat, this
time fired by an explosive cartridge. In this system the seat rode on wheels
set between two pipes running up the back of the cockpit. When lowered
into position, caps at the top of the seat fitted over the pipes to close them.
Cartridges, basically identical to shotgun shells, were placed in the bottom
of the pipes, facing upward. When fired, the gases would fill the pipes,
"popping" the caps off the end, and thereby forcing the seat to ride up
the pipes on its wheels and out of the aircraft.,"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ejection_seat

Pat