Hitler's Jet Plane Read Online Free Page B

thrust of 600 kilos with new turbine wheels on the Junkers test rig.) In connection with this directive, he ordered the head of his Ministry’s aircraft construction monitoring office to ensure that work on the Me 262 was halted at once and all energies focused on a production line for the Me 109F.
    Udet stood aside during this scene, lurking in the background in a silent rage. Not until the leave-taking in the administration building did he make his bitter reproaches to Kokothaki regarding the desolate condition of the works. Everything was in pieces and the whole thing was a shambles, he said. Then he rejoined Milch’s entourage for the return flight to Berlin. There is evidence that in the long period preceding the Augsburg visit Milch and Messerschmitt had actively sought a reunion. It was at Milch’s suggestion that Messerschmitt was nominated a Professor. The negative result of the inspection was the final straw for Milch in the relationship with Messerschmitt, and the same was true for Kokothaki. But far, far worse was to follow.
    It will be recalled that in 1939, Udet had awarded Messerschmitt a contract to provide, by October 1942, 2,000 light bombers of the designation Me 210, an improved version of the Bf 110. This situation now led directly to the most incomprehensible error of judgement in the history of world aircraft production. Perhaps overconfident because of his great personal ability and the Messerschmitt company’s track record, but also on account of the very short delivery date, Messerschmitt set up the jigs for series production and made a start turning out the airframes before the Me 210 maiden test flight. The latter was by all accounts the most hair-raising twenty minutes in the career of chief test pilot Hermann Wurster, who returned from it alive thanks only to his outstanding ability as a flier. ‘The aircraft is so unstable that it cannot be mass-produced in its present configuration. You couldn’t trust any pilot’s life to it. Apart from other modifications, the fuselage needs to be a metre longer,’ he reported. Faced with this damning opinion from his chief test pilot, Messerschmitt had to decide between losing many millions of Reichmarks or closing his eyes to the major problem and making do with the minor changes. He settled for the latter. After five Me 210 test pilots from the Luftwaffe’s experimental base at Rechlin had been given a decent burial, it was accepted that Dr Wurster was correct. Series production of the Me 210 was halted by the Reich Air Ministry on 13 March 1942 by which time 483 operationally useless machines had been completed.
    The major change to the airframe was now no longer possible on the grounds of time alone. The financial loss to Messerschmitt AG was estimated at around RM 40 million (a labourer’s annual wage at the time was about RM 1,500). Enormous sums had to be paid to the suppliers of materials, fitments, equipment and instruments. Scarce raw materials from partially completed aircraft were piled into great mountains of scrap in large warehouses. The loss in aircraft production and valued members of the workforce completed the blow for the Augsburg works, which in peacetime would have been bankrupted. Messerschmitt was relieved of his position as company head and retained only as a technical director.
    Naturally, no effort was spared to convert and modify the design into a safer, better aircraft. The result was the Me 410 ‘fast bomber’ with a top speed of 590 kph which could carry a one-tonne payload and was gunned-up as a destroyer aircraft. There was a corresponding reconnaisance version. It was a decent aeroplane certainly, but not one which lived up to the high expectations one had of a Messerschmitt.
    Udet committed suicide four months after the Augsburg visit. The grandiose fighter ace of the Great War, the unsurpassable pilot and daredevil aerobatic flier, the man who loved life, it was never within his capabilities to adjust to the