Horton

[tools4fools]

While it is true (as some writers seem intent on repeating loudly and often) that the Me 262s swept wing design was due to the need to adjust the center of gravity for the aircraft, it is also true that the Germans were aware of the advantages of the swept wing since the 30s!

Great. Thanks for posting this link.
And since then the first part has been repeated loudly on often - to downplay the achievement of the design of the 262.

Well, we can start by ascertaining that the various high - speed trials with the Me 262 proved without a doubt the advantage of the swept wing over the straight wing

Which is often downplayed with the old " the production Me 262 had a leading edge sweep of only 18.5°, too slight to achieve any significant advantage in increasing the critical Mach number" argument which you read all over.

It means exactly what the guys of Sturmvogel say - that the 18.5° sweep does have a advantage over straight wings - just not as big if the wing sweep would have been bigger.
As usual it is downplayed.
Interesting to note is that planes like the A320 and B737 have 25 degrees swept wings and top speeds under 900km/h and not the "ideal" 35 degrees for faster speeds.

It is also true that design aesthetics by the design team, irrespective of any initial misgivings about practicality, influenced the wing shape of the 262.

So there were other aspects for the swept wing and INITIAL misgivings about practicality. Means some when the practically was discovered...


Now about the inner wing sweep, which was not done to correct for CoG:

Wiki has this:

"the trailing edge of the mid-section of the wing remained unswept. Based on data from the AVA Göttingen and wind tunnel results, the middle section's leading edge was later swept to the same angle as the outer panels."

...they did wind tunnel tests...and maybe because of that the wing sweep was continued to the inner leading edge? Not because of CoG as we have seen.
Maybe they knew they were on something by the time they changed the inner wing leading edge?

Add to this that Ludwig Boelkow, designer of the 262, was certainly aware of the 1939 research on swept wing in the wind tunnel of AVA Goettigen.
And the stall problems associated with a swept wing were known as well - and a possible solution, slats.

Looking at all of this it is a bit surprising that they choose swept wing only to correct CoG - knowing the stall problems of such a wing which they knew could be overcome with slats.
Sounds like a hell of a difficult solution when they just could have repositioned the wing.

So question is why did they go the difficult way? With a designer that knew about the advantages of swept wings for high speed?

The real surprise then is why was this knowledge of the swept wing not taken advantage of worldwide before it was experimentally proven on the Me 262.

It is a generally well known fact that German designs for advanced jet aircraft (and rockets, for that matter) influenced postwar aircraft development to varying degrees.

Which is exactly what you are trying to downplay.

A4/V2 was nothing...just a copy; on top wasn't worth to bother with that technology (but worth to send 600 bombers over and get the design team).
Me 262 was nothing...just an accident.
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