Out of ammunition, I began to scan the sky in search of my guys. The other Me 262s were nowhere to be seen, so it was time to get out of Dodge: the ‘ride’ on top of the bombers was pretty successful, I thought. Suddenly I felt and heard bullets hitting the port wing and engine of my jet. I instinctively broke right to get out of the line of fire and in that very instant a Mustang swooped right past me, all guns blazing. I took a quick glance at the instruments: I was at 8 200 meters and the port engine was dead. First and foremost – find a cloud. There were none at altitude, so I dropped the nose and went downstairs. Hide in the clouds, but what then? I decided I would try to divert to Jüterbog, although I wasn’t sure if the runway there was still useable. I hit the clouds at 1 500 meters and quickly set a new heading. Although the Mustangs were no longer a threat, the port engine trailed a thick line of black smoke. When I was still considering my chances of landing safely at Jüterbog, part of the cowling of the port engine gave way and separated in flight. It looked as if somebody had opened a can of sardines. Then there was a loud thump and the engine’s exhaust cone broke off. I had to get out immediately, since the engine could explode at any moment taking with it the entire wing.
![A battery of four MK 108 30 mm cannons with ammunition magazines. The blue cylinders on the first picture are compressed air canisters providing pressure for the guns’ pneumatic system. [Visualisation 3d Marek Ryś]](images/nicewatermark/occnvai251messerschmitt-me-262-schwalbe-vol-icati95iti688limitstart2-03_mo46-me262sho1.jpg "A battery of four MK 108 30 mm cannons with ammunition magazines. The blue cylinders on the first picture are compressed air canisters providing pressure for the guns’ pneumatic system. [Visualisation 3d Marek Ryś]")
Everything that happened next could not have lasted more that a couple of seconds, although it all seemed like eternity to me. At 1 200 meters I jettisoned the canopy, climbed out of the seat and tried to bail out. The jet was still going way too fast, so I was immediately slammed back into the seat. Then I remembered a piece of advice from a friend, who had previously bailed out of the Me 262: ‘Make sure you throttle all the way back and kick the stick forward as soon as you start climbing out of the seat. The aircraft will drop the nose, which will throw you out of the cockpit and keep you clear of the tail.’ Following my friend’s advice, I climbed slightly, then kicked the stick with my right foot as soon as I was ready to get out of the seat. In a blink of an eye I was tumbling through the air in a freefall. Unfortunately, I did not assume the proper position on exit from the cockpit and I was now falling with my right arm outstretched, unable to reach the ripcord on the left side of the parachute harness. With my right hand sticking straight out I must have looked like a policeman directing traffic. Using superhuman force that can only be generated by fear of death, I managed to grab my right arm with the left hand and pull it towards the torso just enough to reach for the lifesaving ripcord.”
Jet Propulsion
The idea of an air vehicle propelled by thrust of hot exhaust gases was first proposed by a French engineer Jean Delouvrier (also known as Charles de Lauvrié). In 1863 Delouvrier presented to the French Academy of Science in Paris a system of jet propulsion based on a steam engine, which he called Aeronave. In the 1870s a Swedish scientist Patrick de Laval performed a series of successful experiments testing the thrust generated by steam engines. Drawing from the results of Laval’s tests brothers Armengaud built an experimental gas turbine at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
In 1908 another Frenchman, Caravodine, built an experimental device to test the feasibility of pulse jet propulsion. A year later Georges Marconnet improved Caravodine’s engine by replacing the compressor with a valve assembly closing off the combustion chamber.
In 1913, before the outbreak of the Great War, a French magazine Le Aérophile published an article by René Lorin, in which the author discussed a hypothetical aircraft propulsion system using the energy of exhaust gases. The powerplant described by Lorin consisted of an intake cone (diffuser) with a combustion chamber placed directly behind it and an exhaust nozzle. This basic idea is still used today in the design of ramjets and thrust augmentation systems of modern turbojets.
A real breakthrough in the jet engine history came in 1921 when yet another Frenchman, Maxime Guillaume, patented a powerplant which had all features of a modern jet engine. Guillaume’s engine consisted of an air intake, a compressor, a combustion chamber with fuel injectors, a turbine, an exhaust nozzle and a drive shaft.
