History[]
Assigned to JG7, the aircraft was forced to land with engine trouble at Schalksmuhle, south of Dortmund, in March 1945, and captured by Soviet troops. Following repairs, the aircraft was taken to the Soviet Scientific Research Institute and, after being repainted in Soviet insignia, was test flown by Col A. G. Kocherkov on 15 August 1945,[1] only to be grounded for one and a half months while the malfunctioning port engine could be replaced.
Once the replacement engine was installed, Kochetkov managed to gather the main flight characteristics of the aircraft during a total of 12 sorties, allowing Engineers V. A. Berezin, V. A. Ivanov, Yu. Z. Manyshev, and S. S. Fradkov, led by a lead engineer I. G. Rabkin, to compile a report on the Me 262 Schwalbe. Those sorties did not come easily. The last,[2] carried out on 30 October,[1] was the most difficult for Kochetkov. Due to icing of a switch, the electrical tailplane trim put the aircraft into a dive.[1] At the cost of tremendous physical tension and self-control, he managed to pull the aircraft out of the dive at a high altitude.[N 1]
The aircraft's subsequent fate is unclear.
Notes[]
Sources[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Kay, Antony L and J R Smith. German Aircraft of the Second World War. Putnam Aeronautical Books. 2002. ISBN 0 85177 920 4 Pages 264-265
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 http://www.airpages.ru/eng/lw/me262.shtml