The Messerschmitt Me.262B-1a was a two seater trainer variant of the regular Me.262A-1a. It was just a regular Me.262A-1a with the cockpit extended for a second pilot.
The armament was like the regular Me.262A-1a, with four 30mm Mk.108 cannons housed in the nose. It was also powered by two Junkers Jumo 004 with a maximum thrust of 1985 lbf.
Due to the high performance of the Me.262, a tandem-seat operational conversion trainer was desiderable and, therefore, in summer 1944, the Me.262B-1 was introduced. The Me.262B-1 had dual controls, both in the pilot and student's cockpits. In order to fit the second seat, one of the internal fuel tanks were removed, so in most of the cases the 300L (80 US Gals) external fuel tank under the fuselage, was fitted in order to extend its range. Not many of them were built, and, although there aren't precise numbers, it's estimated that around 50 of them were manufactured and most of them were converted to the night fighter variant.
Sources:
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_262
2. http://www.airpages.ru/eng/lw/me262b.shtml
3. Salamander Books - The Complete Book of Fighters
No comments:
Post a Comment