“The airspeed indicator was stuck in the red danger zone, which is over 1100kph. I noticed that rivets began popping out of the tops of the wings. The aircraft began vibrating and shaking wildly, banging my head against the sides of the cockpit,” Hans-Guido Mutke, Me 262 pilot.
There are a dozen more pilots who flew the Me 262 in the final days of the war who history has all but forgotten for every well-known one. Fahnrich Hans-Guido Mutke appeared to have every chance of becoming just such an unknown and uncelebrated pilot.
He was called up to serve in the war effort despite being a medical student. He was born on March 25, 1921, in Neisse, Germany. He joined Nachtjagdgeschwader 1 in 1942 after completing his pilot training, flying Messerschmitt Bf 110s and Dornier 217s against British bombers.
His experience with twin-engine aircraft made him the perfect candidate, so in March 1945, he was transferred to 10./EJG 2 (Erganzungsjagdgeschwader 2, or “Operational Fighter Training Group 2”) in Lechfeld for retraining on the Me 262.
According to Dan Sharp’s story in Spitfires Over Berlin, Mutke was instructed to conduct a training trip at a high altitude on April 9. As a result, he climbed to a height of a little over 36,000 feet, which is nearly as high as the Me 262’s ceiling of 37,565 feet. He was at this near-maximum altitude when he overheard a flight controller warning that a P-51 Mustang was about to intercept one of his fellow trainees and decided to fly down to help.
With both engines running at full power, he drove his Me 262 “White 9” over into a steep 40–50° left bank and started to descend. In just a few seconds, the plane started to tremble violently.
Mutke himself recalled: “The airspeed indicator was stuck in the red danger zone, which is over 1100kph. I noticed that rivets began popping out of the tops of the wings. The aircraft began vibrating and shaking wildly, banging my head against the sides of the cockpit.
“I moved the stick wildly around the cockpit. For a brief moment, the aircraft responded to controls again, then went back out of control. The aircraft still did not respond to pressure on the stick so I changed the incidence of the tailplane.
“The speed dropped to 500kph, the aircraft stopped shaking and I regained control. After diving about three miles I was able to return to base. On the runway, the mechanics were very surprised by the appearance of the aircraft, which looks as though it had been shaken by the hand of a giant.”
In another interview, Mutke stated: “What happened had never happened to another pilot as I entered a very dangerous realm without knowing it. I had no idea what was happening. I thought there was something wrong with the aircraft.”
The condition of Mutke’s jet fighter may have confused the mechanics, but his bosses were unimpressed.
He said: “When I landed, the commander was furious and demanded to know if I had gone above the red fork mark of 950km.
“I said, ‘Of course not. You know, this might be a Monday production’. That means it was made the day after the workers had been drinking.”
Mutke soon learned that the colleague he had been trying to save had been shot down despite his efforts to save him, but had been able to parachute to safety. And the story may have come to an end there.
In 1989, at a conference commemorating the 50th anniversary of jet-powered light, Mutke spoke with some of the experts in attendance about his experiences on April 9, 1945, and they speculated with him about the possibility that he may have actually broken the sound barrier two years earlier than Chuck Yeager, who achieved supersonic flight on October 14, 1947.
Since then, Me 262 enthusiasts and critics of the aircraft have debated the specifics of Mutke’s flight, the Me 262’s suitability or lack thereof for breaking the sound barrier, the accuracy of its in-flight instruments, and the technical challenges of conclusively proving or disproving the pilot’s account.
His supporters mention a handbook on Me 262 published by the USAAF in January 1946 based on tests of captured aircraft. He died on April 8, 2004, and donated his body to anatomist Gunther von Hagens.
This states: “At speeds of 950 to 1000kph the airflow around the aircraft reaches the speed of sound, and it is reported that the control surfaces no longer affect the direction of flight. It is also reported that once the speed of sound is exceeded, this condition disappears and normal control is restored.”
The Me 262 may have had the ability to reach supersonic speeds, according to computer simulations conducted in 1999 at Munich Technical University.
Professor Otto Wagner told Reuters, which was reporting on Mutke’s claims in 2001: “I don’t want to exclude the possibility but I can imagine he may also have been just below the speed of sound and felt the buffeting, but did not go above Mach 1.”
Additionally, engineers at the time in the US who were building a replica Me 262 with contemporary engines said they thought Mutke might have been right.
Jim Byron of the Me 262 Project said: “We met with Herr Mutke and having listened to his story, we believe he could have accomplished this in the severe dive and engine flameout.”
The Me 262 would become unmanageable after Mach 0.86, according to flight tests conducted during the war by Messerschmitt engineers, resulting in an ever-steepening dive that the pilot would be unable to prevent. Then, as a result of high G loads, speeds would increase until the airframe broke apart.
Some people think Mutke was able to resist the steepening dive and level out to momentarily regain control at just before supersonic speed because he changed the tailplane incidence.
The German measuring equipment’ later-war unreliability and the compressibility of pitot tubes, which led to incorrect readings close to the speed of sound, have been cited as reasons for skepticism.
The Me 262’s fuselage’s area rule design, which would have produced extremely high drag at transonic speeds, also worked against it. However, it is acknowledged that the Me 262 would have been able to break past the sound barrier and enter supersonic flight if the force of gravity and engine thrust combined during a steep descent.
While the air traveling over Mutke’s aircraft may have exceeded Mach 1, it is highly unlikely that his jet did. However, the exact speed at which he traveled will never be known.
Spitfires Over Berlin is published by Mortons Books and is available to order here.
Photo by U.S. Air Force and Noop1958 via Wikipedia
