"Me-163 Komet Glide Rate Physics Questions" Topic

I'm interested in the Me-163 Komet, and would like to figure out the rough glide speeds, and acceleration/deceleration rates in unpowered level, and diving flight.

I've read some anecdotes on it, and know it could be very fast in a dive, since it was so small, and "slippery" (no big propeller to slow it down).

It's been eons since I took a physics, or aviation class, and I don't know where my books are, if I even still have them, so could use some help on figuring out the approximate glide speeds at various dive angles, if someone knows what the formula is for computing that.

I'd be happy to do the math, if you can point me in the right direction, or if there as on-line calculators like the one I've linked to below, for acceleration rates.

Here's a set up question I ran across on another website, with one problem for the Komet, for starters:

link

No one bothered to answer the problem, but there's some useful info in it.

Some of the info is wrong, though, e.g. the Komet's max. speed was 596 MPH. Perhaps they're just using the slower speed as a rough, cruising speed for the little fighter.

I'd like to know the acceleration rates, and max. terminal velocities for dives at various angles, e.g. 10 – 15 degrees, 20, 23 (as in the physics problem), 30, 45 60, 75, and 90 degrees.

I suspect, if the aircraft has decent prior speed, just before entering the dives, that the increased accel. would just push it up against its critical mach number, listed as 0.85, or so, but which could be as high (possibly), as 0.90 – 0.95, assuming one report of a speed of 623 MPH during testing, which presumably was at altitude, where 660 MPH is Mach 1.

I also ran across this website, where it will do acceleration calculations for you, in various measurements, e.g. meters/second, MPH, KPH, etc., etc..

link

Looks like accel from 400 – 550 MPH occurs in about 7 seconds at 1G, not including aircraft drag, etc., etc..

Additionally, I'd like to know how much the little fighter would decelerate in level flight from various speeds, e.g. 400 – 600 MPH, and what various angles of climbs would do to its speed, e.g. how quickly the speed would fall off in an unpowered glide, too.

For all of the above, lets assume that the Komet has expended all its fuel, and is basically just an unpowered glider, with various levels of energy, dependent upon its initial starting speeds of 400, 450, 500, 550, and 600 MPH.

Altitudes for this should be roughly 25,000 – 30,000 feet, to obviously less than that, as the little rocket dives away.

May need to plug all of the above into a spreadsheet to run the calculations, in order to make computing all that a bit easier.

Thoughts?

The slower the Moment gets in level flight, the faster it decelerates.

Although a fun and interesting exercise I suspect you won't get very meaningful results. I looked into a lot of this when doing my games and could not make a lot of headway. Too many unknowns. Too much fudging and the variables for air resistance etc just too numerous and significant.

In the end I settled on comparatives. Anecdotally they dived fast and picked up speed rapidly. So I made them gain speed faster than any other a/c [the P-47 was I think the next best] and have a higher terminal velocity. [just short of Mach 1]

Most a/c in my game have to pull out of a dive when they reach maximum speed or risk damage/loss of control. Some don't and can keep a dive going as long as they want. This can be tactically significant.

I think most Komets that were shot down were 'bagged' by roving fighters not flying close escort. Once gliding and at lower altitudes they were sitting ducks.

If high they could probably dive away faster than any allied fighter could follow.

Interested in how you get on with this anyway.