spice birch
Under developpement since november 1943, 7 months after a Me-262 fell with its jet prototype. Thinking Swizerland would return the aircraft entirely a few days later, the pilot landed the aircraft safely in Baden after communicating with the Swiss Tower control for an emergency landing on a road.
Having a Me-262 in their land and the engines already ready and the flight manual entire, they returned the pilot and told them that they were confiscating the jet as a punishment. It was not the first time Germany had broken through the Swiss airspace. And Swizerland knows it won't be the last.
As a result of this incident, an ambitious and intelligent engineer got to study and modify the engine, going from 8,8kN power to 10,7kN three months later. Spies were also sent in german's Heinkel and Messerschmitt compagnies to get more datas, finding what were wrong and what to improve in the engines.
Five months later, the Swiss groups Pilatus got to create a new jet, working on the same principe of the first with even more improvment, reaching a 14,5kN power Engine Named SJ-0103, "Pilatus Swiss-Jet Number one, Version 3"
By the time, General Corp and Pilatus officially signed a cooperational developpement. Pilatus had to make the engine, which was done amasingly quickly for a recent compagny, and General Corp had to work on a plane that would be able to carry it. February 1944, swizerland got to the start their prototypes, from A version, to D in june of this same year.
The E version got to be operational the august 1944, with a 680kph top speed at 8200m, ceiling at 9750m.
It intercepted from the first flight to the end of the war:
- 5 bf-109 G-14
- 3 bf-109 K-4
- 2 Ju-288
- 2 P-51D Mustang
- 1 B-17 flying fortress
- 1 P-47
- 1 Me-262
Only 44 were producted in the meantime.
