Wolfgang Czaia, the Whidbey Island test pilot for the Paine Field-based Me-262 Project, had the rare opportunity to fly the first authentic reproduction of the famous World War II German jet fighter.
Now, he’s an author, too. His recent book, “Project 262, The Test Pilot’s Journal,” tells the story of those test flights, his harrowing off-the-runway crash and the experience of flying as an escort for a B-24 bomber, one of the Me-262’s wartime targets.
Illustrated with nearly 150 colorful photos by Snohomish County aviation photographer Jim Larsen, the 224-page, large-format book includes a 45-minute DVD filled with movies of the test flights and production program.
Put into service late in World War II, the Me-262 missed its opportunity to change the outcome of that conflict, but its astonishing engineering advancements had a major impact on post-war aircraft design, including America’s swept-wing F-86. The book is fascinating in its technical details for pilots and engineers, but still highly readable for aviation and history enthusiasts.
“It took about six months to write the book. Then we worked through thousands of photos to pare them down to around 400, and the publisher chose 150 of the best ones,” he said, including rare pictures of the first new Me-262 as it escorted a Collings Foundation B-24 Liberator over Czaia’s Whidbey Island home east of Paine Field.
“That’s the second time a B-24 has flown over my home, but this time it wasn’t dropping bombs,” he said. “The first time was in World War II when a flight of B-24s dropped bombs on my village and destroyed our home in Germany. After that, our family escaped into the Black Forest for safety.”
The idea for the unusual formation flight with the Me-262 and the B-24 Liberator came from Rob Collings of the Collings Foundation, the nonprofit organization that flies a B-24 and companion B-17 Flying Fortress around the country each year for living-history displays and local passenger flights. The planes were scheduled to be at Paine Field last June.
“Collings called to see if I was interested in a photo flight in formation with his B-24. It was a rare opportunity to show these two former adversaries flying side by side. One of the most difficult parts of that experience was matching the speeds of the two planes,” Czaia said. “I slowed to around 180 knots while the bomber flew at its top speed of around 150 knots, so I was constantly changing positions around the plane and circling back for the photo shoot just to stay in the picture.”
Larsen photographed the flight from a French Fouga chase plane flown by Northwest air-show performer and former Canadian Snowbirds F-86 pilot Bud Granley.
Collings, who was piloting the B-24 that day, was so inspired by the unusual flight that he plans to add one of the $2 million copies of the Me-262 to his foundation’s roster of historic combat aircraft.
Recently, the foundation announced an opportunity for private individuals to pilot the legendary jet. After flight training in a dual-control training version of the plane, flights will be set up according to each person’s interests and flying capabilities. Tax-deductible donations for that opportunity begin at $25,000.
Czaia found the rare flight an emotional experience.
“It’s just an airplane, but it’s emotional when you are aware of what we are doing for aviation history with this project. It made the entire flight completely different, to the point where I couldn’t dwell on it. It would have become overwhelming.”
More information is available from the publisher’s Web site, www.twentyninesix.com.
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