For those lusty but too young to have participated in Watson's Whizzers...
http://www.collingsfoundation.org/ma_me262program.htm

Now that would give someone serious bragging rights!

At a serious price, of course.

I saw this airplane land and taxi in at Marana, AZ. The pilot said it was one of the sweetest flying airplanes he had ever flown. Shortly after that I hopped into their P51C and took off for an hour of flying instruction and aerobatics.

I am based at Ellington and drive past the Collings hangars every time I fly...so many goodies stuffed in their toy sheds.

You didn't fly over Kearny, AZ that day, did you? The moment we hopped out of the Bonanza in Kearney an older P51 "fastback" screamed down the valley from north to south. Beautiful.

My neighbor in FL was a ME-262 test pilot. I think he said the TBO on the engines was something like 50 hrs although that may have been for early prototypes. He did say he had more dead stick landings than powered ones.

Those engines are not exactly efficient either, between overhaul and fuel costs this has to be a rather expensive ride.

Don't these newly manufactured 262's have GE J85/CJ610 turbojets ? Like the old learjets?

I think they do.

The rumor mill says that that airplane is a very big handful on one engine....

Besides, Jets are for Kids.....

you prefer that?

Omg! Im saving my pennies now! That would be a dream!

IIRC, according to the guys at the 262 Project (a few hangars over from mine) which built the replicas, when the Allies began test-flying the 262 they used the manual's takeoff speed of 120 mph. Once their testing found the Vmc to be 160 mph(!), they kept it on the ground until 140 mph. And the J85s in the replicas are like 40% more powerful than the original engines.

BTW, the short TBO of the Jumo engines is largely blamed on the metals. By the time they got the design worked out they could no longer get the high-temp alloys required so they built them with the metals they could get, which they knew wouldn't last. Built with the alloys they wanted to use, they would have been much more reliable, albeit still fuel hogs.