This summer, Wolfgang Czaia will celebrate a 60th anniversary behind the controls of one of the world’s rarest military aircraft.

In July, Czaia, a Sandy Hook resident and former military test pilot, will take to the skies in a Messerschmitt Me262, the world’s first operational combat jet. Though many pilots still fly World War II warbirds, Czaia’s flight will be unique, since none of the eight remaining original examples of the German aircraft can ever be flown.

He will be flying in a reproduction, the first of five Me262s being built in a nondescript hangar at Everett’s Paine Field by the Me262 Project, a subsidiary of a company that builds reproductions of antique aircraft.

For Czaia, the flight will complete a perfect circle of events surrounding what was one of WW II’s most storied aircraft. Though he was only a toddler when he lived in Germany during the war, Czaia is one of the last living links to the old jet fighter. During the 11 years he later served as a modern jet pilot in Germany’s new Luftwaffe, or air force, Czaia became friends the man who made the Me262 a reality during the final months of the war, former General Adolf Galland.

The author of Galland’s biography, Czaia will finally find out how his old friend felt the first time he flew an Me262 into combat.

“I can’t believe my luck,” said Czaia, who applied to be the Me262 Project test pilot while flying for American Airlines in 1993.

One of several projects of the Third Reich that could have changed the course of the war, the Me262 was treated as a low priority after its first test flight in 1942. Czaia said it only flew after Galland brought it some attention among the military leaders of Nazi Germany.

The aircraft’s late introduction into the war prevented it from becoming a truly effective weapon. Bill Hammer, the Me262 Project team leader, said by the time the plane went into production, the Germans had almost no aluminum left with which to build aircraft. So, they used steel for much of the airframe and skin, as well as plywood for other components. By doing so, they produced a true “rust bucket,” none of which were flyable 10 years after the war due to corrosion. Most were shot down or crashed after two or three flights.

Hammer said the new planes, which will be sold for about $2 million and be limited to the five the project is building, are better rustproofed and better built than those during the war. In all, the Germans produced 1,433 Me262s, out of which only 300 ever flew.

“There will never be any more,” Hammer said.

With a top speed of about 550 mph, the Me262 was a technological leap when it joined the air war over Germany in late 1943. Though finicky and occasionally deadly to their pilots, the planes were 100 mph faster than any piston and prop-driven planes the Allies had. In the hands of the few competent pilots left in Germany late in the war, the Me262 was successful in destroying a number of Allied bombers and fighters, Hammer said. Fortunately for the Allies, so few of them ever made it into the air that the momentum of the war made them a mere footnote in history.

Czaia, who flew and still occasionally flies one of the fastest jet fighters in modern history, the F-104 Starfighter, has both a thrilling and dangerous job ahead of him as an Me262 test pilot. The new planes are almost exact replicas of the old ones. Built with no insulation for the pilot, the only thing between Czaia and the open air at 20,000 feet of altitude will be steel plates less than a quarter inch thick.

Also a worry are the engines. Spurning the Me262’s slightly unreliable original engines, the new birds are equipped with the well-tested General Electric CJ610s. The same engine used in the Lear Jet, the CJ610s provide about 50 percent more thrust than those built for the original aircraft. Me262 Project engine technician Austin Ballard said the 12,000-pound aircraft will have more than enough power.

“That’s going to be a little hot rod,” he said.

Czaia’s job will be to see how far he can push that hot rod. Designed to fly slower than the speed of sound, the Me262 still has the power to push portions of its airframe beyond that limit, or to Mach 1. The people who buy the reproductions need to know where that limit is. If they pass it, Czaia said, the plane will break apart in the air. He said he will discover the plane’s top operational speed through trial, but as little error as possible — since the aircraft has no ejection seat and Czaia will be wearing only a parachute on his back.

“This is just seat-of-the-pants flying,” he said.

He must also prove to the Federal Aviation Administration that the plane can fly and take off on one of its two engines. If it can’t, it may not be certified for sale as a flying aircraft.

“That, I think, is the really critical part of the test program,” he said.

The test flights could be as groundbreaking as the construction of the aircraft itself, something that required the Me262 Project team to completely disassemble one of the original planes. Czaia said the historical record of how the Me262 performed in flight is sketchy. Though he has spoken with a number Me262 pilots who are still living, he said that didn’t tell him much, except that it was a “nice flying machine.”

“These memories are 60 years old now,” Czaia said.

He will make some new ones this summer. Construction and testing on the first Me262 is expected to be finished in early July. Germany’s Messerschmitt Foundation is in line to buy the first of the aircraft. A private collector in Arizona has signed up for the second. The remainder are for sale for the $2 million price tag, minus engines and custom avionics.