For those of you interested in reading about the flight characteristics of a real life 109G-10 (Black 2), check out this month's Flight Journal magazine.
Here is a short summary:
Taxi:
The tail is reluctant to swing around, must push stick forward and add power to start a turn. No forward view. Plane rocks and rattles.
Takeoff:
The plane tracks easily down the runway until the tail comes up, then it tends to veer left. He made it sound pretty easy. 20 degrees of flaps.
Flight:
Nice handling at low and medium speeds, heavy stick at higher speeds. No rudder trim. The pilot evaluated it as a better dogfighter than a P-51, but not quite as good as a Spit(no model given). He has flown all 3. At high speed he says the P-51 was much better. His flight experiences were at lower altitudes.
He liked the slats. The only historical problem mentioned with them is that without rudder trim the pilot often skidded during a turn, which caused the slats to open asymetrically, throwing off the gunnery.
Landing:
Very good low-speed handling, easy to 3-point, just don't let it get too slow. The rollout is tricky. Start with 10 or 15 degrees of flaps, then crank the rest down approaching final.
Good article, very timely.
--ra--
