Hi Tony,
>The impression I have from all of the contradictory evidence is that the Bf 109, relative to its comparators, was a very difficult plane to learn how to fly well.
Actually, the Bf 109 had many good characteristics and probably is among the more "easy-to-fly" WW2 fighters. It has good controllabiliity at medium and low speeds, is fairly spin-resistant, and can be dived to high speeds without much danger of overstressing. Ironically, this description matches the Spitfire pretty well, too, except for the high-speed part where the Spitfire offered better control (albeit at a price).
>So in summary, the Bf 109 proved a very effective weapon in the hands of experts who had spent a long time learning how to get the best from it, but it was not the kind of plane you wanted to hand to a new recruit.
No WW2 fighter is the kind of plane you'd ever want to hand to a new recruit. They were built for performance, and they sacrifice stability for manoeuvrability. It's just that in WW2, no air force had much choice about whether they wanted to hand their planes to new recruits ...
The WW2 fighters combined massive power with light weight, and the power was not just unbiased thrust as with jets, but it was generated by a large propeller which inevitably made flight characteristics far less from perfect. The more power, the better the fighter - and the more difficult to handle.
Additionally, stability was not a desirable attribute in a WW2 fighter. Both the Spitfire and the Me 109 were marginally stable at best in much of their flight envelope, and that made flying them highly demanding and meant they didn't easily forgive pilot mistakes. That's a universal for WW2 fighters - and actually, even the trainer aircraft of the era were picked to have some vices in order to teach the novice pilots never to let their guard down.
The unique vice of the Me 109 probably was its poor ground handling, which was improved only very late in the series. That's not as bad as its often painted - having fighters spin out of the traffic pattern would be much worse, but as long as the Me 109 was airborne, it was quite well-behaved.
(Warbirds today are approached with a lot of respect and caution even by expert pilots. Bf 109G-4 Werk-Nr. 109139, freshly rebuilt in Germany, just shredded its propeller tips on take-off when flown by a highly experienced LTU captain. This sums it all up pretty well - insufficient ground clearance certainly is one of the Me 109's design shortcomings :-)
John Deakin's "Pelican's Perch" column is a great read, especially when John shares some of his Warbirds experiences. It helped me a lot to appreciate just how special the WW2 fighters actually were:
http://www.avweb.com/news/columns/182146-1.htmlRegards,
Henning (HoHun)
