MesserSpit

[agent 009]

I did read a story bout Moulders &  Canadian Spit pilot having a go. The Canadian claimed to be the best in his squad. he saw a 109 flying by itself & thought cool, an easy kill. They engaged & went through all the maneuvers, scissors etc & to the amazement of the Canadian he could not line up a kill shot. This went on for awhile & ended in draw.

Next day he heard over the radio that the pilot was moulders. He said man I 'm glad he wasn't flying a Spit!

[Angus]

Hehe, nice story, - never heard it.
It was different when Mölders met Malan, the south african sailor.
Mölders had a better start, but Malan still riddled his plane with bullets.
AFAIK Mölders bunted away, and got away, but crashlanded and was hospitalized thereby ending further participation in the BoB.

What a guy anyway. You know, he was very airsick, but slowly (and probably after filling many a bag) overcame it!!!

[agent 009]

Speaking of Malan. There was an interview with one of his guys recently. Malan ordered an attack on 2 planes, they ended up being Hurries. The pilots responsible for shootdown were raked over coals. Malan claimed he ordered pilots to breakoff. Both of his pilots claimed he lied to cover his ass.

This was in wings or air classics.

[Kurfürst]

Interesting ! Could you post this strory for us ? EDIT : I mean the canuck vs Moelders strory.

Angus, actually Moelders shot down Spit in that engagements, then Malan peppered his plane but he could disengage. I dont think he crashlanded, but on the ground they noticed he was wounded on the leg, and this took him out of action from Bob for about a month.

"On 28 July 1940, during his first flight with his new unit, he succeeded in downing a Spitfire, but his aircraft was then hit by the enemy aircraft. Severely wounded in the legs, Mölders just managed to make an emergency landing at the airfield at Wissant in France. It was not until a month later that he was able to return to combat, most likely flying the Bf 109 E-4 W.Nr. 2404 (photographed on 31 August with 32 victory bars), as well as W.Nr. 3737, (shot down over England while being flown by Hptm Asmus on 25 October, with no stab markings according to the crash report, but 49 victory bars). He quickly brought his score up by downing 28 British fighters during the remainder of the Battle of Britain, including his 40th, a Spitfire over Dungeness, on 20 September, for which he was awarded the Oak Leaves (No. 2) the next day. On 22 October he downed three RAF Hurricanes to become the first Luftwaffe pilot to reach a score of 50 aerial victories. By the end of the Battle of Britain he had a total of 54 victories, and he would add one more before the end of the year. "

So he did not loose much of BoB, and in October 1940 he was one of the lucky first to draw first bloodin the new 109 F against the RAF with quite a success (Galland was anoter lucky b*stard).

[Angus]

Mölders managed to disengage, - a credit to his skills.
I am rather sure he had to bellyland or something of the sort, but wouldn't put too much money on it. I have some description of this in one of Deighton's books, will look and post.
Anyway, neither Galland or Mölders were that lucky, - remember Mölders got shot down and POWed before over France, and Galland got downed some times, including by the Bader gang.
But both were superb tacticians, hands down the finest in the world at the time, AND very skilful pilots with a passion for their "job"

hehe, someone is gonna be surprized, but I am a kind of a Galland-Mölders fanboy, - hereby confessed

[Guppy35]

Originally posted by Angus
Mölders managed to disengage, - a credit to his skills.
I am rather sure he had to bellyland or something of the sort, but wouldn't put too much money on it. I have some description of this in one of Deighton's books, will look and post.
Anyway, neither Galland or Mölders were that lucky, - remember Mölders got shot down and POWed before over France, and Galland got downed some times, including by the Bader gang.
But both were superb tacticians, hands down the finest in the world at the time, AND very skilful pilots with a passion for their "job"

hehe, someone is gonna be surprized, but I am a kind of a Galland-Mölders fanboy, - hereby confessed

Tis OK Angus  It is possible to like 109 drivers and Spit drivers at the same time

I've always been a fan of the Emil drivers myself.   Back in an old AW scenario of the B of B, I was GL of an Emil group and focused in on II/JG54 as I always liked to have a historical background for whatever group I was part of in scenarios.   It was good excuse to add to my 109 side of the home library

Most of us old model builders had built Revell's 109F in Werner Moelder's markings way back when too.

Dan/CorkyJr

[niklas]

Originally posted by Angus

" Ellenreider was the first to try the aircraft. He was stunned that the aircraft had much better visibility and handling on the ground than the Bf.109. It took off before he realised it and had an impressive climb rate, around 70 ft. (21 m.) per second"
 [/B]

Don´t forget : no weapons (300kg less weight)

300kg is  ~11% compared to 2700kg flight weigth.
Total climb rate is assumed to 26m/s (glide rate + climb rate) so you can assume a loss of at least  2.6m/s climbrate with weapons what brings the spit down to ~18m/s.

niklas

[Angus]

yeah....which is still better than a contemporary 109. 18 ms estimated are still better than 17 real, - 11% less weight make some 20% more climb.
to add insult to injury, the hybe starts shining after much more altitude...given the same engine, and has a higher ceiling.
So, a speed graph gives the 109 as superior until a certain alt when the lines cross, and in the climb the hybe has the card all the way.

A more lifting wing with very similar parasite drag.
(Spit canopy has higher drag and the fuselage is perhaps slightly wider)

[agent 009]

Well, the story bout Moulders is from a book in my storage. Will get it up someday.

Yes Moulders was shot down in battle of France. Galland twice in one day, & perhaps on his last mission. Not bad for over 400 sorties. He did get at least 3-4 Brit aces including Birdie Wilson who had 600 missions & shot down many V-1's. He was Gallands 40th shootdown. I think they were a bit more good than lucky. Buhligen had 800 missions with 112 kills, & was never shot down or wounded once.

109 F-4 could outdive Spit. Johnny Johnson said so in his book. He said Spit could not be dived as steeply as 109. The F was faster than Mk 5 Spit, perhaps better roll. Certainly better acceleration with direct injection.

There were 4-5 channel coast aces with 50 or more Spits in their bag. Priller, Galland & a couple more.

[Angus]

Found one anecdote where a Spit actually caught a 109 in a dive by diving steeper! It was Duncan Smith, his machine was probably a Mk IX vs a 109F, not sure though.
The 109 tried to escape by diving shallowly, Smitty took it steepere on full boost, levelled out on his low six, caught him and shot down in flames.
But those I belive, are exceptions.
Of course the Spit I could not dive steeply, - well not at once, because of the carb. But that got fixed, and I belive the highest speed a WW2 prop fighter ever got in a dive was actually a Spitfire.
The 109F had the roll rate problem of the Emil fixed, and later G variants rolled even better AFAIK.
Same with the Spit V, but therer were some quirks and not all of them were the same. But the clipped ones rolled almost like a 190.
Anyway, just read about a trick how to shake a 109. The higher stickforces on the elevators meant that in a steep dive the recovery was much slower. So, a vicious dive or a split-S, if followed in by the 109 would with a quick climb, leave the 109 much lower (and quite some distance away)
Some greedy messer pilots even hit the ground because of this.

[Kurfürst]

Originally posted by Angus
The 109F had the roll rate problem of the Emil fixed, and later G variants rolled even better AFAIK.

[/B]

Hmm, the only diffo in the 109G was that the wings were reinforced, Ailerons were the same.
This may mean stiffer wings, and less loss of roll rate at high speed due to wing twist, but I think the diffo is minimal. Some 109G/K received geared tabs for the ailerons, but only a small number, these would improve roll rate at higher speeds by reduction of control forces and allowing greater deflection (they gave quite impressive results).

Anyway, just read about a trick how to shake a 109. The higher stickforces on the elevators meant that in a steep dive the recovery was much slower. So, a vicious dive or a split-S, if followed in by the 109 would with a quick climb, leave the 109 much lower (and quite some distance away)
Some greedy messer pilots even hit the ground because of this. [/B]

Correct, that`s what Closermann said, too : "I tried to fire on a '109' that I spotted in the chaos. Not possible, I couldn't get the correct angle. My plane juddered on the edge of a stall. It was comforting that the Spitfire turned better than the '109'! Certainly at high speed - but not at low speed.".

Elevator Stick forces were much less on the Spit than 109, 4lbs/G vs 15-20/G.. so at high speeds it was much easier to pull up, but it was also a double edged weapon, one could also pull just too much and overload the airframe..

Different design philosophy, both were used on many other designs, but usually, 10 lbs/G was said to be the ideal, not to heavy, not too light (ie. p47, fw190).

[Angus]

This stick pull was not related to a turn, just a pull-up.
Anyway, it also relates to the entering of a steep turn, where many G's are playing.
At really high speeds the difference would have quite a bit, since test reports state that at very high speeds the 109 Pilot could not pull enough G's to black out. (I rather tend to think that would have been fixed after the E model, - or more could be obtained by adding trim). Well, sometimes a blackout is better than an express funeral....
Anyway, as we know, the close c of g of especially the Spitfire MkV caused it to be easily possible for the pilot to enter a turn with 12 g's or more, squashing the pilot and disintergrating the aircraft. This was fixed using bob weights from that model onwards, so basically you could calibrate the stick force that way.
About slow speed turning I agree that the Messer should have been on par within a certain speed range. (similar models in time), but it would have come down to the pilot, and in a slowing down fight the Spit would probably have been able to bite into the turn again, having a slower stalling speed.

109 Basic: Don't turnfight a Spitfire.

[agent 009]

Spit dive stuff.


Member # 1126

  posted 01 December, 2004 12:23 AM                      
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just finished reading Gabreskis book. he said the Mk 9 spit did everything well except dive

& this,

Have just come across some data from Canadian Spit pilot Bill Mcrae that is sheds some light in this area, he said,

;There were disturbing rumors going around about Spitfires shedding ailerons in the dive. We were told that, at extremely high speeds, the trailing edge of both ailerons tended to lift, not differentially as they were designed to do for normal control, but both together. Travel beyond a certain limit would tear them off, with drastic results. To provide us with a means of determining this failure point, white & yellow lines were painted on the inboard chord of the ailerons. With the the control column centred, the white line would usually appear during the dive. If the yellow line appeared we were in the danger zone, and should reduce speed. At the same time we were supposed to keep on target - and make sure we didn't fly into the ground!

He also mentioned effects high speeds had on elevator controls which created dive pullout probs, but managed to solve this by using different dive procedure.

It is true Spit hit highest mach # in dive, & 47 hit lowest. But it is general pilot consensus that 47 was best diver in Europe. Bob Johnsons book is a good place to read up on 47.

The MK 14 Spit had the bubble which like the Mustang D created turbulence problems. Required constant trimming in level flight.

Mustang C could outdive D as it had razorback instead of bubble. D could not be dived safely past 505-525 mph. C could though. 190 could hit 580 safely. Don't know bout 109. Willi Batz once hit 590 mph, but  wings were bent, fuselage wrecked. Plane writeoff.

Johnny Johnson said MK 9 was best.

Ginger Lacey flew the 14 in Burma. he did a loop over field & missed the deck by 4 feet. he ordered all his pilot's not to do any loops at low altitude in 14 Spit.

[bunch]

Jeffrey Quill's book about Spitfire test piloting are extemely informative with respect to the previous 2 post, an excellent read as well, highly recommended

[Angus]

I have Quills book, and it is very good indeed.
And, I'd love to have Gabby's book.
Now, more anecdotes.
Harry Broadhurst said the Mk IX on +25 boost was the best. Incredibly agile.
T.E.Jonsson flew the Mustang III, - diving with the 109's and 190's, no problem. And running with them, no problem. Turning, no problem either, - he actually mentions the 190 as the more dangerous in the close. But, he complains about the armament, 4x .50 which he found to be inferior to 2xhizooka + 4x.303.
And, what probably bothered Lacey was that the Mk XIV accelerates quite fast in the dive, a lot of difference from the IX, say alone the V or I.
I've seen a Griffon Spit doing endless looping sequences, the shape of "O" basically. Bloody amazing, probably the best of stunts I've seen, since the guy was practically licking the ground at very high speed, again and again and again...
The elevator authority plus the stall characteristics seemed to be completely superb.
BTW, I have a book by one of Quill's boys, Tony Bartley, sqn ldr 111 amongst others. Quite a tale. A lot of it is in a diary form.
Rather a rare one I belive.