Comparison of Spitfire/109 cocpit size

[humble]

109 had the worst ergonomics with regard to potential stick forces of any of the "major" fighters of WW2. Pilot had very little leverage at all....

[humble]

Originally posted by agent 009
Side view would be good in 109. pilots head being close to the sides is good, as he only has to turn his head to see. In a Mustang he might have to lean over a bit to see. Don't know on Spit, looks like similiar sit, just turn your head.

Now the view forward & down is better in 109 than Spit cause wings are less wide on 109.

Rear view with bubble as mentioned above is better for rear view. For whatever reason this didn't seem to be much of a prob for the experten in 109. rear view that is.

Pilot view in the 109 was pretty bad, the thick canopy framing created numerous blind spots. The cramped nature of the cockpit actually made it much harder for the pilot to move his ahead to "see around" the obstructions....

[Kev367th]

Originally posted by Kurfürst
Well the 109 underwent numerous development during the war, the Spitfire still the same old worn 1935 airframe with a decade old design - in 1945.
It isn't really surprising that without any improvement to it, it was soon surprassed by the P-51, Bf 109, Fw 190 etc.

And that why people are screaming for a perk on the Spit XVI (at the same performance as a 1943 LF IX), whereas the 1944/45 109s/190s are (excl 152) free.

Not bad for a worn old airframe with a decade old design.

The ONLY true 1944 Spit is perked.

Would have loved to have seen the reaction to a XII or F.21.

[Guppy35]

Yep, that old Spit was a complete hunk of junk.  What a waste of engineering time and production man hours.  I've yet to talk to a Spitfire pilot who actually liked the plane.  Most hated to fly it with a passion......I hate em too....oh wait....

[MiloMorai]

According to Kurfy, "the Spit a bulged canopy that may cause some distortion and make picking up contacts at a distance difficult." So the bubble canopy can not be good either with all that curved persplex.

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Dan what is with that crazy painted nose on JZ*E?

[Guppy35]

Originally posted by MiloMorai
According to Kurfy, "the Spit a bulged canopy that may cause some distortion and make picking up contacts at a distance difficult." So the bubble canopy can not be good either with all that curved persplex.

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Dan what is with that crazy painted nose on JZ*E?

Ginger Lacy flew this Spit I while serving as an instructor at 57 OTU in 1941.  It was his 'bounce' aircraft.

This particular Spit I still exists and is being restored back to Mark I configuration and there is some talk it will come out of the paint shops in these markings when it's done.

[Angus]

Met one of Lacey's squadmates in 2000. He got shot down over London on the day Buckingham Palace was bombed.
Anyway, here's what Duke said:
"We also received a Messerchmitt 109F from Middle East Headquarters, but I never flew it for I found great difficulty in getting myself into the small cockpit"

Rall puts this clearer though.....said the 109 was BAD in the cockpit.

[Charge]

Yep, that old 109 was a complete hunk of junk. What a waste of engineering time and production man hours. I've yet to talk to a 109 pilot who actually could do anything with the plane.

Oh wait....

http://www.acepilots.com/german/ger_aces.html



-C+

[Angus]

Well, it's perhaps miraculously biiger on the inside than the outside.
Talk about cockpits, - not the biggest but the best - FW 190!

[Charge]

Obviously Rall didn't appreciate the 109 in many concepts.

I find it equally strange that I don't recall the Finnish pilots ever complaining about the 109's cockpit dimensions even if they transferred to it from Brewster which was very roomy compared to any other a/c.

-C+

[Kurfürst]

Originally posted by Waffle BAS
not using a line of sightsuch as a gunsight for reference, or a head posistion, because those can move.... I'm using the arse, cause that should be strapped in.

Basically you made the same mistake as Milo, placing the 109 pilot lower than he actually sit. Why not use the gunsight as reference, I guess probably the same reason Milo was also unwilling to put the pilot's head (most pilot's used this organ to scan the horizon, not their butt). The gunsight's line is fixed on every plane and defines where the pilot's head will be. Pilot seat otoh on all of these 3 planes are adjustable vertically, and we have no idea in what position they are depicted. Obviously, pilot's will adjust the seat to their size so that they can see through the gunsight comfortably. The pilot sits in the 109 with his legs extended, in an inclined position, he doesn't need as much room vertically, ut more horizontally (just compare how much more legroom he has in the 109 as opposed the Spit which's legroom was appearantly designed for Douglas Bader)
Therefore you should use the gunsight as reference, otherwise the drawings are pretty useless, not only because they give a false impression, but also they make the comparison of view rahter impossible if one canopy is much lower than the others.

BTW - if you look at the 109 overlays on the 51 and Spitfire -
you'll see that the gunsights of the 51 / spit do line up pretty close to where the gunsight is as posistioned in the 109. [/B]

Actually what I can see that if you'd try shift the Spit gunsight in the 109 cocpit, it's so much off that it would break out the top of the  front panel.

[Kurfürst]

Originally posted by Tony Williams
I am baffled why there should be such an argument over drawings when, as we have heard, a German and a British pilot sat in both planes, one after the other, and agreed that the Spitfire's cockpit was much roomier (I've seen that programme as well - in fact I think I've still got it on tape somewhere). Those comments are worth a thousand diagrams and measurements.

[/B]

Probably for the same reason why a honourable judge would give much more weight to objective evidence rather than conflicting stories of subjective witnesses.

But if you want 'authority', why not. Let's ask Bf 109 ace Franz Stiegler who flew all versions of the 109, and also the Spitfire, me262, me 110 etc.

"Franz Stigler liked the 109G as well and also enjoyed flying the K-4. The K-4, he said was very much like the G yet could leave all other fighters behind in climb. In control feel he said the K felt identical to the G. He described on many occasions where they would just bank away from the fighters and climb away from them (my guess this is probably after attacking them?). He also flew a Spitfire once, saying that he liked the aircraft.

How did the cockpit feel in the 109?

The cockpit was small, but one got used to it after a while. In the end it felt comfortable since you felt like part of the plane. The spitfire's cockpit did not feel that much roomier to him either.[/u] The 262 cockpit however was larger in comparison. It also had a long flight stick, giving the pilot lots of leverage in flight. "
http://www.bf109.com/stigler.html


Appearantly Franz Stiegler says the exact same thing what the drawings show, so we can pretty safely ignore claims about what is a celebrated, romanticized national idol.

I don't claim to be an expert on aircraft development, but even I know that the Spitfire went through a huge series of changes in its lifetime, including a new wing which was stronger and better-suited to cannon armament, a new fuselage with a bubble canopy, and so on. At the end of the war, the latest Spitfires were still excellent flying machines as well as competitive fighters, a tribute to the basic quality of the design.[/B]

I have an interesting report from RAE no less about the speed of serial production Spitifre models. They made some analysis on the power output and perfromance changes, and concluded that the abovementioned changes caused a speed loss of no less than 45mph. Fitting the two cannons in way that they projected from the leading edge costed 6.25mph, their bulges further 1.5mph, ejectors were responsible for 1.25, the internal B-P w/s cost 4 mph, triple fishtail ejectors and gun heating knocked down 9 mph, the rear view mirror 3.5mph, radio masts 1.5 mph etc. etc. and so on.

Obviously they never truely thinked about the developments, just bolted on another gun, another radiator, another engine regardless of how they ruin the airframe with it. The radiators are the best example, their frontal area area was about 4 times as big by the end of the war with equal perfomance loss. Maybe they should have just bother to look on the 109 or P-51 how it should be implemented. But they didn't care...

[Kurfürst]

British point of view on the Spitifre 47 cocpit :

 

 

Full report : http://www.spitfireperformance.com/Seafire47.pdf

[Kev367th]

Spitfire 47, you mean Seafire 47- I guess?

By then the Spitfire family had progressed far beyond the original Mk I design.
The Seafire 47 had redesigned wings, a bubbletop canopy, contra rotating props to counter swing on takeoff.
Never seen use in WWII, but did see action in Korea, last Seafire 47/Spitfire 24 delivery was Mar 1948.

Seafire 47


So your using that report for the above aircraft to comment on earlier Spit cockpits, hmmmmm.

[Waffle]

Maybe High res will help...lol

Outline is the K4 cockpit in Blue / seat in red, gunsight glass pink
planes: Top to bottom - 109f1, K4, k4 reversed, 51b, 5d, spit2, spit 2 (with gunsight glass aligned)