Bf109G climb with MW50

[Kurfürst]

I mean the 605DB/DC's WEP was 1.8ata at the minimum, that's the smallest boost they'd use for WEP.

[Angus]

had to be.
Standard setting 1.4 or so then?

[MiloMorai]

Originally posted by Kurfürst
As for 1.98ata, I think it's a horse beaten to death. It was definietely used in numbers late in the war, butch2k says so and I belive him. Moreover we have that March 1945 order saying that four wings from JG 27 and JG 53 will use 1.98ata boost etc.  

Used in numbers??????????

Butch said it was being introduced gradually in the last month or two of the war to defeat Germany. Only 4 Gruppe were cleared for the use of 1.98 and even in early April could barely put 80 a/c in the air, and of those, it is uncertain how many really used 1.98.

Penny pocket numbers

[Kurfürst]

Originally posted by Angus
had to be.
Standard setting 1.4 or so then?

You mean in AH terms, non-WEP?

30 min Kampfleistung was 1,45ata or 1,4ata at 2600rpm, this produced 1370 to 1430 PS at SL. That was understood as "100%" throttle.  With this rating climb to 5000m was ca. 6 minutes on the 109K.

To use WEP (1,8 - 1,98ata, 2800rpm), the MW50 switch had to be turned on, and the throttle was pushed pass the gate for "Sondernotleistung", referred to as 110% power.

Of course you could go below that and anywhere these throttle positions.

A typical Luftwaffe Gruppe (ca. Wing) was consisted of 3 to 4 Staffels (Squadrons). Each Staffel had 16 planes issued (4 of them for reserves) by late 1944. In additon to the 3-4 Staffels, the Gruppe also had a Stabschwarm, ca."Command/staff flight" with 4+2 planes. Typically, a Gruppe would held 68 aircraft each, though in some case 75 was authorized.

[Angus]

I meant in the terms of standard, real-life.
BTW, what effect did increased boost have on the DB's lifetime?
Now, the LW wing, I know. Allied mostly referred to them as "gaggles" of some 50 aircraft or so.
BTW, I stumbled across a quote from Steinhoff recently, that out of a group of some hundreds of aircraft (190's at the time, and it was presumably 1945), for some period they could only keep 4-6 planes flying because of fuel shortage.
Silly me, I can't find it right now in my growing library, but I'm reading one of his books anyway, so I am bound to.

[Kurfürst]

If you ask what did they actually used for climbing - the 30min rating most of the time (6mins to 5km). There's no point of wearing off the engine over Berlin to get up to altitude 3 mins earlier when the e/a is still 2 hours away.. of course in combat, there's was no such consideration.

As for the lifetime, the DB/DC manual prescribes several times for inspection, up to 50 hours of operation, when "sofern nicht eine Teil- oder Grundueberholung durchgefuehrt werden muB.", a through check of the components tolerances is prescribed. In practice and under the abuse in the field from pilots, the engines lasted 30-40 hours before being worn-out, ie. ca 30-40 typical sorties, then the engine was replaced and sent back to the factory for overhaul. Engine swap could be done in as little as 15 mins. Anyway, statistically the plane was written off by that time even with modest loss rate (2.5-3%). Spark plug life due to corrosion was also reduced to 50 hours of operation.  overall I think it's quite typical for an late, high boosted ww2 aero engine in actual service. Slamming the throttle back and forth all the time doesn't help to preserve the engine.

In those 4 Gruppe mentioned, iirc there were about 140 aircraft present, out of which ca 80 was servicable two weeks later than 1.98ata was prescribed for them. I also suspect some G-10 units in the EF were also using the boost (it was less of a priority, JG27 and 53 were both on WF), they are listed as using C-3 fuel for their mounts, and butch noted some of them indeed used the 1.98ata-capable DB605DC in their G-10.

[Angus]

I've heard that when overboosting, the engines were loosing power after some humble 10 hours. But I will check that out, - tomorrow and onwards.