To begin with, answering Chalenge, according to Tom Cleaver, ALL P-51s ALWAYS had fabric elevators, until models later than the the P-51D-5... I had actually heard that the switchover was much later than that, making the metal-skinned elevators barely present in the WW II European theater. I await to be enlightened on this apparent contradiction.
These elevators made a big difference in high speed turns and pull-outs above 400 MPH, and may have equalled the 109's superior moveable tailplane above this speed. (The 109's trim was apparently so powerful it could do 7G pull-outs with the pilot not touching the stick...)
The Spitfire IX pilot mentionning the more common right roll for diving 109s was not from the show "dogfights". Since this show interviews mostly U.S. pilots that saw actual combat, and reproduces the battles with their input, I don't see how that makes the show more biased than the usual U.S. pilot combat accounts. The slower 109 turn to right has surfaced many times, including in the current airshow display circuit, and even during wartime for the similar nose-engine design Ki-61. Cutting the throttle might help, but I have never heard of it from any German account, at least not relating to the right turn issue. German wartime pilots make little mention of the right turn, which does raise the issue of the extent of the difference. It might have been more noticeable from the outside.
The right turn issue has been mentionned also for the Zero, and more rarely for the FW-190A, whose wing drop would switch sides depending on the position of the flaps. This would switch the 190's best turn side, and flaps were commonly used at low speeds on the 190. Incidently, the FW-190A, like the Zero, and to a lesser extent the 109, was an excellent LOW speed turn fighter, and all tests, including both German and U.S. combat accounts, are extremely clear about this. How this confusion about the 190 got started I have no idea, but it can only mean raw calculated data and some cherry-picked performance tests can bring a lot of confusion... Let's examine why this is for a moment, and how it might be relevant to the 109 vs P-51 debate.
I.E: In a test against the P-47D-5 with 72" output, the FW-190A-5 would vastly out-turn the P-47 below 250 MPH TAS at 5000 ft.. Above this speed, the P-47D suddenly gained a significant upper hand, RAPIDLY increasing the advantage with higher speeds and/or altitude. This does suggest a fairly high speed peak turn rate for the P-47, if the switchover is so dramatic; definitely it seems to be still improving its turn rate well above 250 MPH, while the FW-190 falls off rather dramatically...
Against the Spitfire, which was one of the rare fighters that could out-turn the 190 at low speeds, Eric Brown describes the 190A as having adopted a new vertical dogfigthing style, but I think this was based on his experience with early 190 fighting; listen how unconvincing his explanation sounds, even though he describes the tactics of earlier, much lighter FW-190A-3/4s, MUCH less prone to high-speed mushing than later A-8s;
E. Brown.;" The 190(A-4) had tremendous initial acceleration in a dive, but it was EXTREMELY vulnerable during a pull-out, recovery having to be quite progressive, with care not to kill the speed by "sinking". " This quote is right at the end of his description of the see-saw tactic...
So the best tactics for FW-190A-4s against the Spit was to use the vertical see-saw, but... even with these lightweights 190A-4s, they had to do SLOW pull-outs because, at the bottom of a dive, their high-speed handling stank so much... You can imagine what the high speed pull-out was like in the much heavier A-8...
Yet the A-8 was universally recognized by all 190 pilots as the most maneuverable of the entire A series, despite the much greater weight. (If you doubt this, you obviously have never listened to actual wartime 190 pilots...) You can be sure this extra weight and power did NOT improve the high speed handling... To witness(among many);
http://www.spitfireperformance.com/mustang/combat-reports/20-murrell-2dec44.jpg
Note the "elongated loop", the complete inability to compete with the P-51 in turns without high-speed stalling on late A-8s (Dec. 2 1944 combat), also carefully note the SPEED; 400 MPH at the end(!), and the 190A-favorable altitudes of 20-10 000 ft.. The 190A was indeed an excellent fighter, but NOT at these speeds. The heavier A-8 improved the LOW speed handling, and was a superior LOW speed turn fighter, probably to the point of being competitive with the Spit XIV at some medium-low speeds, and definitely much better than the Mustang, especially when the A-8 was fitted with long-chord ailerons and a wide-blade wood prop.
This shows two things clearly in the 109 vs P-51 debate; wingloading is not a reliable indicator of turn performance, this either at low or high speeds (Ie. Spit XIV turn beaten by Mustang at 400 MPH), AND light high speed controls, such as test pilots like to describe for the Spit and FW-190, do not necessarily translate into good high speed turn/pull-out performance. Yes the 190 WILL do a 7g pull-out... eventually! But not if you start pulling below 8000ft at 500 MPH+ speeds; it can take THAT much of an "elongated loop" for the pull-out to suddenly "bite" at the bottom, creating "a much inferior angle of pull-out to the P-47D", to quote the same extensive comparison of a correctly ballasted A-5 to the P-47 D-5.
To answer MiloMorai, I think prolonged, LEVEL, turn fights, below 20 000 ft., were a bad idea for the P-51 against the FW-190A-8, and were probably an even worse idea CLIMBING against the 109G at these altitudes, but this general recommendation not to exceed 180° turns with Germans fighters was routinely ignored by pilots, and rightly so, if the spiral developped downward at a sufficiently steep angle, which was very often apparently...
Since at high altitude picking up speed was more natural than maintaining altitude, and that, on top of that, the P-51's one-millionth-of- an-inch tolerance supercharger gave a climb advantage above 25 000 ft., even against most 109Gs(!), it is no wonder the overwhelming majority of the turn-fighting... turned in favor of the P-51. At low altitudes, it was a different story, and there was no 26 to 1 kill ratio for the Mustang there, or dumb bombers-only dictates for the Germans for matter...
When hundreds of U.S. P-51 pilots ALL say the same thing(see the "WWII Aircraft Performance" site); that they consistently out-turned 109s and 190s, they are not conspiring to lie, however bombastic we can assume them to be; it simply means wingloading calculations do not tell the whole story. The Soviets, with their slower aircrafts and lower combat altitudes, had a very different impression of both german aircrafts, though they did slover with contempt at the FW-190's rapidly declining energy in vertical fighting, and the way it "hung" at the bottom of pull-outs, making it, their words not mine, "a perfect target". Light controls, and a superb dive, simply did not make the 190 a high speed fighter, period. I hope this myth gets buried sooner rather than later...
To answer VonMessa, all 109s shared generally similar handling characteristics, except the Emil's ailerons, which were vastly improved on at higher speeds by the "F", but lost a lot of performance again in the heavier G (down from 109°/sec to 70°/sec?). Also, at high speeds, torque has little effect because the engine acceleration is so much weaker, and the slipstream spiral so much stronger. When trim-tab-less ruddered Gustavs sped up above 250 MPH, there was never any respite for the pilot's left foot, if he did not want to skid slightly sideways, making accurate and stable shooting, and a steady speed, unlikely... E. Brown; "At speeds above 250 MPH, the lack of a rudder trimmer is severely felt".
As for flight test data, there is very little that is concrete about WW II maneuverability besides roll rate charts (except two very detailed early-war turn-rate charts shown to me; Me-109E and Spit 1). There is no formula or standards for the curve an aircraft makes in the sky, or how it makes it, or decelerates in it... Constant speed turns times are hardly an indication of how the aircraft will perform in combat... Even basic minimum turn radiuses are extremely rare. Side-by-side tests can reveal those differences, but those are rare, and, unfortunately, one of these is the widely-quoted, and vague, Farnborough tests series, were gun-less prototype wings Spitfires are compared to wing-guns ladden 109s (without saying so!)... Combat is the ultimate side-by-side test in the end...
Gaston.