Late Model Me-109Gs with Geared Aileron Tabs

[Shuckins]

In William Green's book The Augsburg Eagle he mentions that some of the late 109G models had geared tabs fitted to their ailerons to lighten control forces.

The F6F-5 was equipped with spring-tab ailerons which also reduced stick forces, allowing the pilot to get full aileron deflections at speeds more than 100knots greater than had previously been possible.  This, in essence, gave the Hellcat a high-speed roll rate almost equal to that of the Corsair, according to Corkey Meyer.

My question is this:  Did the geared tabs fitted to the Me-109G have a similar effect on its' roll rate?  I have no information about this in any of my sources which are, admittedly, somewhat limited.

Regards, Shuckins

[HoHun]

Hi Shuckins,

>My question is this:  Did the geared tabs fitted to the Me-109G have a similar effect on its' roll rate?  

Though I have no reports about their effect, there can be no doubt they were beneficial.

The tab mechanism was designed to take over some of the force previously exerted by the pilot, and as the Me 109's ailerons were force-limited at high speeds, that certainly improved the situation.

(The opposite problem were aerodynamically ineffective ailerons which would stay light at high speeds, but fail to make the aircraft roll! This illustrates why the classic test pilot phrase "light and effective" is such high praise :-)

The geared ailerons were also used with the Me 109K-4, which also had the elevator gain ratio reduced for better high-speed pitch control.

Regards,

Henning (HoHun)

[Angus]

Now if my memory serves me, already in the 109F there were severly improved ailerons of quite a different structure than in the E series. Would be nice to know more about this. Good luck.

[niklas]

The ailerons of a F and G weren´t so heavy like many assume. Actually the pilot would have reached the standard "50lb" force criterium at high speeds only.

I also read (and wrote afair) that the ailerons   of the 109F were improved, but comparing the shape of F, G and K ailerons to those of model sketches of mid-30ies i´d say today that the shape didn´t change at all. The ailerons became smaller with the F however, and with a stiffer wing the rollrate probably changed.
Prof. Madelung also confirmed to me that the ailerons did not change, because noone was obviously interested in running again through all those stability control tests.

The tab-geared ailerons were developed afaik by Blohm&Voss. Beauvais wrote that stick force were lower, but the force charateristics were not desirable linear over the deflection range ("Der Kraftverlauf war nicht ganz sauber")

niklas

[F4UDOA]

Shuckins,

Have you ever seen the roll rates for the F6F-5?

Have you ever seen the rates for the F4U-1?

They are not that close.

The Spring tab data is in AHT for the F6F. It says F6F-3 with spring tabs.

It looks like 60DPS at 200MPH, 70DPS at 250mph and it starts to reduce from there to about 65DPS at 400MPH with 50lbs of stick force and 60dps with 30lbs of stick force.

The F4U-1 is(From Vought data IAS 10,000FT) 50lbs not exceeded.

77DPS at 200MPH
88DPS at 250MPH
94DPS at 300MPH
95DPS at 350MPH
64DPS at 400MPH with a limit to partial aileron throw to prevent overbalance.

Also there is roll data available on the P-51D, P-47D-40 and FG-1D avaibale in the 1989 report "End of the Arguement".

That data is 10,000FT 200Knots IAS

This data is better for the F6F-5

It shows 78DPS to the right and 61DPS to the left.

The FG-1D was 81DPS to the right and 73DPS to the left.

The P-51D was 75DPS to the right and 71DPS to the left.

The P-47D-40 was 74DPS to the right and 61DPS to the left.
 

Also the F4U-5 also had spring tabs on it's ailerons, rudder and elavator.  I have seen 180DPS claimed on this bird.

[butch2k]

According to the data i have on the 109F/G wing, roll rate at 480km/h was 95°/s.

[F4UDOA]

Butch2K,

Can you post that data. I had no idea the 109 could roll that well at 300MPH.

Is that AFDU data?

Are there stick forces listed?

BTW, is this Butch from the WW2 boards?