Originally posted by MiloMorai
Was the eliptical wing shape a fair trade for the H-P slats used on the 109?
It definietely didn`t worth it. Those large elliptical wings come with large drag during all flight conditions, and behave just as poor or worser during high angles of attack as other wings, as on the larger surface turbulance was more pronounced under G.
The automatic leading edge slats, first developed, patented by German pilot and engineer Gustav Lachmann in February 1918, whereas his compatriot Mader was experminting with trailing edge slats at Junkers, as did Handley-Page. After the war Lachmann joined the Handley-Page firm, bringing his patent.
Slats deploy only before the stall happens - , greatly increasing lift and control, and keep up the airflow which would be lost by that time to turbulance on "normal" wing designs. Under these conditions, they increase lift mightily, by 60% compared to normal wings close to stall.
On the top of that, there`s no wing area and associtated drag increase, as the slats only deploy when they are needed. This way it was possible to build planes with with smaller wings and small drag, making the plane fast, yet still possess equal, and, under G, even better stall and handling characteristics than a plane simply designed with big wings and large drag. It proved tp be a major advancment in wing design, and was used by a number of advanced fighters during the war - by practically all Messerscmitts, ie. Bf 109, Bf 110, Me 210, Me 410, Me 262, and the LaGG-3, La-5 and La-7. Today a great number of modern fighters, like the F-14 Tomcat, continue to use this device.
