Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: agent 009 on April 13, 2005, 01:57:31 AM
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For those interested in Merlin vs DB 601, this might be of interest. It's been round awhile, sorry if it's old news.
Re: Performance of Daimler-Benz engined Spitfire Vb?
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Reproduced below are four images of the DB605A engined Supermarine Spitfire Mk.Vb coded CJ+ZY...
Best wishes...
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Edited
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I posted this brief account on another thread.
P/O (Sous Lt) Bernard Scheidhauer and P/O (Sous/Lt) Henri de Bordas of 131 Sqn departed Westhampnett early on the afternoon of November 18th 1942 to undertake a Rhubarb to the Normandy peninsular.
Making land fall at St Aubin sur Mer they picked up and followed the Caen to Cherbourg railway attacking several targets along the way. During the sortie they were met by light flak and purposely avoided Carentan because of the concentration of flak in the area.
At the small town of Ecausseville, de Bordas lost sight of his partner, he continued to circle for as long as he could calling out on his RT but to no avail. He returned to Westhampnett.
Scheidhauer's aircraft (EN830) had suffered some sort of damage and started to loose fuel, his RT had also gone US. For some reason he headed west instead of north, after crossing a stretch of water he sighted land which he mistakenly thought was the Isle of Wight.
Picking out a suitable field he place his aircraft down into a wheels up landing. Coming to rest in a field of turnips close to Dielament Manor, Trinity.
Climbing from the aircraft he was met by several locals who informed him of his navigational error, he was in fact in German Occupied Jersey and not the Isle of Wight.
Scheidhauer tried to destroy the aircraft, he attempted to acquire some petrol to set fire to it, but none was available, he smashed the instrument panel as best he could and gave away various items of equipment to the gathering crowd.
The Germans arrived after about 20 mins and he was taken prisoner finally ending up at Stalag Luft 111.
En830 was dismantled and shipped to mainland Europe:-
it reached Echterdingen minus guns and ammunition, with the gun ports closed. The radio had been replaced with ballast, but it still had its original Merlin 45 engine. Several flights were made by Daimler-Benz pilots before conversion was attempted. A decision was made to replace the instruments and the entire electrical system with standard German equipment, because the Luftwaffe used a 24 volt system, whilst the RAF used a 12 volt standard.
After the Merlin engine was removed, it was discovered that the Spitfire's front fuselage cross-section was very close to that of the standard Bf.110G's engine cowling. A new engine support was designed, and a standard DB 605A-1 engine (Wk-Nr 00701990) was mounted to the fire wall. The work was completed at the Sindelfingen Daimler-Benz factory, near Echterdingen.
A 3.0 m. diameter Bf.109G propeller was added, together with the carburettor scoop from a Bf.109G. This made the modified Spitfire's all-up weight, without armament, 6,020 lb. (2730 kg). The armament weight was an estimated additional 661 lb. (300 kg.). Its weight with armament, before the engine modification, had been 6,680 lb. (3030 kg.).
After a couple of weeks, and with a new yellow-painted nose, the Spitfire returned to Echterdingen. Ellenreider was the first to try the aircraft. He was stunned that the aircraft had much better visibility and handling on the ground than the Bf.109. It took off before he realised it and had an impressive climb rate, around 70 ft. (21 m.) per second. Much of the Spitfire's better handling could be attributed to its lower wing loading.
The Spitfire's wing area was about 54 sq. ft. (5m²) greater than that of the Bf.109. The Messerschmitt was faster at low altitude, but at 11,000 ft. (3350 m) the speeds evened out. The DB 605A engine gave better performance, according to the test group, than the Merlin, which was rated 150 hp below the German engine. It gave the Spitfire a ceiling of 41,666 ft. (12700 m.), about 3,280 ft. (1000 m.) more than a Bf.109G with the same engine and 5,166 ft. (1475 m.) more than that of a Spitfire Mk.V.
After a brief period at Rechlin confirming the performance data, the modified Spitfire returned to Echterdingen to serve officially as a test bed. It was popular with the pilots in and out of working hours. Its career ended on 14th August, 1944, when a formation of US bombers attacked Echterdingen, wrecking two Ju.52s, three Bf.109Gs, a Bf.109H V1, an FW.190 V16, an Me.410 and the Spitfire. The remains of the hybrid Spitfire were scrapped at the Klemm factory at Böblingen
A small piece of EN830's wooden prop still exists from the crash landing in Jersey as does Scheidhauer’s flying helmet.
I hope that this is of interest
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Definately!
It has been here before, but I lost the link. Some short time ago I posted a link of hybrids, but I don't have it on this machine. Will look.
I was actually thinking of posting about the 109 Buchon, - Merlin powered.
Would love to know power and performance of that one.
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(http://www.luftarchiv.info/beute/england/spit2.jpg)
(http://www.luftarchiv.info/beute/england/short_stirling.jpg)
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I call it the 109fire :)
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Oh, the link to the site, - same text:
http://www.unrealaircraft.com/hybrid/spitfire.php
(http://www.unrealaircraft.com/hybrid/images/Hdbspit_1.jpeg)
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The ever-populat 109-Spit comparisons get very interesting when one looks into this hybrid, because it eliminates some comparison factors, making them simpler, - such as Prop, Engine, cowling vs airframe.
Read a little closer into the text. The messer boys are going to love this one, hehe, or perhaps the Spit lads. Well, it explains a lot of things...
" Ellenreider was the first to try the aircraft. He was stunned that the aircraft had much better visibility and handling on the ground than the Bf.109. It took off before he realised it and had an impressive climb rate, around 70 ft. (21 m.) per second"
AND THIS
"The DB 605A engine gave better performance, according to the test group, than the Merlin, which was rated 150 hp below the German engine. It gave the Spitfire a ceiling of 41,666 ft. (12700 m.), about 3,280 ft. (1000 m.) more than a Bf.109G with the same engine"
So, the Spitfire has definately higher parasite drag due to the bigger wings mostly, then presumably the canopy. It's higher speed at higher altitude is explained with it's lower wingloading, leading to flying at lower A.o.A. when the air becomes thinner. (Crossing of curves) Same goes with the ceiling, eventually the 109 will stall out.
Anyway, look at this:
"It gave the Spitfire a ceiling of 41,666 ft. (12700 m.), about 3,280 ft. (1000 m.) more than a Bf.109G with the same engine and 5,166 ft. (1475 m.) more than that of a Spitfire Mk.V."
(That is the full text, you can see that the later part is clipped in the previous paste)
You can from this definately see that the DB 605 has a better alt performance than a Merlin 45, however the Spitfire airframe allows a better alt performance.
So, where does the Merlin 61 bring it ;)
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I got those Messerspit performance graphs, trouble is that it appears quite some of the Spit`s equipemtn of several hundreds lbs worth was taken out, making the comparision to the original Spit a bit of apples and oranges.
It also has a Bf 109G graph for comparision, no subtype given but I presume it`s a G-6/trop or something like that, given the sucky performance and weight data (3100kg), doing just 620 kph (G-2 supposed to do 650, the G-6 630. A trop filter would kill 10kph speed according to my docs).
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Firstly, it seems to have a very close weight to the original Spitfire.
Secondly, it is mentioned in the article that the performance comparison is with a 109G with the same type of engine, which I understood to be the same power+prop.
Anyway, compared to the initial climb of 109G on 1.42 I have, this hybrid is very well above.
Somewhere I saw something of Hurricanes with DB601's in them.
They were faster than the originals, however, those may have been powered with 2 blade props and a very early RR.
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Ok, more data.
A fully loaded Spit V is about 6700-6800 lbs.
A 109G with DB605 running on 1,3 ata is from a sheet I've got, roughly 7100 lbs. That one is from late 1943.
Our Hybrid is lighter, 6020 lbs, estimated to be some 6680 lbs with ammoload.
The SL climb rate is 21 m/s for the Hybrid
The SL climb rate is some 17 m/s from the 109 graph.
For the Spit V, I don't know, - I have one number 14 m/s running on 9 boost at SL, topping with a better figure though, so maybe this is all logical.
Then these:
The one Hurricane fitted with a DB601A engine for comparison with the Merlin-engined version was tested early in 1941. The conversion was extremely successful, and experimental aircraft displayed better take-off performance and climb rate than either the standard Hurricane or the Bf 109 E-3 and was only slightly slower than the latter.
Here's the beast :
(http://www.unrealaircraft.com/hybrid/images/dbhurri.gif)
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Interesting, a Hurrimess.
Ze vun-o-niner was not, ( I'm sure y'all know this ), desinged to have a massive 2000 hp motor up front like it eventually did. The D & E models had 950 & 1150-approx motors. Which weighed much less. One 109 pilot mentioned that the big motor altered the ceter of gravity, ( to the forward ), which widened turn circle.
It is still amazing that they got that big motor into such a small airframe & kept it competitive til 45.
Rall metioned, ( I know,Rall again! ), that he didn't like slats, would've preferred a larger wing instead.
I'll try & find this quote.
When I win the lottery I will make a 109 G-9 model with changed landing gear, extra guns in wing root, & Yak 3 type scoops-maybe. & a new front canopy piece. Heated cockpit & hydraulic boosted controls.
Call it either G-9 or K-5.
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Here it is. Punch in Rall in Finland & the whole thing will come up. He mentions the 47 & 38 presented no real problems. Buhligen said the same in the book "The aces Speak" by Edward Sims. He said 38 was easy to burn, & 47 too heavy, certain maneuvers it just couln't do. Steinhoff said the 38 was the best though. The J model could outclimb & outturn Mustang.
First of all he didn't like the slats in the 109, he more of wished to have a larger wing than these slats on the 109 His favorite Messerschmitt was the Bf109F-4. He said it could tangle with anything the enemy could put up and was the best of 109's, not too heavy etc.
Later on he mentioned that the Russian pilots weren't some dumb target drones, but gave them a real challenge to tangle with. Especially the Guards Regiment's were tough and proud opponents. As interesting side not he said that in the Southern Front VVS had more than 1/3 of their planes of lend-lease types like Spitfire, P39 etc.
Conditions were rough, they had to live in tents and moved from field to another pretty often. He didn't call the fields airfields but "lawns"..usually they were a place made suitable for flight operations and were hastily made to accomondate a few planes. He gave great respect to the work mechanics did to keep the planes airworthy.
When asked about 109 vs. enemy planes he answered that the most dangerous plane in the west was P51D. He had flown the captured planes, including P38, P47 and P51. P51 was according to the ace fast, good guns and long range with pretty good maneuverability. 109 could still hold it's own against it.
Oh yeah, one last thing, he also said the F-4 could follow any fighter in the world through any maneuver.
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Yeah, he loved the F4.
"Highly maneuverable aircraft" he said.
And yet, in a banking climb, one would not catch a Spitfire.
BTW, this DB605 MesserSpit has rather similar specs as a Spit IX with similar power. From the little data we have there we sadly only know ROC at SL, then at which alt it was faster than a contemporary 109G. So, sad to have so little of it.
BTW, there was also of course, the Spitmesser, - the Spanish Buchon. I wonder if there is some data available about it's power, weight and performance.
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The one really meaningful design difference between Bf109 and Spitfire is the wing.
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I for one would be interested in data about the Buchons and the Avias.
All that that I really know about the Avias is that they had not so benigh flying characteristics, had unsuitable Jumos instead of DBs and that the Israeli's got some kills in them... against Spitfires too :D
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While the Buchon runs on a Merlin..
Always thought the Avia ran on a licence built DB, well..
Will look and see if I find something.
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I did read a story bout Moulders & Canadian Spit pilot having a go. The Canadian claimed to be the best in his squad. he saw a 109 flying by itself & thought cool, an easy kill. They engaged & went through all the maneuvers, scissors etc & to the amazement of the Canadian he could not line up a kill shot. This went on for awhile & ended in draw.
Next day he heard over the radio that the pilot was moulders. He said man I 'm glad he wasn't flying a Spit!
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Hehe, nice story, - never heard it.
It was different when Mölders met Malan, the south african sailor.
Mölders had a better start, but Malan still riddled his plane with bullets.
AFAIK Mölders bunted away, and got away, but crashlanded and was hospitalized thereby ending further participation in the BoB.
What a guy anyway. You know, he was very airsick, but slowly (and probably after filling many a bag) overcame it!!!
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Speaking of Malan. There was an interview with one of his guys recently. Malan ordered an attack on 2 planes, they ended up being Hurries. The pilots responsible for shootdown were raked over coals. Malan claimed he ordered pilots to breakoff. Both of his pilots claimed he lied to cover his ass.
This was in wings or air classics.
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Interesting ! Could you post this strory for us ? EDIT : I mean the canuck vs Moelders strory.
Angus, actually Moelders shot down Spit in that engagements, then Malan peppered his plane but he could disengage. I dont think he crashlanded, but on the ground they noticed he was wounded on the leg, and this took him out of action from Bob for about a month.
"On 28 July 1940, during his first flight with his new unit, he succeeded in downing a Spitfire, but his aircraft was then hit by the enemy aircraft. Severely wounded in the legs, Mölders just managed to make an emergency landing at the airfield at Wissant in France. It was not until a month later that he was able to return to combat, most likely flying the Bf 109 E-4 W.Nr. 2404 (photographed on 31 August with 32 victory bars), as well as W.Nr. 3737, (shot down over England while being flown by Hptm Asmus on 25 October, with no stab markings according to the crash report, but 49 victory bars). He quickly brought his score up by downing 28 British fighters during the remainder of the Battle of Britain, including his 40th, a Spitfire over Dungeness, on 20 September, for which he was awarded the Oak Leaves (No. 2) the next day. On 22 October he downed three RAF Hurricanes to become the first Luftwaffe pilot to reach a score of 50 aerial victories. By the end of the Battle of Britain he had a total of 54 victories, and he would add one more before the end of the year. "
So he did not loose much of BoB, and in October 1940 he was one of the lucky first to draw first bloodin the new 109 F against the RAF with quite a success (Galland was anoter lucky b*stard).
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Mölders managed to disengage, - a credit to his skills.
I am rather sure he had to bellyland or something of the sort, but wouldn't put too much money on it. I have some description of this in one of Deighton's books, will look and post.
Anyway, neither Galland or Mölders were that lucky, - remember Mölders got shot down and POWed before over France, and Galland got downed some times, including by the Bader gang.
But both were superb tacticians, hands down the finest in the world at the time, AND very skilful pilots with a passion for their "job"
hehe, someone is gonna be surprized, but I am a kind of a Galland-Mölders fanboy, - hereby confessed ;)
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Originally posted by Angus
Mölders managed to disengage, - a credit to his skills.
I am rather sure he had to bellyland or something of the sort, but wouldn't put too much money on it. I have some description of this in one of Deighton's books, will look and post.
Anyway, neither Galland or Mölders were that lucky, - remember Mölders got shot down and POWed before over France, and Galland got downed some times, including by the Bader gang.
But both were superb tacticians, hands down the finest in the world at the time, AND very skilful pilots with a passion for their "job"
hehe, someone is gonna be surprized, but I am a kind of a Galland-Mölders fanboy, - hereby confessed ;)
Tis OK Angus :) It is possible to like 109 drivers and Spit drivers at the same time :)
I've always been a fan of the Emil drivers myself. Back in an old AW scenario of the B of B, I was GL of an Emil group and focused in on II/JG54 as I always liked to have a historical background for whatever group I was part of in scenarios. It was good excuse to add to my 109 side of the home library :)
Most of us old model builders had built Revell's 109F in Werner Moelder's markings way back when too.
Dan/CorkyJr
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Originally posted by Angus
" Ellenreider was the first to try the aircraft. He was stunned that the aircraft had much better visibility and handling on the ground than the Bf.109. It took off before he realised it and had an impressive climb rate, around 70 ft. (21 m.) per second"
[/B]
Don´t forget : no weapons (300kg less weight)
300kg is ~11% compared to 2700kg flight weigth.
Total climb rate is assumed to 26m/s (glide rate + climb rate) so you can assume a loss of at least 2.6m/s climbrate with weapons what brings the spit down to ~18m/s.
niklas
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yeah....which is still better than a contemporary 109. 18 ms estimated are still better than 17 real, - 11% less weight make some 20% more climb.
to add insult to injury, the hybe starts shining after much more altitude...given the same engine, and has a higher ceiling.
So, a speed graph gives the 109 as superior until a certain alt when the lines cross, and in the climb the hybe has the card all the way.
A more lifting wing with very similar parasite drag.
(Spit canopy has higher drag and the fuselage is perhaps slightly wider)
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Well, the story bout Moulders is from a book in my storage. Will get it up someday.
Yes Moulders was shot down in battle of France. Galland twice in one day, & perhaps on his last mission. Not bad for over 400 sorties. He did get at least 3-4 Brit aces including Birdie Wilson who had 600 missions & shot down many V-1's. He was Gallands 40th shootdown. I think they were a bit more good than lucky. Buhligen had 800 missions with 112 kills, & was never shot down or wounded once.
109 F-4 could outdive Spit. Johnny Johnson said so in his book. He said Spit could not be dived as steeply as 109. The F was faster than Mk 5 Spit, perhaps better roll. Certainly better acceleration with direct injection.
There were 4-5 channel coast aces with 50 or more Spits in their bag. Priller, Galland & a couple more.
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Found one anecdote where a Spit actually caught a 109 in a dive by diving steeper! It was Duncan Smith, his machine was probably a Mk IX vs a 109F, not sure though.
The 109 tried to escape by diving shallowly, Smitty took it steepere on full boost, levelled out on his low six, caught him and shot down in flames.
But those I belive, are exceptions.
Of course the Spit I could not dive steeply, - well not at once, because of the carb. But that got fixed, and I belive the highest speed a WW2 prop fighter ever got in a dive was actually a Spitfire.
The 109F had the roll rate problem of the Emil fixed, and later G variants rolled even better AFAIK.
Same with the Spit V, but therer were some quirks and not all of them were the same. But the clipped ones rolled almost like a 190.
Anyway, just read about a trick how to shake a 109. The higher stickforces on the elevators meant that in a steep dive the recovery was much slower. So, a vicious dive or a split-S, if followed in by the 109 would with a quick climb, leave the 109 much lower (and quite some distance away)
Some greedy messer pilots even hit the ground because of this.
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Originally posted by Angus
The 109F had the roll rate problem of the Emil fixed, and later G variants rolled even better AFAIK.
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Hmm, the only diffo in the 109G was that the wings were reinforced, Ailerons were the same.
This may mean stiffer wings, and less loss of roll rate at high speed due to wing twist, but I think the diffo is minimal. Some 109G/K received geared tabs for the ailerons, but only a small number, these would improve roll rate at higher speeds by reduction of control forces and allowing greater deflection (they gave quite impressive results).
Anyway, just read about a trick how to shake a 109. The higher stickforces on the elevators meant that in a steep dive the recovery was much slower. So, a vicious dive or a split-S, if followed in by the 109 would with a quick climb, leave the 109 much lower (and quite some distance away)
Some greedy messer pilots even hit the ground because of this. [/B]
Correct, that`s what Closermann said, too : "I tried to fire on a '109' that I spotted in the chaos. Not possible, I couldn't get the correct angle. My plane juddered on the edge of a stall. It was comforting that the Spitfire turned better than the '109'! Certainly at high speed - but not at low speed.".
Elevator Stick forces were much less on the Spit than 109, 4lbs/G vs 15-20/G.. so at high speeds it was much easier to pull up, but it was also a double edged weapon, one could also pull just too much and overload the airframe..
Different design philosophy, both were used on many other designs, but usually, 10 lbs/G was said to be the ideal, not to heavy, not too light (ie. p47, fw190).
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This stick pull was not related to a turn, just a pull-up.
Anyway, it also relates to the entering of a steep turn, where many G's are playing.
At really high speeds the difference would have quite a bit, since test reports state that at very high speeds the 109 Pilot could not pull enough G's to black out. (I rather tend to think that would have been fixed after the E model, - or more could be obtained by adding trim). Well, sometimes a blackout is better than an express funeral....
Anyway, as we know, the close c of g of especially the Spitfire MkV caused it to be easily possible for the pilot to enter a turn with 12 g's or more, squashing the pilot and disintergrating the aircraft. This was fixed using bob weights from that model onwards, so basically you could calibrate the stick force that way.
About slow speed turning I agree that the Messer should have been on par within a certain speed range. (similar models in time), but it would have come down to the pilot, and in a slowing down fight the Spit would probably have been able to bite into the turn again, having a slower stalling speed.
109 Basic: Don't turnfight a Spitfire.
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Spit dive stuff.
Member # 1126
posted 01 December, 2004 12:23 AM
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Just finished reading Gabreskis book. he said the Mk 9 spit did everything well except dive
& this,
Have just come across some data from Canadian Spit pilot Bill Mcrae that is sheds some light in this area, he said,
;There were disturbing rumors going around about Spitfires shedding ailerons in the dive. We were told that, at extremely high speeds, the trailing edge of both ailerons tended to lift, not differentially as they were designed to do for normal control, but both together. Travel beyond a certain limit would tear them off, with drastic results. To provide us with a means of determining this failure point, white & yellow lines were painted on the inboard chord of the ailerons. With the the control column centred, the white line would usually appear during the dive. If the yellow line appeared we were in the danger zone, and should reduce speed. At the same time we were supposed to keep on target - and make sure we didn't fly into the ground!
He also mentioned effects high speeds had on elevator controls which created dive pullout probs, but managed to solve this by using different dive procedure.
It is true Spit hit highest mach # in dive, & 47 hit lowest. But it is general pilot consensus that 47 was best diver in Europe. Bob Johnsons book is a good place to read up on 47.
The MK 14 Spit had the bubble which like the Mustang D created turbulence problems. Required constant trimming in level flight.
Mustang C could outdive D as it had razorback instead of bubble. D could not be dived safely past 505-525 mph. C could though. 190 could hit 580 safely. Don't know bout 109. Willi Batz once hit 590 mph, but wings were bent, fuselage wrecked. Plane writeoff.
Johnny Johnson said MK 9 was best.
Ginger Lacey flew the 14 in Burma. he did a loop over field & missed the deck by 4 feet. he ordered all his pilot's not to do any loops at low altitude in 14 Spit.
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Jeffrey Quill's book about Spitfire test piloting are extemely informative with respect to the previous 2 post, an excellent read as well, highly recommended
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I have Quills book, and it is very good indeed.
And, I'd love to have Gabby's book.
Now, more anecdotes.
Harry Broadhurst said the Mk IX on +25 boost was the best. Incredibly agile.
T.E.Jonsson flew the Mustang III, - diving with the 109's and 190's, no problem. And running with them, no problem. Turning, no problem either, - he actually mentions the 190 as the more dangerous in the close. But, he complains about the armament, 4x .50 which he found to be inferior to 2xhizooka + 4x.303.
And, what probably bothered Lacey was that the Mk XIV accelerates quite fast in the dive, a lot of difference from the IX, say alone the V or I.
I've seen a Griffon Spit doing endless looping sequences, the shape of "O" basically. Bloody amazing, probably the best of stunts I've seen, since the guy was practically licking the ground at very high speed, again and again and again...
The elevator authority plus the stall characteristics seemed to be completely superb.
BTW, I have a book by one of Quill's boys, Tony Bartley, sqn ldr 111 amongst others. Quite a tale. A lot of it is in a diary form.
Rather a rare one I belive.
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Originally posted by agent 009
The MK 14 Spit had the bubble which like the Mustang D created turbulence problems. Required constant trimming in level flight.
I think actually very few of them got bubble canopy, most I have seen has the same as older Spitfires. AFAIK FR variants came with bubbles because of their role.
Mustang C could outdive D as it had razorback instead of bubble. D could not be dived safely past 505-525 mph. C could though. 190 could hit 580 safely. Don't know bout 109. Willi Batz once hit 590 mph, but wings were bent, fuselage wrecked. Plane writeoff.
Interesting, I have comment on just that ! :
American pilot Robert C.Curtis remmembers :
"My flight chased 12 109s south of Vienna. They climbed and we followed, unable to close on them. At 38,000 feet I fired a long burst at one of them from at least a 1000 yards, and saw some strikes. It rolled over and dived and I followed but soon reached compressibility with severe buffeting of the tail and loss of elevator control. I slowed my plane and regained control, but the 109 got away.
On two other occasions ME 109s got away from me because the P 51d could not stay with them in a high-speed dive. At 525-550 mph the plane would start to porpoise uncontrollably and had to be slowed to regain control. The P 51 was redlined at 505 mph, meaning that this speed should not be exceeded. But when chasing 109s or 190s in a dive from 25-26,000 it often was exceeded, if you wanted to keep up with those enemy planes. The P 51b, and c, could stay with those planes in a dive. The P 51d had a thicker wing and a bubble canopy which changed the airflow and brought on compressibility at lower speeds"
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So, the anecdotes are in harmony.
Razorback P51's had no trouble diving after the 109's or 190's, while the bubbles did. Note that the difference is rather marginal though, run for a few seconds with a 10 kph difference and there is not much ground gained. The key is acceleration between A and B amongst other things.
Anyway, where does that leave the razorback P47's??????
Many German aces say there was no way escaping a P47 in a dive, would that relate to acceleration in the dive (where the P47 was definatley very good) or the end speed??
BTW, P51's, and P47's could still roll at very high speed, where the 109 was quite stuck. And the 109 had from a high speed dive, a rather slow and flat recovery. Wonder how that compares with P51 and P47.
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As for 109 being stuck. It is usually reported to be the case, however Tommy Hayes reported differently. he chased a 109 near Berlin in a dive. he said it veered right & in his Mustang he "could not follow" as his controls were froze.
Now as battle was over Berlin, one cannot claim wing tanks were full. And as Tommy Hayes was no beginner, one cannot likewise claim he was not familiar with aircraft or was afraid to push aircraft too hard.
This was from an interview withn him in one of the usual mags, wings. I forget which.
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So, that was a P51D right?
Anyway, anyone have an idea about the razorback P47's?
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Yah it was a D.
I read a british test report on 109, he said I was relieved to find it,( 109 ) like our Hurries & Spits also froze up after 400 mph. This was an E during Bob.
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Yeah, some drawbacks.
1. Rolling was practically impossible above 400 mph, same with the Spit.
2. Cramped space and short stick hindered leverage.
3. Heavier stickforces in the vertical.
So basically, the 109 took a much flatter recovery out of a high speed maneuver. When found out, the RAF taught this as a possible evasive tactic.
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regarding leverage, I believe the F had different seating positions to correct to a degree this problem. Someone raised cain with Willy over this & he changed it quick.
Yep, cramped cockpit, but some really liked that as one became a part of the machine. The seat was more like a recliner which meant unlike Spit & Mustang where seat was more like straight up chair, the 109 pilot could pull more G's without blood running down legs. 190 was likewise setup.
G suits were employed by Spit pilots later in war to alleviate this prob.
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Hehe, you did read a lot.
The seat was as in a racecar. Some liked it, some not.
The Spit actually had a stepped rudder pedal for the same effect.
And the G suits, yes, they were in the business, but not much.
AFAIK, late spits could hold some 6 g's with practically no loss of alt. I have some text of this somewhere.
The early 109 was however too heavy on the elevator to be able to push the pilot into a blackout at high speed.
Bunting would get the redout quicker anyway, hehe.
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FAA made extensive use of the G-suits in 1945. Info on them in They Gave Me A Seafire[/b]
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The RAF tried them in 44 I belive.
See "Hurricanes over Burma"
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Afaik there were two types of G-suits, one was by the Brits and the other by the Yanks. The former used water, and was heavy and ungainly, basically a failure. The Yank one used air pressure, I think that was the Berger suit, from the top of my head. They raised the G-tolerance of the pilot by about 1G, about the same as the reclined seat of German fighters...
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You could be right there. Will post from a book on Sunday.
The reclined seat helpe with G's, and the British version was the stepped rudder pedals, to help out a little bit as well.
The G suit was supposed to aid the pilot from passing out, sustaining 6 g's constant. The norm is that 5 g's for 5 secs puts almost anybody into a blackout.
Bear in mind that at high speed the Messer could not be pulled into tight G maneuvers enough to black out the pilot.
So, not much use for a G suit there...
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I once read a comment from Spit pilot about the G-suit. He was draining water out & the civvies looked puzzled as he did it. He had just been shot down. As I recall he was rather positive about it. Wish now I had this article.