Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: Sakai on August 20, 2003, 07:51:07 AM
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Reading Len Deighton's "Fighter" about the Battle of Britain and he details the competing aircraft and states that the 109e turned inside both the Hurricane and Spitfire--though by a small margin.
Is this accurate? In AH I find the Hurri turns inside both the Spit and 109e and that the 109 is usually the poorest in a flat turn.
Sakai
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There was a paper published in the Aeronautical Journal (Feb. 2000) by two members of the University of Manchester's School of Engineering (Aerospace Division), which discussed the claims by Deighton.
They concluded that the calculations quoted by Deighton to support the claim that the 109 could turn tighter than the Hurricane or Spitfire were "in significant error." One major issue seems to have been that the calculations assumed a turning speed of 300 mph and used the following values for available G:
Me109E - 8.1
Hurricane I - 7.5
Spitfire I - 7.0
The authors estimated that sustaining such a turn would take about three times as much power as any of those aircraft actually had. A recalculation with revised estimates for the maximum sustainable turning speed (using 160 mph for the Hurricane and Spitfire, 180 mph for the 109 at about 2-3G each) resulted in the Hurricane having the tightest turn, with the Spitfire slightly worse and the 109 trailing by quite a bit.
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Originally posted by Guppy
There was a paper published in the Aeronautical Journal (Feb. 2000) by two members of the University of Manchester's School of Engineering (Aerospace Division), which discussed the claims by Deighton.
They concluded that the calculations quoted by Deighton to support the claim that the 109 could turn tighter than the Hurricane or Spitfire were "in significant error." One major issue seems to have been that the calculations assumed a turning speed of 300 mph and used the following values for available G:
Me109E - 8.1
Hurricane I - 7.5
Spitfire I - 7.0
The authors estimated that sustaining such a turn would take about three times as much power as any of those aircraft actually had. A recalculation with revised estimates for the maximum sustainable turning speed (using 160 mph for the Hurricane and Spitfire, 180 mph for the 109 at about 2-3G each) resulted in the Hurricane having the tightest turn, with the Spitfire slightly worse and the 109 trailing by quite a bit.
Thank you so much!
I was thinking that the Hurri has been modeled as being a tighter turner and recall reading Spit pilots who mock fought Hurris saying the Hurri could easily out turn them. Now, that is not all there is to dogfighting, but in low scrum flat turns, yes.
Thanks
Sakai
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i'd agree with the assessment (revised) as being comparable to what we see in AH... however with the 109e having a nice engine, a little judicious use of the vert in yo-yo's can overcome a flat-turning hurri-dweeb or at least keep the 109 alive til some help hopefully arrives, preferrably axis.
:D
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I read quite a while ago (and i wish i could remember where), that one of the reasons the emil would not turn with the spit was due to it being structurally weak. The worry (justified or not, I don't know) was that under high "g" loading the wings would fold, and as a result the emil pilots would not try to get the best out of the airframe (IE what it was published to be able to do).
Anyone know if there is any truth to this?
RTR
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I think Deighton must have been playing WWIIOL.
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I don't know what it is about posting documents to show or prove a point that makes me so happy. I just feel all fuzzy:D
There is no mention of model but the date of the test is 1940 for you can durive models from that.
(http://www.geocities.com/spades53.geo/pro_109_turn_1.jpg)
(http://www.geocities.com/spades53.geo/pro_109_turn_2.jpg)
(http://www.geocities.com/spades53.geo/pro_109_turn_3.jpg)
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Deighton had it wrong. Check HERE (http://www.fourthfightergroup.com/eagles/spit1.html)
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Originally posted by RTR
I read quite a while ago (and i wish i could remember where), that one of the reasons the emil would not turn with the spit was due to it being structurally weak. The worry (justified or not, I don't know) was that under high "g" loading the wings would fold, and as a result the emil pilots would not try to get the best out of the airframe (IE what it was published to be able to do).
Anyone know if there is any truth to this?
RTR
Yes AFAIK the 109E pilots were cautious about pulling high G's. Whether this was a justified fear I don't know.
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I believe I've read that the 109 pilots were afraid to "get the most" out of their planes because they would become frightened when the leading edge slats opened. From what I understand they made one hellacious bang, and the plane would shudder like you'd just been hit. I've also read that with the slats opened the 109E could almost hang with a Spit I in a dogfight, it seems to be pretty close in AH.
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Quoting a former Lancaster pilot turned aviation author.
"As a historian,Len Deighton writes great fiction.
His B of B book is not considered one of the better efforts on that particular campaign
Dan/Slack
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Len Deighton's book makes quite a read, so does his "blood Tears and Folly", but this particular bit he simply has wrong.
I don't really know why. His graph is wrong, and against both tests and actual combat experience.
Read Jeffrey Quill's "Spitfire" for a better account and comparison ;)
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Originally posted by mw
Deighton had it wrong. Check HERE (http://www.fourthfightergroup.com/eagles/spit1.html)
I'm not questioning that Deighton was wrong, but the test report you posted is utterly biased as their conclusions reveal:
The Me 109 is inferior as a fighter to the Hurricane or Spitfire.
Now the Spit is one thing, I don't think it was superior but rather equal. However that they found the 109E to be inferior to the Hurricane is outrageous.
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GScholz: Your thinking and outrage are no concern of mine. Take it up with the British Testing Establishment. They're still around. A hurri would have a rather easy time of it in a close in 1 v 1 dogfight with a 109 under 10,000 feet. In other circumstances it may well be bested. Actually, come to think of it, I have a couple of first hand comparitive trials reports of Hurri 1 vrs 109E. Yes, the British thought the Hurri pretty much owned the 109 in a knife fight. The conclusions of the Aeroplane and Armament Establishment (A&AEE) and Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) are interesting and worthy of note. Dismiss them if it pleases you.
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Is the Tempest Testing site still around?
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somthing to keep in mind is fuel loads. The 109s would have had about half, and the spits and hurries would have been closer to full fuel during the BoB.
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Not neccessarily. There is no reason to take off with full tanks if you're just scrambling to intercept incoming bandits in your area. It's more logical that RAF fighters would have launched with partially full tanks to reduce weight and increase climb rate and combat performance.
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Originally posted by mw
GScholz: Your thinking and outrage are no concern of mine. Take it up with the British Testing Establishment. They're still around. A hurri would have a rather easy time of it in a close in 1 v 1 dogfight with a 109 under 10,000 feet. In other circumstances it may well be bested. Actually, come to think of it, I have a couple of first hand comparitive trials reports of Hurri 1 vrs 109E. Yes, the British thought the Hurri pretty much owned the 109 in a knife fight. The conclusions of the Aeroplane and Armament Establishment (A&AEE) and Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) are interesting and worthy of note. Dismiss them if it pleases you.
Touchy, aren't we? The 109E outclassed the Hurricane in every aspect of performance except turning. If they conclude that the Hurricane was superior to the 109E then they must be of the opinion that turning performance is the only aspect that counts in aerial combat. Strange then how every fighter in WWII got faster and heavier as the war progressed, as opposed to getting better at turning. War is not a 1 on 1 duel. War is all about teamwork.
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Not neccessarily. There is no reason to take off with full tanks if you're just scrambling to intercept incoming bandits in your area. It's more logical that RAF fighters would have launched with partially full tanks to reduce weight and increase climb rate and combat performance.
Not likely. Since they didn't have AWACS in the era, analysis of what the radar suggests is largely based on only heading, altitude, and speed of the target object. It is true, that some sorts of data are better provided by radar operators than the 'dot dar', but still, they didn't get real-time updates.
This would mean planes would have to search the directed areas. There could be decoys and clever ploys to fool radar, and once it became clear, planes would have to redirect themselves immediately to the next point - something, which is impossible if they are fueld up for only one search&destroy engagement in a local area.
The defenders are usually the 'waiters'. Passive local defense as seen in the BoB require planes to be ready in the air, and relocate themselves according to the attacker's moves. Thus, in a sense, the attacking side with precise mission directives would have exact requirements on the amount of fuel needed(which was still too short, in the case of the Bf109s), but the defenders would never know whether or not a certain amount of fuel would be sufficient or not - thus, it is likely that carrying maximum amount of fuel available was mandatory.
Even in AH, only small limited engagements and low-alt furballs are likely to be fought with something like 50% fuel. For instance, in a furball near a CV, I'd take a F6F-5 or a Seafire with just about 50% fuel.
However, if one looks in a wider aspect, and prepares to defend the CV by means of CAP, then I would take the F4U-1 with larger internal fuel load with 100%, since I never know exactly when the enemy would show up.
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GScolz: The Hurricane also out-rolled the 109, but using high-speed and group tactics, there was not much of contest.
However, the 109E was still in service when the Hurry IIC came along......now that is a bit tougher
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Yes the Emil served a long time. First as a frontline fighter and after being phased out by the Fritz in 1941 it served as a fighter bomber on the Russian front.
The Hurri IIC is still markedly slower than the Emil, although it could climb just as well up to 10k.
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Originally posted by Ecliptik
Not neccessarily. There is no reason to take off with full tanks if you're just scrambling to intercept incoming bandits in your area. It's more logical that RAF fighters would have launched with partially full tanks to reduce weight and increase climb rate and combat performance.
Not in WWII, nope. Who would take a Spit up with a partial tank to scour the channel coastline for 109s and 111s? Not I said the little red hen.
Sakai