The enigma of the Bf-109

[Angus]

I have heard Humble's number of 5% of 109's crashing on landing.
However...

1. This could be many other WW2 fighter stats, - there were lots of crashings.
2. It did not kill all the pilots.

I can't remember the source, the only thing for sure is that I read this more than 4 years ago (I remember quoting this in 2000/2001), - so, I'll find it some day.

As for pilot quotes, those are always welcome, so read the one on my sig carefully.

Now Naudet
"@Angus: Knights, you should know that Angus i got you atleast once.  Or don't you fly under the GameID Angus?"

Yes I do have the same name online , I don't change names.
Same with you?
So you shot me. Maybe I shot you sometime, have no idea.
But I fly either as a bish or rook. All kinds of planes, but 109 is sort of todays favourite.
Let's wing up some fine day, be it the CT or I go Kniggety, shall we

[Kurfürst]

Yugoslav airforce was an interesting mix of both western and russian airplanes including P-47, Yak-3 and Bf-109.
That gave pilots a unique chance to fly and compare the aircrafts from "both sides".

Copied and pasted from ABG forum:

»The main shortage of Jak 3 was its obsolete technique. Its cockpit was spartan, everything had to do be done manually. Particular problem was when you had to get air compressor into its second gear when rapidly changing altitude. In such situations engine is not receiving the right mixture of air and fuel and is loosing power, so you had to be very concentrated in doing it all synchronized and in exact moment. The same applies for the oil cooler which was adjusted with an mechanical wheel, during the dive the cooler had to be closed and during the climb opened as the engine needed more air. All of it was automatio on the Messerschmitt. In Jak 3, throttle handle and the propeler pitch handle were beside each other and you had to move them simultaneously, so all the time you pulled the throttle you had to think about the pitch. So imagine when you are in a midst of a combat, chasing and being chased, turning the wheels, setting the handles, adjusting the pitch, setting the gunsight and at the same time manouvring and trying to hit your enemy. Messerschmitt had it all automatic.
Messerschmitt had ailerons (I think this is not a right translation but I really cant remember the exact english word for "predkrilca" my note: He was actually referring to leading edge slots) to prevent it from stalling and Jak stalled even on highest speed. In sharp turns Messerschmitt provoked a black-out and that was not possible with the Jak since he would stall. On other hand Jak easily came out of the spin and Messerschmitt stalled slowly but when it did it was hard to get it out due to small command surfaces which would become »shaded«. Therefore it was neccessary to give a hard contra with the food pedals, full gas or sometimes to lower the gear. Messerschmitt had the electrical loading of weapons, and Jak mechanical, I remember how it clicked.
In all, Jak 3 had marvelous flying performance and excellent manouvrebility, it was invented for peacetime flying and aerobatics, but you had to have »a hand« for it. On other hand Messerschmitt was much more simple to fly, especially in air combat, of course once you learned to cope its small rudder on take-off and landing.«

[Kurfürst]

"Apart from performance, it was also very important the plane to possess a sort of 'goodwill'.
The Bf 109 - except for take-offs - was an easy-to-fly airplane, and in addition it brought back the pilot even with serious damage. My plane, 'Blue 1' received hits multiple times, in one case when attacking a Boston formation the skin on the left wing was ripped off on half square meter, the main spar was damaged and the undercarriage tire was blown to pieces, yet it dropped without a problem and the plane landed just like it was a training session. Not to mention it`s valuable quality that it never caught fire during landing on the belly after a fatal hit, in contrast to many other type, with which such emergency procedure put us at a serious risk because of the danger of fire and explosion. To summerize : we loved the Bf 109.  

- Pinter Gyula,
2nd Lt., RHAF. 101st Fighter Regiment, 1991. Flown with 101st Pumas, 1944/45, on 109G-6 and later.
Source : Punka György`s 'Messer'


Note : 'training session', he says 'school circle', ie. to take off, then land, not sure of the english equivalent.



Former Soviet pilot also had very high opinion on the Bf 109G.



A.S. - Author
I.K. - major Kozhemyako


**********************************************
A.S What do you think about German fighter planes Messerschmitt BF-109G?

I.K. I think of them with a lot of respect.
BF109 was very good, very high scale fighter plane. If was superior to our Yaks in speed and vertical combat. It wasn`t 100% superiority, but still. Very dynamic plane. I`ll be honest with you, it was my dream during my war years, to have a plane like this. Fast and superior on vertical, but that didn`t happen.

A.S. What was so specific for BF-109G, anything you can point out?

I.K. I have to tell you, that Messer had one extremely positive thing, it was able to be successful fight Yak`s at 2000m and Aircobras at 6000m. This is truly unique ability and valuable. Of course, here Yak and P-39 were inferior. As far as combat on different altitudes, BF109 was universal, like La-5.
A.S. Well, i guess 90% of success in all altitudes belongs to its engine…


I.K. I wouldn`t doubt it.

A.S. But if you look at this from another perspective, this uniqueness of BF109 could have played fatal role when it encountered aicraft that was specialized and optimized for combat on certain altitudes. You already know that Barkhorn on the question about best fighter of WW2 answered: On high altitudes P-51 and low altitudes Yak-9, Surprized?


I.K. Yes, Very Surprized. But, I guess if I was fighting in Me109 I would have look at Yak-9 differently, who knows.

A.S. How would you grade weapons on BF109G comparing to Yak1?

I.K. Yaks weapons were more powerful. maybe that`s why german fighters were trying to avoid head to head attacks.


A.S. I can`t agree with you. Yak can`t have more powerful weaponry because it has only 1 12.7mm MG (UBS) while BF109G has 2 13mm MG-13s.

I.K. German high caliber machine guns were rather weak, just a name "high caliber". They couldn`t even penetrate armored plate behind pilot, needed armor piercing bullet for that, and even then from close distance. But if german pilot would open fire from 200-300m with regular bullets and under sharp angle, it couldn`t even penetrate block of M105, could only bust thru the cowling covers.. Same for armored glass, couldnt penetrate it. My opinion on 13mm MG, they could only be effective from close distances, shooting at point blank ranges could bring you some success. I think 1 UBS in combat was more effective in combat then 2 MG13s combined.
20mm german cannon was excellent, unlike MG`s. Very powerful, not worse then out SHVAK.


A.S. I am surprised that you think that Me109 was capable in the turning combat. There is general opinion that BF109 was rather average when it comes to combat with many manuevers. It`s very common opinion that BF109G with its technical and tactical characteristics was rather "hunter" then turnfighter..

I.K. Lies! Me109 was exceptional in turning combat. If there is a fighter plane built for turning combat , it has to be Messer! Speedy, maneuverable,(especially in vertical) and extremely dynamic. I can`t tell about all other things, but taking under consideration what i said above, Messerschmitt was ideal for dogfight. But for some reason majority of german pilots didn`t like turn fight, till this day i don`t know why.
I don`t know what was stopping them, but it`s definitely not the plane. I know that for a fact. I remember battle of Kursk where german aces were starting "roller-coaster" rides where our heads were about to come off from rotation.
No, seriously... Is it true it`s a common thing now that Messer wasn`t maneuverable?

A.S. Yes.

I.K. Heh.. Why would people come up with something like this... It was maneuverable...by god it was.


Interesting that what I constantly find in such pilot opinions is that the more the pilot flown or experinced the Messerschmitt 109 the more he admires it, the more highly he speak of it. On the contrary to people who never even seen one, or know very little about it, or just read some cheap book written by an author who repeats another author who never seriously researched the subject.

[Kurfürst]

Originally posted by MiloMorai
Some guy, on another BBS, claims the 109 would overheat at high speed while flying level. Only in climb because of the slow speed could the 'boost juices' be used without causing overheating. The radiators were not efficient enough. He also says the boundary layer seperator in the rad was not that good either.

He goes on and claims the P-51 could fly at high speed almost indefinately.
 

Who is this person and what are his sources and references?

[Angus]

Nice anecdotes Izzy.

[Grendel]

Originally posted by Naudet
The Bf109 was troubled due to the need of constant rudder input when not flying at cruise speed, which the FW190 was not, that is well documented.

So, as Kurfurst put it, name three pilots who complained about that "feature" of the Me?

Of could it be, that it is another overrated urban myth, mostly being based on some less than trustworthly reports?

I've interviewed or discussed with some 20 Finnish Messerschmitt 109 G pilots, and none of them have complained about having to use their feet getting the airplane to fly straight, in cruise or combat speeds.

The only occasions when rudder was needed for any remarkable period was when the pilot had a poor condition airframe, that simply refused to fly well.

Might it be that the western reports claiming about the necessarity of using rudder are similar, flown with bad airframes? The most famous Me 109 E test flight report, written by the British, was flown on an airframe captured and crashed by the French, for example. This report is easily copied and copied and repeated elsewhere, and becomes a "documented fact" when it is actually not representative of a normal aircraft.

[Glasses]

Izzy can I copy and paste it in another forum?

[humble]

Personal attack

[Glasses]

Of course in your world humble  it  couldn't even get off the ground, so either those pilots that succeeded in it were  superhuman or the plane has and has had a negative image from post war from the winning side, downplaying the enemy aircraft as junk(obviously they won)  and discredit it.

In your view if the 109 tried to turn at any speed it flop over and die. This is not the case, the plane recently has been getting the myth surrounding the characteristics in flight removed   and that utterly irritates those of the X country persuassion  that are deeply fanatical, and if things are said to the contrary of what their pre conceived notions are they get quite irritated

Why Else would you think Rall called the 109 a fencing weapon and the 190 a Broadsword.

One was a duelist and the other was a barbarian with chain and mace in hand. ( Sounds like a Manowar song )

The 109 did have flaws but so did every other saircraft of WW2 including the Spitfire. There are other factors that we cannot   reproduce in  flight sims and primarily most of the  flight characteristcs  put in flight sims today are from an allied post war and damaged  captured ones.  A lot of propaghanda  was included in many of the reports from the enemy, except for the pilots that had to face them.

[humble]

Flame bait

[Glasses]

Well.... you haven't posted anything that refutes anything that has been said?

You're trying to refute our opinions with yours.

[GScholz]

Personal attack

[humble]

Originally posted by Glasses
Well.... you haven't posted anything that refutes anything that has been said?

You're trying to refute our opinions with yours.

"Most of us considered the 109G over-developed. Poor landing characteristics added to its woes."  Gunther Rall

"They're fitted with a high altitude supercharger and at anything over 25,000 ft they just play cat & mouse with us. At 28,000 ft the spitifre could turn in an astonishingly narrow radius. We on the other hand, in the thin air of those altitudes had to carry out every maneuver with caution and at full power so as not to lose control"  Johannes Steinhoff

"However, the tendency to swing on take-off and landing, which had first manifested itself during tests with the early prototypes, continued to plague the Bf 109E and contributed substantially to the Luftwaffe’s high accident rate, some 1,500 Bf 109 fighters being lost between the beginning of the war and the autumn of 1941 in accidents caused by unintentional swings."

 "With the phasing out of the F-series, the basic Bf 109 design might be considered to have passed the peak of its development, for with the introduction of the G-series the constant operational demands for increased fire power and additional equipment brought with them a serious deterioration in the fighter’s flying characteristics."

"The Bf 109G could not be flown in a landing circuit with Raps and undercarriage down other than at full throttle, and experienced German operational pilots have described its landing characteristics as “malicious” "

"Despite the advent of the very much superior Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter, production of the now elderly Bf 109 was progressively increased"


Each of the above quotes was provided with the URL linking the source. I've purposely stayed away from heavily contested documentation. As of yet no one has critiqued or commented on anything specific I posted with the exception of someone else acknowledging seeing the same #'s for 109 fatalities due to landing accidents....

My mental midgit comment above is childish and unfair but its frustrating when folks seem to ignore the other sides points. I've taken the time to read and comment on all relavent posts and provide some logical arguement for my "side"....ho bout stepping up and doing the same.

[humble]

Personal attack

[Captain Virgil Hilts]

And I thought P-38 threads turned to crap pretty fast.