Originally posted by 1K3
The Germans were so close to have Spitfire-like planes in their service but the 109 was picked, for political reasons...
I don't know where that claim comes from, perhaps from the usual conspiracy crowd.
Facts are, though, quite different.
In the fighter competition the Heinkel 112 was the favourite.
But Bf 109 outperformed it completely. 109 was also much cheaper and easier to build. It had growth capacity.
While the next Heinkel fighter, He 100, was a better fighter than the 112, it still wasn't a match for the 109. Also, He 100 had features that were quite simply unsuitable for a front line fighter.
The 112V1 started off the head-to-head contest when it arrived at Travemünde on the 8 February, 1936. The other three comeptitors had all arrived by the beginning of March. Right away the Fw 159 and Ar 80 proved to be lacking in performance, and plagued with problems. It was clear that the contest was really between the He 112 and the Bf 109.
At this point the 112 was still the favorite over the "unknown" 109, but opinions changed when the 109V2 arrived on the 21 March. All the competitor aircraft had been equipped with the RR Kestrel but this second 109 had the Jumo. From that point on it started to outperform the 112 in almost every way, and even the arrival of the Jumo engined 112V2 on the 15 April did little to address this imbalance.
As would be expected the 112 had better turn performance due to its larger wing, but the 109 was faster at all altitudes and had considerably better agility and aerobatic abilities. During spin tests on the 2 March, the 109V2 showed no problems while the 112V2 crashed. Repairs were made to the plane and it was returned in April, but it crashed again and was written off. The V1 was then returned to Heinkel on April 17 and fitted with the clipped wings.
Meanwhile news came in that Supermarine had recently received a contract for full scale production of the Spitfire, and this caused a wave of concern in the higher command of the Luftwaffe. Time now took on as much importance as any quality of the plane itself, and the RLM was ready to put any reasonable design into production.
That reasonable design was the Bf 109. On the 12 March the Commission wrote up the outcome of their meetings in a document called Bf 109 Priority Procurement. The plane that was considered a long shot for most of the program suddenly found itself leading the race. But there were some who still favored the Heinkel design, and as a result the RLM then sent out contracts for 15 "zero series" planes from both companies.
Testing continued until October, at which point some of the additional zero series planes had arrived. At the end of September there were four He 112s being tested, yet none was a clear match for the 109. This was likely the final nail in the 112's coffin, from October on the Bf 109 appears to have been selected as the winner of the contest.
