Mark Hanna:
Taking off:
Power gently up and keep it coming smoothly up to 40 inches. Keep the tail down initially, and keep it straight by feel rather than any positive technique. Tail is coming up now, and the rudder is becoming effective. I'm subconsciously correcting the rudder all the time. It's incredibly entertaining to watch the 109 lift off the ground; the rudder literally flashes around!
This little fighter is now bucketing along, accelerating rapidly. As the tail lifts, there is a positive tendency to swing left. This can easily be checked; however, if you are really aggressive in lifting the tail, the left swing tendency is difficult to stop and happens very quickly. Now the tail is up, and you can vaguely see where you are going. It's a wild, rough ride on grass, and with all the noise and the smoke from the stacks, it's exciting.
Quick glance at the airspeed indicator (ASI): 160km/h, a light pull-back on the stick, and you're flying!
Hand off the throttle, select FLUG on the undercarriage selector. The mechanical indicators motor up very quickly, and you feel and hear a "clonk, clonk" as the gear comes home. A quick look out at the wings, and you can see that the slats-fully out-are starting to creep in as the airspeed increases and the angle of attack is reduced. With 230km/h and an immediate climbing turn-up, you enter the downwind leg just in case you need to put the airplane down in a hurry. The Old Flying Machine Company's SOP is always to fly an orbit overhead of the field to allow everything to stabilize before venturing off; this has saved at least one of our airplanes.
Landing:
Returning to the circuit, it is almost essential to join for a run and break. Over the field, break from 50 feet, up and over with 4G onto the downwind leg. Speed at 250km/h or less, gear select to DOWN, activate the button and feel the gear come down asymmetrically. Check the mechanical indicators (ignore the electric position indicators), set the pitch to 11:30; fuel, both boost pumps ON. If you have less than half a tank of fuel and the rear pump is not on, the engine may stop in the three-point attitude.
Radiator flaps to full open, and wing flaps to 10 or 15 degrees. As the wing passes the threshold downwind, take all the power off and roll into the final turn, cranking the flap like mad as you go. It is important to set up a high rate of descent and a curved approach.
The aircraft is reluctant to lose speed around finals, so ideally, you should initiate the turn quite slowly at about 190 to 200km/h. Slats normally deploy halfway around the final, but you, the pilot, are not aware that they have come out. The idea is to keep turning with the speed slowly bleeding and roll the wings level at about 10 feet at the right speed and just starting to transition to the threepoint attitude. The last speed I usually see is just about 180; I'm normally too busy after that!
The 109 is one of the most controllable aircraft that I have flown at slow speed around finals, and provided you don't get too slow, it is one of the easiest to threepoint. It just feels right. The only problem is getting too slow. If this happens, you very quickly end up with a high sink rate and with absolutely no ability to check or flare to round out. It literally falls out of your hands!
Once down on three points, it tends to stay down, but be careful; the forward view has gone to hell, and you cannot allow any swing to develop. Initial detection is more difficult-the aircraft being completely unpredictable-and can diverge in any direction. Sometimes, the most immaculate three-pointer will turn into a potential disaster halfway through the landing roll. Other times, a ropy landing will roll as straight as an arrow!
When we started flying the 109, both my father and I did a lot of practice circuits on the grass before we tried a paved strip. Operating off grass is preferred. Although it is a much smoother ride on the hard surface-directionally-the aircraft is definitely more sensitive. Without doubt, you cannot afford to relax until you are stationary. You would never make a rolling exit from a runway in the 109.
To summarize, I like the airplane very much, and I can understand why many Luftwaffe aces had such a high regard and preference for it. Hans Dittes has completed a fantastic restoration and should be complimented on returning "Black 2" to the air.
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Capt. Eric Brown
COMBAT WARRIOR
THE HISTORICAL VIEW
by Capt. Eric Brown
...Its major design weakness, however, lay in its narrowtrack landing gear, which gave it a tendency to ground-loop; that was exacerbated by the castering of the tailwheel in the ground attitude when the resultant ground loop could not be stopped with harsh braking and full deflection of the rudder. I feel certain, too, that the landing gear's being slightly splayed outward aggravated the ground-looping tendency and contributed to the excessive tire wear and bursts. The Spitfire had a similar, narrow-track landing gear, but it was not splayed out like that of the Bf 109, and the Spitfire didn't show any ground-looping propensities. In 1939, these problems caused damage to 255 Bf 109s (only 14 percent were damaged during training). Sixty-three percent of the damaged aircraft were Emils, and as a result, a tailwheel lock was fitted to later models.
Another problem that arose in training was the difficulty encountered by young, inexperienced pilots in night flying. Owing to the Bf 109's limited forward view and the tendency of its wing slats to snatch in and out near the stall, any flare to land that was held too long and made too high above the ground could result in a wing drop: in severe cases, this could end in a cartwheel when a wingtip dug into the ground.
Because of the frequency of the accidents, a tandem, two-seat, trainer version was eventually developed, and ín mid-1945, I had the opportunity to fly this Bf 109G-12.
Once, I was foolish enough to fly it solo from the rear seat; my view for landing was virtually nil, and I had to make three passes before I arrived back in one piece-and this in broad daylight! This airplane must literally have been an instructor's nightmare because the view from the instructor's cockpit was by a periscopic sight-a case of the blind truly leading the blind...
Synopsis:
The more than 33,000 Bf 109s produced from 1938 to 1945 gave
the Luftwaffe an abundance of continuously updated air weapons. They were capable of beating their implacable enemies, even in the terrible conditions of Russia and North Africa. Many Luftwaffe Bf 109 pilots racked up scores in the hundreds that will dazzle the minds of air historians and fighter buffs for years to come.
But the Bf 109's deficiencies almost equal its fabulous assets. The Luftwaffe lost 11,000 of these thoroughbred fighting machines in takeoff and landing accidents, most of them at the end of the War when they needed them most. The inexcusably poor visibility from the cockpit greatly reduced their pilots' ability to fight. The snatching of the automatic wing slats not only caused many of the numerous ground accidents but also contributed to a great many aerial accidents. The slat, canopy and landing-gear problems all had known, simple production fixes. Perhaps Prof. Willy Messerschmitt and the Luftwaffe generals were too busy patting themselves on their backs and counting Bf 109 victories to find time to listen to the pilots or to digest the significance of the Bf 109's accident rates.
The Bf 109 was, indeed, a prolific, necessary and timely fighter but was not as great as the Spitfire, the Mustang or the Hellcat, which all had many fewer vices for the wartime pilots to overcome.
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From 'The Flight Journal', special issue summer 2001 'Fighters'
