# Wing breakage: 109 or Spitfire?



## claidemore (Jan 5, 2010)

Simple opinion poll: Which plane (in your educated opinion) was more likely to have a wing break off in an identical condition high G pullout? Me109 or Spitfire? Feel free to back up your opinion with data, anecdotes, etc.


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## timshatz (Jan 5, 2010)

109. Wings were bolted on while the Spitfires were attached to the fuselage using a layering technique. Ended up being like a leaf spring in it's design. Also made it costly to manufacture. 

The bolt on processes made the 109 wings easier to fix also, just unbolt and replace. The Me was made with ease of fixing in mind. The Spitfire was not. It really shows up in the wings. 

But if I were pulling 6+ G in either one, I'd go with the Spitfire.


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## stona (Jan 5, 2010)

There was no option for "I have absolutely no idea" Lol. .
Steve


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## dunmunro1 (Jan 5, 2010)

Read the section entitled:
Diving speeds compared
Spitfire Mk IX versus Me 109 G - Flight Testing


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## drgondog (Jan 5, 2010)

There are at least three components of loads one has to look at to make an analytical judgment about high G pullouts.

First the assumptions:
1. Each (109 and Spit) are at the gross wt the airplane was designed to.
2. The stresses are calculated for a.) axis symmetric pullout, b.) aero loads (Q factor) based on velocity and density 
3. The design criteria and analysis are available.

If for, example, the Spit and the 109 are each designed with Limit loads of 8g at 7,000 pounds and 12G Ultimate at the same weight then the primary TEST modality is to load up the wings on a static test stand so that 56,000 (7Kx8) pounds are applied to the primary load bearing structure (usually the spar/fuse connect) to see if the structure has exceeded the elastic limit deformation. Ditto, gradually, up to 84,000 (7Kx12)pounds of load to check for failures in the primary load paths.

Aero loads were not easily analyzed because little was known about aero elastic effects. For example the aerodynamic pressure distribution normal to the wing was assumed but usually had only fair relevance to real world distribution behind a prop wash, in turbulance with indicial gusts, with wing torsing about it's centroidal axis (usually not quite the main spar/bending moment load carrier), and wing deflecting vertically as the load is applied. 

The lower drag of the Spit wing would give it an edge for top dive speed and greater threshold of Q loads, but that doesn't address pullout G's

This latter section of analysis was particularly thorny when contemplating the behavior of the wing in the aforementioned '8G' pullout where the loads would NOT be entirely symmetrical because of rudder trim effects, causing high stresses elsewhere (like the tail carry through structure in both the vertical stabilizer and the fuselage beam cap/shear panel design).

So two questions arise. One - are the two aircraft designed to the same load limits as function of gross design weight for analysis, and two- are the two ships being compared at the same relative design gross weight.

If the answer is 'yes to both' then the ultimate question is 'which of the design teams more conservative in their assumptions for a straight, assymetrically loaded, pullout. When you throw in rudder, wing stiffness and aileron deflections the stiffness of aft fuselage and overall wing become the final determinant.

Answer to original question? Nobody on this forum has the data, the original analytical structural analysis documents or Static Test results to truly give an informed answer

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## drgondog (Jan 5, 2010)

timshatz said:


> 109. Wings were bolted on while the Spitfires were attached to the fuselage using a layering technique. Ended up being like a leaf spring in it's design. Also made it costly to manufacture.
> 
> The bolt on processes made the 109 wings easier to fix also, just unbolt and replace. The Me was made with ease of fixing in mind. The Spitfire was not. It really shows up in the wings.
> 
> But if I were pulling 6+ G in either one, I'd go with the Spitfire.



Tim - in reality the method of attaching the wings should make no real difference given equal load carrying capability of the tension/shear fasteners. Both design teams would have aircraft/pilot safety uppermost in mind for both Limit and Ultimate desing loads. 

The problem with attaching two wing halves at the centerline (like a Mustang) is that the primaryload fasteners are big ass bolts - which should be pre-loaded and safety wired to prevent a 'prying separation' when the wings deflect outboard due to vertical loads.

Having said this, the simplest and most efficient design from structures view is one continuous wing from wing tip to wing tip where there are no discontinuities in the wing spar. Not very elegant for repair or manufacturing considerations, however.

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## timshatz (Jan 5, 2010)

drgondog said:


> Tim - in reality the method of attaching the wings should make no real difference given equal load carrying capability of the tension/shear fasteners. Both design teams would have aircraft/pilot safety uppermost in mind for both Limit and Ultimate desing loads.
> 
> The problem with attaching two wing halves at the centerline (like a Mustang) is that the primaryload fasteners are big ass bolts - which should be pre-loaded and safety wired to prevent a 'prying separation' when the wings deflect outboard due to vertical loads.
> 
> Having said this, the simplest and most efficient design from structures view is one continuous wing from wing tip to wing tip where there are no discontinuities in the wing spar. Not very elegant for repair or manufacturing considerations, however.



Spoken like a true engineer Not sure if you are one DD, but if you aren't, you missed your calling.

Both this post and the one before it were very informative. Agree that with everything in it (especially the part about the fasteners should make no difference and the loading). On the drawing board and in the shop, aircraft are built to a specific load. Loads have tolerences, exceed them and that's all she wrote.

In truth, there are a multitude of points to consider when handling high G loads and without turning this into an engineering tutorial (which I am not in anyway qualified to do), I'd go with the Spitfire wing design over the 109 if I had to make an offhand choice. More resilience in the design.


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## drgondog (Jan 5, 2010)

Tim - I did that stuff for a living when I was young and impressionable. MS Aero from UT and six plus at Lockheed and Bell


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## timshatz (Jan 5, 2010)

drgondog said:


> Tim - I did that stuff for a living when I was young and impressionable. MS Aero from UT and six plus at Lockheed and Bell



That'll do it. 

When were you at Lockheed? Middle 80s by any chance?


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## A4K (Jan 6, 2010)

Read once that a kiwi pilot was the first to find out you CAN rip the wing off a Spitty! Fighting during the Battle of Britain, pulled too steep and fast a dive trying to evade a 109 - goodbye starboard wing...


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## Kurfürst (Jan 6, 2010)

IMHO the poll doesn't make much sense. To my best knowledge the absolute (break) load limits for both aircraft were pretty much the same at 10-12 G maximum, depending on variant and test result. So as long these limits are not exceeded, the answer is 'neither', and if much exceeded, the answer is 'both'. Imposing such loads is not easy anyway, as the pilot will probably loose consciousness at around 5-7G.. 

However looking at the question_ 'Which plane (in your educated opinion) was more likely to have a wing break off in an identical condition high G pullout?'_, other aspects need to be examined, too, namely, control characteristics in high G conditons. 

From the structural safety point of view, the Spitfire's control characteristics could be, under certain high G conditions such as discussed here, become fairly dangerous to the aircraft if not handled with great care. The Spitfire II manual below has all the details and dangers noted, but in short it suffice to say that the elevator control was far too sensitive, the pilot could easily overstress the airframe by exposing it to sudden high G loads that the airframe could not withstand. Such problem of an over sensitive controls were not present on the 109.


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## Juha (Jan 6, 2010)

Hello 
I don’t recall any wing failures on FAF’s 109Gs during the war. One G-2 was lost when its pilot tried to disengage by a deep dive, plane probably went over max allowed speed and lost its elevators during pull-out, plane crashed, pilot KIA. And of course some 109s were lost to unknown causes. Clearly more losses happened because of engine failures. But from march 44 onwards Finns always checked the fastment of tailplane of new 109G-6s they got from Germany.

But FAF had rather few 109s, From Spring 43 to Spring 44 one laivue/sqn/gruppe, TOE 30 planes but usually badly understrength, on 1.1.44 it had only 13 109s serviceable + 3 in maintenance, from Spring 44 onwards two laivuetta/sqns/gruppen later a couple more sqns also got at least some, during heavy battles of Summer 44 say 30-60 Bf 109Gs serviceable daily.

Early 109G-6s designed load was 6,2G /3100kg(normal) and 5,6G / 3300kg (for ex. /R6 with two MG 151/20 gunpods). For later reinforced G-6s, or earlier when reinforced, figures were 7,0G / 3100kg and 6,5G / 3300kg.

Juha

PS Kurfürst, You surely know that as in case of 109 also Spitfires wing were reinforced time to time during its production life. And yes, British modified the elevator controls during the production of Mk V, but as Germans found out when they began their test program on diving behaviour of 109 after unexplained losses in front-line units, the question wasn't only on elevators but also on ailerons.


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## claidemore (Jan 6, 2010)

Kurfürst said:


> IMHO the poll doesn't make much sense.



This poll is a 'simple opinion poll'. In another thread statements were made that the majority of people's opinion was that the 109 wing was stronger than the Spitfires. This poll is a quick and easy way to establish just what popular opinion on these forums is on the subject. 

As of this post; it's 2 to 1 in favor of the Spitfire.


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## Timppa (Jan 6, 2010)

Kurfürst said:


> IMHO the poll doesn't make much sense.



I agree.
I think these polls are more as for fun, rather as for discussion.
AFAIK early BF109F had some problems, as the Spitfires (especially the V), Merlin Mustangs etc.
This from the Navy magazine (the F6F and F4U were supposed to be very strong):


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## drgondog (Jan 6, 2010)

Yes Timppa.

I suspect there were far more failures in a dive due to asymmetrical loads imposed by rudder and ailerons, than wing per se.

The Mustang Definitely fit that category - and too many encounter reports of 109s and 190s breaking up in a diving chase appeared to be in circumstances of turning and rolling in the dive - causing either a tail to fail or a main spar to fail.


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## drgondog (Jan 6, 2010)

timshatz said:


> That'll do it.
> 
> When were you at Lockheed? Middle 80s by any chance?



late sixties.


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## timshatz (Jan 6, 2010)

drgondog said:


> late sixties.



Got it. Old roomate from B-school was over at the skunk works in the mid 80s. He was in the project development section. The Govt would send them specs on what they wanted and he and a couple of other bright bulbs would tell them what it would look like, how long to make, ect. Very bright guy.


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## drgondog (Jan 6, 2010)

timshatz said:


> Got it. Old roomate from B-school was over at the skunk works in the mid 80s. He was in the project development section. The Govt would send them specs on what they wanted and he and a couple of other bright bulbs would tell them what it would look like, how long to make, ect. Very bright guy.



I was there as a snot nose kid working (indirecly way down the chain) for Johnson doing early computer simulations using Nastran on the SR-71 trying to match up to older flight test and static test data.

Sharpest program manager/aero exec I ever knew - a true giant in the industry.


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## Juha (Jan 8, 2010)

In the end I voted for Bf 109, not necessary because of thinking that it had weak wings, I think that in 109 case usually the rear end failed first. 109G really didn’t have over sensitive controls, Finns thought that stick forces per G were extraordinary high, appr. 8-9 kp, in dive even higher. At 500km/h normal sized pilot could just pull 4G. Having read too many accounts of Finnish aces on how they after escaping by diving pulled with all their strength seemingly unmoveable stick thinking that that this is the end and just narrowly survived from crashing into sea/earth to much appreciate 109’s elevator heaviness at high speeds, which was probably intentional to protect 109’s structures. So IMHO at high speed recovery under equal G-forces 109 would probably break earlier but not because of weakness of its wings but because of weakness of its tail section. Even if stick forces were heavy in desperation some got extra strength and some would in desperation try to use the tailplane trimmer too heavy handedly. But 109 wasn't alone, one could overstress also Spit, Mustang etc.

Juha

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## drgondog (Jan 8, 2010)

Juha said:


> In the end I voted for Bf 109, not necessary because of thinking that it had weak wings, I think that in 109 case usually the rear end failed first. 109G really didn’t have over sensitive controls, Finns thought that stick forces per G were extraordinary high, appr. 8-9 kp, in dive even higher. At 500km/h normal sized pilot could just pull 4G. Having read too many accounts of Finnish aces on how they after escaping by diving pulled with all their strength seemingly unmoveable stick thinking that that this is the end and just narrowly survived from crashing into sea/earth to much appreciate 109’s elevator heaviness at high speeds, which was probably intentional to protect 109’s structures. So IMHO at high speed recovery under equal G-forces 109 would probably break earlier but not because of weakness of its wings but because of weakness of its tail section. Even if stick forces were heavy in desperation some got extra strength and some would in desperation try to use the tailplane trimmer too heavy handedly. But 109 wasn't alone, one could overstress also Spit, Mustang etc.
> 
> Juha



Mustang failures were dominantly asymmetrical loads introduced by rolling/turning manuevers at very high speeds.

Most 109 failures observed by Mustangs/Thunderbolts chasing them were separations of the tail - also dominantly in high speed diving turns or rolls.


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## FLYBOYJ (Jan 8, 2010)

drgondog said:


> Having said this, the simplest and most efficient design from structures view is one continuous wing from wing tip to wing tip where there are no discontinuities in the wing spar. Not very elegant for repair or manufacturing considerations, however.



BINGO!


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## Juha (Jan 8, 2010)

Hello Drgondog
as Germans found out during their investigation on 109 dive behaviour, at high altitude high speed dives 109 tended to go into dutch-roll type "oscilation" which should be subdued by using rudder not ailerons.


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## Glider (Jan 9, 2010)

Both aircraft were state of the art when designed and there is no reason to believe that one was weaker than the other. I am sure everyone will agree that if you overstress the airframe then things are going to break. There is some evidence to believe that it was easier to overstress the 109 than the Spitfire.
I say this on the basis of two statements 
1) The Luftwaffe did issue in a document issued on the 28th August 1942 an instruction that started _'Owing to the continual recurring accidents caused by wing breakages in Me 109 aircraft' _It then proceeded to list new speed limitations at various heights and instruct that these limitations should be placed in all the aircraft.
2) The records for the losses incurred by Jg26 include the following line _'the Geschwader suffered many other losses which should be recognized. 121 pilots were killed in aircraft accidents—wing or engine failure, bad weather, lack of fuel, takeoff and landing mishaps, air collisions, and the catch-all "loss of control"_. 

comment on (1) This is an improvement on the education process. I noticed on the Fw190 documents one of the small differences between the first 190 captured by the British and those that came after it, was a plate reminding the pilot of the speed limitations at various heights which was not on the first 190. It looks as if this became standard practice in the Luftwaffe. 
It has been pointed out that the pilots notes on the Spit II give some warnings about what might happen in extreme cases as if this shows a weakness. This I disagree with, the point about Pilots notes is to educate the pilots in what might happen and how to avoid these situations. These are then taught as part of the learning process so the pilot knows how to deal with the situation. 
To sum up the Luftwaffe clearly had a problem with wing breakages but the problem seems to have been in the training of the pilot not a weekness in the design itself.

Comment on (2) I have never seen wing failure mentioned in this way for any other aircraft, apart from the Typhoon which of course wasn't a wing problem.


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## drgondog (Jan 9, 2010)

Glider said:


> Both aircraft were state of the art when designed and there is no reason to believe that one was weaker than the other. I am sure everyone will agree that if you overstress the airframe then things are going to break. There is some evidence to believe that it was easier to overstress the 109 than the Spitfire.
> I say this on the basis of two statements
> 1) The Luftwaffe did issue in a document issued on the 28th August 1942 an instruction that started _'Owing to the continual recurring accidents caused by wing breakages in Me 109 aircraft' _It then proceeded to list new speed limitations at various heights and instruct that these limitations should be placed in all the aircraft.
> 2) The records for the losses incurred by Jg26 include the following line _'the Geschwader suffered many other losses which should be recognized. 121 pilots were killed in aircraft accidents—wing or engine failure, bad weather, lack of fuel, takeoff and landing mishaps, air collisions, and the catch-all "loss of control"_.
> ...



Glider - I know of several specific 'wing' failures on the P-51B that were traced directly to an unexpected drop of main gear in a dive... all in the March-April 1944 timeframe. This was solved in retrofit gear and gear door uplock kits and permanently with the P-51D.

It was unclear whether the gear sagged on high G pullout or the wheel door opened due to aerodynamicloads. The Mustang ammo doors were also stiffened when RAF dive tests (at ~.82-85M) noted the 'bulging ammo door' under the shockwave.


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## Glider (Jan 9, 2010)

I don't disagree with you, my posting was specific to the 109 and Spitfire. The P51B issue you mention are similar to the aileron instability instances in the Spitfire which caused structural failure in 22 Spitfires. The failure was a problem caused by an unforseen situation, which was identified and fixed. In wasn't a weakness in the wing or any other part of the design as the failure was a symptom of the problem not the cause.
The most common cause for a structural failure is the pilot overstressing the airfame which happened in about 46 cases iro the Spitfire. This could happen in any airforce as as far as I know accelerometers were not fitted to any WW2 aircraft. This would have almost eliminateded the problem.


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## VG-33 (Jan 9, 2010)

Juha said:


> Hello
> I don’t recall any wing failures on FAF’s 109Gs during the war. One G-2 was lost when its pilot tried to disengage by a deep dive, plane probably went over max allowed speed and lost its elevators during pull-out, plane crashed, pilot KIA. And of course some 109s were lost to unknown causes. Clearly more losses happened because of engine failures. But from march 44 onwards Finns always checked the fastment of tailplane of new 109G-6s they got from Germany.
> 
> But FAF had rather few 109s, From Spring 43 to Spring 44 one laivue/sqn/gruppe, TOE 30 planes but usually badly understrength, on 1.1.44 it had only 13 109s serviceable + 3 in maintenance, from Spring 44 onwards two laivuetta/sqns/gruppen later a couple more sqns also got at least some, during heavy battles of Summer 44 say 30-60 Bf 109Gs serviceable daily.
> ...



Thank you Juha.

Your numbers are correspunding to the soviet ones (6.3 G) for the 109E-3 at 2500 kg.

The security factor Q was certainly 12 for the 109, but it was 13 for french Standards and even 14-15 for soviet ones. Nothing exceptionnal.
In order to calculate applied load Q to CG distribution, you have to divide it by l (lenght) momentum for all airframe parts. Sorry for my english.

It makes 7.5 G for early D-520, 6.5G for the I-26, even 8 G and more for LaGG-1 and MiG-1 calculated to use more powerfull and heavy engines.

So unlike what Soren thaught, the 109 could not withstand 12 * 3100 kg load on its wings. Moreover there is no use for that, pilot is loosing conscience if exposed at 5-5.5 G and dying after prolongated exposure to 6G. For all pilots in all countries with no high-G clothes.

The main problem for Spit and Me-109 wings was their monospar wing structure. Thus being very light cause spar being positionned at the max thikness of the wing, were suffering on torsion efforts, unlike 2 spars or multispar wings. 

The thin Spitfire wing was probably less suffering at high speed from compression efforts due to dynamic pressure. 
Both were weak on a dive recovery when aerodynamical focus were suddenly moving on.


Regards


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## Soren (Jan 9, 2010)

VG-33 said:


> The security factor Q was certainly 12 for the 109, but it was 13 for french Standards and even 14-15 for soviet ones



14 to 15 G for Soviet designs??? Rubbish. I'd like to see even a single shred of evidence to support that.


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## Glider (Jan 9, 2010)

excellent information VG


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## VG-33 (Jan 9, 2010)

Soren said:


> 14 to 15 G for Soviet designs??? Rubbish. I'd like to see even a single shred of evidence to support that.



It was exactly Q= 13 minima allowed usually added with 15-25% for further developpement majoration from soviet 1937 Standards. Look after Ostolsawki books or/and RDK manuals. Or better wright to Kosminkov.

Or in I-153 technical manual in the Web. 

Anyway, try to understand why you're posting before doing it.

Regards


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## Juha (Jan 9, 2010)

You are welcome, VG
And thanks a lot for the info on Soviet and French standards.

Hello Glider
Thanks for the info on German problems and their solution to it. The Finns as far as I remember didn’t notice problems with 109G’s wings but surely with DB 605A, especially early on, and with very heavy control forces at high speed.

Juha


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## Soren (Jan 9, 2010)

I don't believe the Q factor was any different for USSR, UK, German or US a/c.


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## Glider (Jan 10, 2010)

Juha said:


> You are welcome, VG
> 
> Hello Glider
> Thanks for the info on German problems and their solution to it. The Finns as far as I remember didn’t notice problems with 109G’s wings but surely with DB 605A, especially early on, and with very heavy control forces at high speed.
> ...



This was common across the 109 versions with the possible exception of the 109K. The 109E certainly had similar problems and the loss of height incurred when pullng up from a fast dive was if I remember correctly up to 3,000 ft.


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## VG-33 (Jan 10, 2010)

Glider said:


> excellent information VG



Thank you

Some other precisions.

From old french sources, _Mach-1 , encyclopédie de l'aviation_, it was commonplace for the early 109F to loose wings or tailplanes, with no more precisions.

I excpect that if prof Willy did no forget to reduce wing size from Emil to Fredrich, he forgot to reinforce it enough. Moreover we can see from 109E3 wing structure that main spar was positionned aft from the max profile thikness and was working in bad overhang conditions.







For the reduced chord 109F wing it was even worse, since due to the unchanged wheel size it was positionned even after in the profile. We can also see that 109's wing had a lot of remouvable panels reducing it's rigidity.


On the same time from TsAGI spécialists

???????? Mk.IX. ??????? ?????? ?? ???????????? ????????

we can learn that 

spitfire wing was in one piece better for materials resistance items, but complicating maintenance and mass producing.

6) Its typical monospar wing. Stress efforts to breakage line are abosbed by the main spar. Aft spar is only working on torsion ones.

7) Strong leading edge skin alogether with the main spar is working as D shaped torsionnal half box.


8) The close positionned at 26.8% of the mean chord spar allows to use at best max profile hight, and to keep the whell inside the relatively small thikness wing.

9) Ellptic wing....is better for induced drag...difficult to build.

10) Superiority of the telescopic square made spare booms. No such...on other planes due to production difficulties.

11) The weight of spitfire wing structure is much lighter (20 kg/m²) than other contemporary fighter planes (25 to 30 kg/m²...even more for soviet wood ones). But relativly thin skin 0.6 mm that probably easy to deformate after some prolongated efforts.

Etc...

I think it's not bad to have an educated and valuable but neutral point of view betwenn the both planes.
And it seems that Spit's wing was better concieved for torsionnal efforts on the ending point.

No reason for BNT (new technologies bureau) TsAGI to make some propaganda for foreigh designs. Or just for one of them...


regards


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## Timppa (Jan 10, 2010)

VG-33 said:


> Look after Ostolsawki books or/and RDK manuals. Or better wright to Kosminkov.
> Regards



Hi VG-33,
I did not find anything with Google search of "Ostolsawki" or "RDK" or "Kosminkov".
Can you give direct Amazon book links (ISBN number) or internet links.


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## Kurfürst (Jan 10, 2010)

VG-33 said:


> I excpect that if prof Willy did no forget to reduce wing size from Emil to Fredrich, he forgot to reinforce it enough. Moreover we can see from 109E3 wing structure that main spar was positionned aft from the max profile thikness and was working in bad overhang conditions.



Hmm, before you start to speculate and start to share somewhat unusual theories on the Bf 109 wing structure, and how it evolved between variants, you should perhaps study the basics of the subject, as currently you don't seem to grasp even the basics, nor do you have any solid sources on which to base your very definitive claims.

Basically:

a, You don't seem to understand how the load bearing worked on the Bf 109 wing. It was single main spar with the thickened ribs and thickened skin forming a box spar. The strenght properties were tested by both the British and the Americans and were actually found to be quite good, on par with US two spar designs. Ooops...

b, Moreover the Bf 109F did not have reduced wing area, unless you are talking about the prototype. On the serial production F only the planform changed, and only very slightly to allow for the elliptic wingtips, otherwise as far as structure goes, it was practically the same size and identical.



VG-33 said:


> For the reduced chord 109F wing it was even worse, since due to the unchanged wheel size it was positionned even after in the profile.



c, The Bf 109F did not have reduced chord... 



VG-33 said:


> We can also see that 109's wing had a lot of remouvable panels reducing it's rigidity.



This is silly for two reasons... first of all it appears you didn't see much of a 109 wing in real life.. I can only recall two such panels, one on each wing, outside the wheel wells which are fastened with screws rather than rivets. These serve as bays for the gondies and/or wing bottles. 

Secondly there are such removable wing panels on practically all aircraft, certainly on those with wing guns... how do you think the armourers reload those guns, they push cannon rounds through the skin, or tear it up and flush rivet it after every sortie...? 



VG-33 said:


> spitfire wing was in one piece better for materials resistance items, but complicating maintenance and mass producing.
> 
> 6) Its typical monospar wing. Stress efforts to breakage line are abosbed by the main spar. Aft spar is only working on torsion ones.
> 
> ...



Every design had certain advantages, but basically you are talking about a wing that retained an ultimately defunct element in the original design (evaporate cooling), ie. the front D torsion box, or a mere byproduct of other considerations (ie. elliptical wing which was only adopted to make place for extra wing guns). 

Basically the only unique thins about it is the spar design (which none seem to have bother to copy, and regardless of the claims of its strenght, only marginal external wing stores were allowed on the Spitfire, which is a hint on its capabilities) whole load bearing is concentrated in the front of the wing as a result, and there's nothing to take the load in the rear areas.Nobody copied that latter aspect either, as it was not particularly difficult to realize that such assymetric layout is going to resist twisting forces badly, regardless how it resists the normal pitch-induced loads. As noted, it was only a remnant of a given up, defunct element of the very first drawings.



> I think it's not bad to have an educated and valuable but neutral point of view betwenn the both planes. And it seems that Spit's wing was better concieved for torsionnal efforts on the ending point.



Basicallly you would need something solid to back that up... torsional tests, for example. Some test results for both wings are availalbe, and its rather clear that the (original until Mk 21) Spitfire wing had serious problems in dealing with twisting loads. The Spit had by far lower aileron reversal speed than any other aircraft (somewhere between 520 and 580 mph), and that being some 250-300 mph lower than that of the Bf 109F or the P-47 as a matter of fact.

The odd thing is you see, that the first thing they decided to throw away in the Spitfire was its wings, when they redesigned the thing with the Mark 20 series 8) - not counting those aircraft which did this unintentionally, of course.


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## Soren (Jan 10, 2010)

Looking at the 109's wing structure it looks just as strong as the Spitfires, and higher thickness ratio would've helped keep the wing more stiff than the Spitfire's.


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## Kurfürst (Jan 10, 2010)

Glider said:


> Both aircraft were state of the art when designed and there is no reason to believe that one was weaker than the other. I am sure everyone will agree that if you overstress the airframe then things are going to break.



Basically true. I don't think there was any great difference between the stress limits of the two airframes, nor that it is to be blamed on the airframe if the pilot does not adhere the operational limits of the airframe.



Glider said:


> There is some evidence to believe that it was easier to overstress the 109 than the Spitfire.
> 
> I say this on the basis of two statements
> 
> 1) The Luftwaffe did issue in a document issued on the 28th August 1942 an instruction that started _'Owing to the continual recurring accidents caused by wing breakages in Me 109 aircraft' _It then proceeded to list new speed limitations at various heights and instruct that these limitations should be placed in all the aircraft.



Hmm, that paper is worded a bit differently, as it goes as noting that_ " in Me 109 aircraft, attention is brought to the following:

The maximum permissable air-speeds in the different heights* are not being observed and are widely exceeded.*"_

Its a bit different than how you put it - the 28th August 1942 does place limitations on diving speed, but the context is that the pilots routinely ignored and widely exceeded the existing dive limit speeds...

Secondly its a bit bizarre to argue that the German paper issued at the end of August 1942 is some sort of evidence that the Spitfire was less likely to be overstressed in dive, as you were already shown (several times) the British papers preceeding the German papers by a couple of months, and dealing with the very subject of 

_"several accidents to Spitfire V aircraft in service... attributed to excessive accelerations in pullouts from dives with consequent failure of the wing structure"_

Firstly it is blatantly evident from the British paper that Spitfire wing structure failures occured and were a serious concern to the RAF the same time the LW became concerned about the same in the 109 (and I guess it is true for a couple of other airforces, which just become aware of the dangers at high Mach speed). 






Secondly there's a difference - whereas the structural failures of the 109s were attributed to the pilots disobedience of the dive limits of their aircraft, the Spitfire wing failure accidents were attributed to a design aspect of the Spitfire, namely that the aircraft had a tendency to tighten up the turns in high speed dives, and overload itself... that was a fault of the design, not the pilot who flew it.



Glider said:


> It has been pointed out that the pilots notes on the Spit II give some warnings about what might happen in extreme cases as if this shows a weakness. This I disagree with, the point about Pilots notes is to educate the pilots in what might happen and how to avoid these situations. These are then taught as part of the learning process so the pilot knows how to deal with the situation.



The Spitfire II Pilot's notes is very definietive about certain dangers stemming from the control characteristic of the aircraft (poor pitch stability, and overly sensitive elevator control). While indeed there are some generic limitations laid down in the manual which are valid for all aircraft, some are very specific to the Spitfire regardless how you blurr it. 






The manual uses no uncertain terms that the aircraft has very sensitive controls, and it is easy to overload the design, and also notes that this could be easily done accidently, ie. due to unintenional movements of the pilot's hand in bumpy weather. Furthermore it makes clear warning not to trim the aircraft for level flight during dives because doing so exaggrevates the pilot's capacity to overload the airframe. Dives and bumpy weather are hardly ''extreme cases''... 

The issue is simple to understand - the Spitfire had unusually low stick force stability, at about 4 lbs required to pull 1 G; the 109 was on the high side, at around 20 lbs/G. 

Say a 109 and a Spitfire is a dogfight, both pilots pulling as much as possible on the stick, near their human limits, pulling 5 Gs... suddenly a blow of wind, a propeller from an aircraft or an AA shell exploding nearby shakes both aircraft and pilots, who accidentally pull another 20 lbs on the stick... the Spitfire is now pulling 10Gs all the sudden instead of 5, the 109 is now pulling 6Gs instead of 5...




Glider said:


> 2) The records for the losses incurred by Jg26 include the following line _'the Geschwader suffered many other losses which should be recognized. 121 pilots were killed in aircraft accidents—wing or engine failure, bad weather, lack of fuel, takeoff and landing mishaps, air collisions, and the catch-all "loss of control"_.



And the point...? Accidents happen in war, people die, or that amongst the number of fatalities related to accidents, some were related to wing failures - and we do not even know how many, probably a fraction of takeoff/landing/enginefailure-related accidents, which were always the main causes...



> Comment on (2) I have never seen wing failure mentioned in this way for any other aircraft, apart from the Typhoon which of course wasn't a wing problem.



You never seen Spitfire, Yakovlev, Mustang, Thunderbolt, Focke-Wulf 190 etc. pilots mentioned to be killed due to wing or engine failures, bad weather, lack of fuel, takeoff and landing mishaps, air collisions, and the catch-all "loss of control"...? I very much doubt that...

Or you say you didn't see wing failure mention in context of other aircraft - say for example wing failures mentioned for Spitfire in documents you saw about a day before you wrote this? Or what way?


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## Juha (Jan 10, 2010)

Hello Kurfürst
Quote:” The Spit had by far lower aileron reversal speed than any other aircraft (somewhere between 520 and 580 mph), and that being some 250-300 mph lower than that of the Bf 109F or the P-47 as a matter of fact.”

Copy from an old thread from hitechcreations.com/forums, do you recall?

"gripen 10-04-2005 10:39 AM

_Originally posted by Kurfürst 
The aileron reversal speed for the Me109 can be derived in FB 1951 and is around 611 mph while the Spitfire had only 510 mph (source avia report 6/10126 from the RAE)._

Actually FB 1951 gives the reversal speed in TAS and RAE data gives it IAS (or EAS). Feel free to convert values comparable. The RAE 1231 (DSIR 23/12865) gives reversal speed 580 mph EAS for the Spitfire V with standard wings and that value is calculated from flight test results.

Knegel 10-04-2005 03:59 PM

TAS IAS conversion at 3000m = 0,849"

To others IIRC the German test was flown at 3000m


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## Glider (Jan 11, 2010)

Kurfürst said:


> Basically true. I don't think there was any great difference between the stress limits of the two airframes, nor that it is to be blamed on the airframe if the pilot does not adhere the operational limits of the airframe.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


My understanding is that the paper says what I said it said




> Secondly its a bit bizarre to argue that the German paper issued at the end of August 1942 is some sort of evidence that the Spitfire was less likely to be overstressed in dive,


You clearly didn't read what I wrote. I was quoting the paper to prove that the Luftwaffe did have a problem with wing failures, that the problem wasn't that the wing was weak but the airframe was being overstressed and the paper outlined the corrective action taken. This I supported with the additional plate fitted to Fw190's to emphasise that this seems to have become standard practice in the Luftwaffe. There is nothing wrong with that.



> as you were already shown (several times) the British papers preceeding the German papers by a couple of months, and dealing with the very subject of
> 
> _"several accidents to Spitfire V aircraft in service... attributed to excessive accelerations in pullouts from dives with consequent failure of the wing structure"_
> 
> Firstly it is blatantly evident from the British paper that Spitfire wing structure failures occured and were a serious concern to the RAF the same time the LW became concerned about the same in the 109 (and I guess it is true for a couple of other airforces, which just become aware of the dangers at high Mach speed).


I certainly agreed that some Spitfires had been lost due to overstressing the airframe and mentioned it in my posting. Did you not read that?




> Secondly there's a difference - whereas the structural failures of the 109s were attributed to the pilots disobedience of the dive limits of their aircraft, the Spitfire wing failure accidents were attributed to a design aspect of the Spitfire, namely that the aircraft had a tendency to tighten up the turns in high speed dives, and overload itself... that was a fault of the design, not the pilot who flew it.


Unfortunately you have chosen to present part of the paper that says what they are looking into *not the piece that deals with the investigation*. If this is the paper that I read in the entirety, the problem was associated to the change in the COG as new equipment was added to the Mk V which was easily fixed once the problem had been identified.




> The Spitfire II Pilot's notes is very definietive about certain dangers stemming from the control characteristic of the aircraft (poor pitch stability, and overly sensitive elevator control). While indeed there are some generic limitations laid down in the manual which are valid for all aircraft, some are very specific to the Spitfire regardless how you blurr it.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Pilots notes are by definition to educate the pilot of the limitations of the aircraft. The pilots are then trained to avoid the problem and/or deal with the problem. I and no doubt other pilots on the forum will have had this experience, in my case the Pilots Notes said that intentional spinning was forbidden but I was intentionally put into a spin so I could learn how to recover.
I would rather be made aware of a problem, how to recognise the danger and not crash, than not be told and have an accident.

At the end of the day what matters is the frequency with which these accidents happened. 
We know from Mr Eric Newton who spent the war with the Air Accident Investigation Branch that there were 121 Spitfire crash investigations between 1941 and May 1945 involving serious structural failure and the breakdown for the Spitfire is approx
:
22 aileron instability
46 pilot overstressed airframe
20 pilot error in cloud
13 misuse of oxygen system- pilot error
3 pilot blacked out
17 engine failure/fire 

From the list that you produced showing the failures in the Spitfire it is clear that a high proportion of the above accidents (probably over 50%) happened in training units with inexperienced pilots. On that basis most RAF front line squadrons didn't have a single structural failure the entire war. 


> The issue is simple to understand - the Spitfire had unusually low stick force stability, at about 4 lbs required to pull 1 G; the 109 was on the high side, at around 20 lbs/G.
> 
> Say a 109 and a Spitfire is a dogfight, both pilots pulling as much as possible on the stick, near their human limits, pulling 5 Gs... suddenly a blow of wind, a propeller from an aircraft or an AA shell exploding nearby shakes both aircraft and pilots, who accidentally pull another 20 lbs on the stick... the Spitfire is now pulling 10Gs all the sudden instead of 5, the 109 is now pulling 6Gs instead of 5...


This is priceless, suggest you stick to facts



> You never seen Spitfire, Yakovlev, Mustang, Thunderbolt, Focke-Wulf 190 etc. pilots mentioned to be killed due to wing or engine failures, bad weather, lack of fuel, takeoff and landing mishaps, air collisions, and the catch-all "loss of control"...? I very much doubt that...


I have never seen an RAF unit list wing failure as a type of loss. As a one off exceptional event yes, but not in the same manner that Jg26 did.


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## Kurfürst (Jan 11, 2010)

Juha said:


> Hello Kurfürst
> Quote:” The Spit had by far lower aileron reversal speed than any other aircraft (somewhere between 520 and 580 mph), and that being some 250-300 mph lower than that of the Bf 109F or the P-47 as a matter of fact.”
> 
> Copy from an old thread from hitechcreations.com/forums, do you recall?
> ...




Its not entirely clear who says what in this_ five year old post_ - you appear to be quoting gripen - but it seems to be a similiar discussion on the subject.

Anyway, a few things needs to be clarified.

a, First of all the information in that post can be regarded as obsolate. There is solid information that contradicts it.

b, I suppose FB 1951 refers to the German DVL report regarding with elastics measurments on the 109F. The said report does not give computed aileron reversal speeds, even less gives them in TAS.... The statement of Juha "Actually FB 1951 gives the reversal speed in TAS" can be considered baseless unless he can actually quote the report where it says that (I have the report, and I do not recall ever seeing such information. It seems that gripen claims that, and it would be an understatement to say that gripen's credibility has a rather jagged record, as you must be aware of that from numerous threads on that board.

c, furthermore the context (" can be _derived_ in FB 1951 and is _around_ 611 mph ") suggest - in fact, makes rather clear - the value was estimated by the poster. The DVL report has a roll rate chart, and I suppose the poster made a simplistic estimatation by extending the roll curve and looking where it matches the X axis (ie. flight speed). I believe the assumption was where roll rate would be = 0, if we extend the roll curve, that would reversal speed. 

The final word, aileron reversa speeds for the Bf 109F, based on experiments carried out on Bf 109E and F wings was found to be 850 mph by Material Command in 1944 and is noted to be similiar in this respect to the qualities of an unspecified AAF fighters at the time (I wonder which fighter they referred to?). 

Now that the factual has been established, I leave it to you to explain the extent of difference between the 850 mph aileron reversal speed specified by MatCom for the Bf 109F* and the 510 mph (as given by avia 6/10126) or the 580 mph EAS (given by DSIR 23/12865, take your pick). 

I feel that an extraordinate amount of explanation shall be required, and it will be very thin on documentation.

* Note that the wing structural strenght was beefed up on the Bf 109G, so the reversal speeds are probably higher on the G series than was on the F series.


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## claidemore (Jan 11, 2010)

How does beefing up a wing structurally increase aileron reversal speed?


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## Juha (Jan 11, 2010)

Hello Kurfürst
Yes, the docu in question is Ribnitz’/DVL's The influence of the elastic properties of the wing on the rolling efficiency of Me 109-F2, which was found by Gripen some years ago from the Deutsches Museum, the title is of course translation of the German title. Yes, I know that you have the docu also. I also know who gave it to you. Tests were flown at 3000m. The Mach number given on x-axis with the km/h in some graphs, for ex in Abb. 18 and the roll rate hit the x-axis at bit over M 0.8 / a bit under 1000km/h at 3.000m. And it was you, (or at lest the writer had same pseudo name as you, same kind of info and attitude towards Bf 109 as you and same kind of attitude towards Spit as you and his behaviour was much like yours) who posted “The aileron reversal speed for the Me109 can be derived in FB 1951 and is around 611 mph while the Spitfire had only 510 mph (source avia report 6/10126 from the RAE).”

And thanks for the Material Command report, very interesting. Difficult to know the reason of so big difference between US and German data. All I can say as layman on technical matters that Ribnitz’/DVL’s data is based on test flight program and had been so interesting that for ex. Kurt Tank had read it among others.

Yes, I'm welll aware of the beefing up of 109's wing in G-series.

Hello Claidemore
thickening of the skin and IIRC also reinforcing a few innermost ribs made the wing stiffer.

Juha


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## drgondog (Jan 11, 2010)

Claidmore - the wing torses in high speed rolls. The dynamic pressure (Q) applied to the 'up' airleron, for example, creates a force on the aileron that is eccentric to the primary wing axis (visualize a vector parallel to the chord but above the mean chord line or longitudinal centroildal axis of the wing. That force, when translated to the wing does two things.

1.) it creates a vertical force on the aft/outer wing area which causes that wing to deflect downward

2.) it creates a horizontal force above the centroidal axis which causes the wing to twist about the centroidal axis.

It is the latter torsional force which will then tend to create a higher relative angle of attack, and hence increased lift on the wing - thereby counteracting the force imposed by the aileron in the rolling manuever.

So, stiffen the wing to resist the torsional load deflections or decrease the aileron area to decrease the applied Q load on the aileron.

As I looked at the diagram (VG-33) for the 109 wing it occurred to me that the leading edge must be a major part of the wing structure as the primary spar is at ~45% chord of the wing. The aerodynamic lift load vector is normalized close to 25-28% chord so a box beam should be created between the leading edge and the main spar to compensate for the huge inner wing cut out for the main gear. 

In that region it would be analyzed as a horizontal "C" section beam with top skin and spar caps/leading edge in compression and bottom leading edge/bottom spar in tension for high g positive vertical loads.

If I'm wrong I would sure like to see the design analysis!


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## Kurfürst (Jan 11, 2010)

Juha said:


> urse translation of the German title. Yes, I know that you have the docu also. I also know who gave it to you. Tests were flown at 3000m. The Mach number given on x-axis with the km/h in some graphs, for ex in Abb. 18 and the roll rate hit the x-axis at bit over M 0.8 / a bit under 1000km/h at 3.000m.
> 
> ...
> 
> Difficult to know the reason of so big difference between US and German data. All I can say as layman on technical matters that Ribnitz’/DVL’s data is based on test flight program and had been so interesting that for ex. Kurt Tank had read it among others.



It simple to say why there's a difference between US data and German 'data' - there's no German data for aileron reversal in the DVL report... 

I also have to note a few things regarding your comment 'roll rate hit the x-axis at bit over M 0.8 / a bit under 1000km/h at 3.000m' - I presume you did not see the actual roll rate graph no. 5 of the report. First of all, the roll curve doesn't hit the X axis (ie. roll rate=0) anywhere. The highest speeds for measured roll rates measured in the actual flight tests appear to be up to ca. 780 km/h at 6 degrees (less than half) deflection on the graph, where roll rate is given as ca. 0,82 radian. The highest extrapolated (calculated from actual measurements) roll rates/speed shown on the graph are 900 km/h and ca. 0,25 radian roll rate.

The zero roll rate was neither measured, nor calculated by the German DVL report. Layman estimations given the roll curves can be given (such as the ones I gave years before I become aware of the actual values), but those are just that, a layman's guess with a high degree of error vs. the US MatCom aileron reversal speed data, calculated from actual stress test.

In short, there's no contradiction between the two 'datasets' - there's just one set of data available from the 1944 MatCom report, posted before.


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## Kurfürst (Jan 11, 2010)

Glider said:


> Unfortunately you have chosen to present part of the paper that says what they are looking into *not the piece that deals with the investigation*. If this is the paper that I read in the entirety, the problem was associated to the change in the COG as new equipment was added to the Mk V which was easily fixed once the problem had been identified.



The report doesn't say any such thing. You don't have the report - you were asking for it just a couple of days ago - and you have made the above up.


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## Juha (Jan 11, 2010)

Hello Kurfürst
Quote:" I presume you did not see the actual roll rate graph no. 5 of the report. First of all, the roll curve doesn't hit the X axis (ie. roll rate=0) anywhere."

In fact I have seen the Abb. 5 many times, but as I wrote I was talking on the Abb. 18, simply because I thought and still think that you got Your 611mph from there. And definitely the curve hits x-axis in that graph. And it isn't the only graph in which that happens.

Quote:"The highest speeds for measured roll rates measured in the actual flight tests appear to be up to ca. 780 km/h at 6 degrees (less than half) deflection on the graph, where roll rate is given as ca. 0,82 radian."

Yes, only that would say that that the speed was about 767km/h.

Juha


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## claidemore (Jan 12, 2010)

drgondog said:


> Claidmore - the wing torses in high speed rolls. The dynamic pressure (Q) applied to the 'up' airleron, for example, creates a force on the aileron that is eccentric to the primary wing axis (visualize a vector parallel to the chord but above the mean chord line or longitudinal centroildal axis of the wing. That force, when translated to the wing does two things.
> 
> 1.) it creates a vertical force on the aft/outer wing area which causes that wing to deflect downward
> 
> ...



Thank you! I'ts clear as mud now! lol. 
Seriously, aileron reversal was something which I knew about, but had no clue as to what caused it, other than the situations (speeds) that it occured. I've got a glimmer of understanding now.


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## Glider (Jan 12, 2010)

Kurfürst said:


> The report doesn't say any such thing. You don't have the report - you were asking for it just a couple of days ago - and you have made the above up.



I don't have it and have never claimed to have had it. I said that I had read a report on this topic and I also said, *If this is the report that I have read*. I am making nothing up and you really should read what people have written before getting your head down and charging into a brick wall.

You say that the report doesn't say any such thing then I am asking you to post what it does say. If you have the full report that you are quoting then please post the relevant summary as to the findings or better still the detail if practical. If its a file from the NA and if you have the source file or an internet link then post that and we might be able to find out what it does say. I would certainly put my memory in second place to an actual document

To show the page that says what its looking into and claim that is evidence is worthless. I am sure that I could find a report looking to see if the earth is flat, but it doesn't mean that the earth is flat.


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## drgondog (Jan 12, 2010)

claidemore said:


> Thank you! I'ts clear as mud now! lol.
> Seriously, aileron reversal was something which I knew about, but had no clue as to what caused it, other than the situations (speeds) that it occured. I've got a glimmer of understanding now.



Try this: Get a rectangular piece of plastic. That is the wing. Hold it one the left edge end in your left hand and visualize that as the wing root.

On the other end press the edge 'downward' from the center of the wing edge. The edge of the 'wing' simply deflects down but the edge angle of the plastic rectangle remains constant (angle of attack of leading edge does not change). 

This would be a wing with a 'up aileron' and represent a torsionally stiff wing - it will bend slightly at the tip but not twist along the leading edge.

Now apply a twisting force on the right edge. The 'leading edge of the wing will twist relative to the root in your left hand. That increase the relative angle of attack of the wing tip in your right hand with respect to the 'root' in your left hand.

With that 'increase in AoA' the wing gains local increase in lift on outer wing, neutralizing the downward force imposed by the aileron.


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## Soren (Jan 13, 2010)

It does matter which way he twists the tip though, you forgot to say that hehe  If I was to twist the tip forward for example I'd decrease the AoA at the tip in relation to the root  I know you know this, just couldn't resist pointing it out for Claidemore's sake.


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## drgondog (Jan 13, 2010)

Soren said:


> It does matter which way he twists the tip though, you forgot to say that hehe  If I was to twist the tip forward for example I'd decrease the AoA at the tip in relation to the root  I know you know this, just couldn't resist pointing it out for Claidemore's sake.



True- having said that I was leaning on Claidmore to remember the 'eccentric' load created by the aileron to cause the twist..


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## Soren (Jan 13, 2010)

Copy that.


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## claidemore (Jan 13, 2010)

Here is a part of a report on 109 dive limits (possibly the same one that Glider and Kurfurst were discussing earlier in this thread?). Note that it states specifically that dive limits are being reduced because of "continually recurring accidents caused by wing breakages". 

It also mentions a bit later that these limitations include the 109G with it's 'strengthened' wing.

More complete info here: http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviation/bf-109-dive-rate-19817-6.html

Edit: My original posting about the report below not being in the context of piilots ignoring speed limitaitons was not well worded. I was in a hurry and had to get to work. 
There are 4 subsections to the report, of which section 1 is shown below. All 4 sections deal with the same subject, "Reference 109 - wing breakages. The speed limitation reduction is in context of pilots ignoring the previous higher speed limits, but the subject of wing breakage, is not limited to that context. Basically the report covers permissible IAS, yawing, failure of a wing due to landing gear popping out of place, and paint on ailerons.


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## Glider (Jan 13, 2010)

What I find interesting is the significant reduction in the limitations at altitude which for a fighter that is reckoned to be in its element higher up must have been a major limitation


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## drgondog (Jan 13, 2010)

Glider said:


> What I find interesting is the significant reduction in the limitations at altitude which for a fighter that is reckoned to be in its element higher up must have been a major limitation



Glider- those speeds are Indicated Airspeeds not True air speeds which are very much higher than IAS at 20K+ altitudes.


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## Glider (Jan 13, 2010)

I was thinking of the before and after figures, 341 to 280 is by any standard, a drop.


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## drgondog (Jan 13, 2010)

Glider said:


> I was thinking of the before and after figures, 341 to 280 is by any standard, a drop.



you are correct - I should have asked what you were looking at.


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## Soren (Jan 14, 2010)

And the Bf-109K had a max permissable dive speed of 850 km/h. So I'm thinking the document from 1942 has something to do with the landing gear popping out in dives and ripping the wing apart, cause the wing could clearly easily handle speeds up to 850 km/h. I don't believe any Spitfire ever had that high a permissable dive speed.


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## Glider (Jan 14, 2010)

You could be right but we simply don't know. I admit that I have no idea what changes were made to the wing design of the 109K.


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## VG-33 (Jan 14, 2010)

Timppa said:


> Hi VG-33,
> I did not find anything with Google search of "Ostolsawki" or "RDK" or "Kosminkov".
> Can you give direct Amazon book links (ISBN number) or internet links.



Hi, did you try with Cyrillic letters?


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## claidemore (Jan 14, 2010)

The 1942 document indicates to me that they knew they had a problem, but weren't sure exactly what it was. They addressed 3 likely causes, with a 4th cause added at the last minute by some braniac who was grasping at straws. Aileron paint? 
One would think that lowering the dive speed limitations would have been counterproductive, instilling a lack of confidence in pilots. Unless; they were already losing confidence because of accidents attributed to wing breakage, real or imagined. 
With regards to the landing gear popping open, the gear as i understand it is attached to the fuselage. (photos below, one from Axishistory website, the other I can't remember). I would assume then that a failure of the wing structure in that situation would be caused by forces on the wing from the empty wheel well?


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## Soren (Jan 14, 2010)

Notice where the landing gear is attached Claidemore, if the landing gear was to rip itself loose and fall down during a 7 to 8 G pullout at 700 km/h then it would rip the wing root to shreds, causing a catastrophic wing failure. And since the air would emmidiately grab a hold on the landing gear as soon as it started to drop down it would rip it off before it could ever fully deploy, which means the gear would rip a large part of the wing to pieces.


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## drgondog (Jan 14, 2010)

I have not previously read of any gear uplock issues with the 109 similar to P-51B-1 through -5 issues. 

Having said this I agree with Soren that if any version of a 109 had a main gear pop out at 400+mph TAS that would be a recipe for catastrophic failure (or any other fighter).

Even if it didn't rip a wing it would create such a massive eccentric aerodynamic load on the fuselage that surely the rudder inputs to correct the resulting pitch and yaw would additionally stress the tail structure


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## Glider (Jan 14, 2010)

The reality is that we are guessing. One thing struck me was whatever the reason for the wing failures and lowering of the VNE the problem seems to have been solved with the K version.

If it had been an uplock problem or something similar, wouldn't it have been identified somewhere between mid 42 and mid 44?

Kurfurst, you are the 109 guru do you know what the changes were in the design of the K wing?


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## NZTyphoon (Jan 15, 2010)

Kurfürst said:


> Basically true. I don't think there was any great difference between the stress limits of the two airframes, nor that it is to be blamed on the airframe if the pilot does not adhere the operational limits of the airframe.
> 
> Secondly its a bit bizarre to argue that the German paper issued at the end of August 1942 is some sort of evidence that the Spitfire was less likely to be overstressed in dive, as you were already shown (several times) the British papers preceeding the German papers by a couple of months, and dealing with the very subject of
> 
> ...



Firstly, the Spitfire V material was specifically discussing a serious of accidents which occured in 1942, when a number of Spitfire Vs crashed while diving. This problem was traced to bad loading of additional equipment on some squadrons which pushed the cg backwards; this was NOT an inherent problem of the Spitfire's design and these problems disappeared once the cg limits were adhered to. As a further measure bobweights had been introduced into the elevator control circuit and, according to Quill, the problem disappered. All the document submitted by Kurfurst proves is that the Spitfire, like most any other aircraft, reacted badly to having its cg pushed back beyond proper loading requirements, particularly when the airframe was highly stressed already.

Next the Spitfire II manual; this has been used time and again by Kurfurst to be representative of ALL Spitfires; as yet there has been nothing presented showing that in actual combat Spitfires were adversly affected by sudden gust loadings - has Kurfurst shown any evidence that such events during combat caused Spitfires to fall apart, to the glee (presumably) of the opposing pilot? Pure hypothesis on Kurfurst's part is not eveidence.

As it is there is evidence that throughout production Spitfires improved in respect of elevator control, particularly when the balance on the leading edge of the elevator was enlarged; eg: the PILOT'S NOTES for Spitfire Mark F.VII and Mark VII (A.P 1565G H - December 1943) say:
49. GENERAL FLYING
(i) Stability -On later aircraft fitted with horn balance elevators and large rudders there is a marked increase in longitudinal and directional stability, particularly at altitude.

If the Spitfire was truly such a bad aircraft to fly, as Kurfurst sometimes likes to maintain, I wonder why Cheif test pilots Quill and Henshaw kept their jobs?


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## Kurfürst (Jan 15, 2010)

NZTyphoon said:


> Firstly, the Spitfire V material was specifically discussing a serious of accidents which occured in 1942, when a number of Spitfire Vs crashed while diving. This problem was traced to bad loading of additional equipment on some squadrons which pushed the cg backwards; this was NOT an inherent problem of the Spitfire's design and these problems disappeared once the cg limits were adhered to.



Source with quoute please. If you wish to ignore the evidence, be my guest.


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## Kurfürst (Jan 15, 2010)

Glider said:


> The reality is that we are guessing. One thing struck me was whatever the reason for the wing failures and lowering of the VNE the problem seems to have been solved with the K version.



I don't think it was a particular problem with the airframe or any of it's particulars. I tend to believe that by 1942, the Luftwaffe, along with other airforces began to realize the dangers of high speed flight near the Mach number, and lowering the VNEs at high altitude reflected a trial and error approach - and guesswork. You can see the same stories with the high speed trials with Spitfires, P-47s, P-38s etc. Moreover pilots were reporting extremely high airspeeds - 1000 km/h and the like - from instrument readings, which were down to the unreliability of the pitots at those speeds. The designers probably thought that the pilots were approaching the speed of sound from those reports..

Its worth noting that the understanding of these effects were at their infancy - pilot manuals did not specifiy differentiated VNEs for altitude ranges, rather just a single, generic VNE; for example the early Bf 109E manual only specified 750 km/h with no altitude given, similiarly the early Spitfire I, II etc. manual only specified iirc 460 mph IAS, again no altitude given. Only later did altitude differentiated VNE limits began to appear, and they represented a degree of conservativeness or daring on the part of the manufacturer, based on a basic understanding that the speed of sound decreases with altitude considerably, therefore the VNE has to decrease with altitude too. At the time there was no firm understanding, or testing was available what happens to the aircraft suddenly when it reaches a magic barrier at around 0.75 Mach. The essential research was only done during wartime, and until then, it was essentially guesswork. I am sure Bill can add a lot more than that.

Another thing worth mentioning that the VNE has very little to do with the structural strenght of the fuselage or wings etc. Its not the air pressure or something like that that the wings can't stand up to, its the buffeting that tears it apart, and the vibration is largely function of things totally unrelated to the wing, rather how much free are the ailerons, elevator, stablisiers are aerodynamically designed and behave at high speed, how does the aircraft retains its stability characteristics at high speed. If it does not, or if the moving surfaces are badly designed (as the engineers designing them in the 1930s had no clue HOW to design such a device to be troublefree at high speeds, and it involved a fair bit of just getting lucky), the aircraft will simply tear itself apart no matter how well the wing could resist g-loads at lower speeds; Flutter for example will rip even the strongest wing apart, and its totally unrelated how ''strong'' the wing structure is.. 



> If it had been an uplock problem or something similar, wouldn't it have been identified somewhere between mid 42 and mid 44?
> 
> Kurfurst, you are the 109 guru do you know what the changes were in the design of the K wing?



IMHO the VNE increase for the 109K merely showed increased confidence in the airplane (a lot of high speed trials were done in 1943-44, so they probably understood this area better by then). In 1943 they did tried to find out empirically the problems that may arise from diving at high speeds by making a 109F climb as high as it could, pushing the nose down in a vertical dive at full throttle, and substantially going over the nominal VNE in the process. Most importantly they confirmed that reports from pilots that they went over 1000 km/h were absurd, and was down to instrument errors, plus the usual symptoms of going near the Mach number in a WW2 fighter - aileron overbalance, compressibility being encountered and stick reversal etc. 






If you look at the previous limits, you will notice that the limitation stayed the same from the F-2 to the G-10, despite the considerable aerodynamical difference that occured in the meantime, which strictly speaking surely effected the actual VNE of the aircraft, rather than the nominal VNE stated in the manuals. They probably didn't bother to update the limits until 109K model, and even that had probably more to do with aerodynamic changes (rembember both the main gear and the tailwheel had covers and was now fully retractable), rather than any structural change.

.


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## Juha (Jan 15, 2010)

The test plane was a 109F with 109G wings, aileron movement was halved to reduce risk of overcompensation. Maybe explanation for higher dive speed for 109K was the fact that with the original low tail plane lost stability at speeds over 650km/h (IAS). After installation of the taller tail, used in late 109G-6s and later versions, speeds up to 737km/h (IAS) was reached.

Juha


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## Glider (Jan 15, 2010)

Kurfürst said:


> Source with quoute please. If you wish to ignore the evidence, be my guest.



Kurfurst.
What evidence. I am still waiting for you to tell us what that report says, you remember the one, the one that was going to look into the impact of COG caused by the slight change in the design, the one that didn't mention accidents or investigation into accidents, the one you use as definitive evidence without any summary of the findings. 

I admit that its only my memory, but my memory ties up well with what NZTyphoon has stated in his posting.


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## Glider (Jan 15, 2010)

Juha said:


> The test plane was a 109F with 109G wings, aileron movement was halved to reduce risk of overcompensation. Maybe explanation for higher dive speed for 109K was the fact that with the original low tail plane lost stability at speeds over 650km/h (IAS). After installation of the taller tail, used in late 109G-6s and later versions, speeds up to 737km/h (IAS) was reached.
> 
> Juha



That would make sense.


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## Kurfürst (Jan 15, 2010)

Spitfire: The History: Amazon.co.uk: Eric B. Morgan, Edward Shacklady: Books deals in considerable detail with the diving accidents and structural failures occuring to the Spitfire Mk V.

It should be of interest for this thread:


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## Kurfürst (Jan 15, 2010)

Glider said:


> I am still waiting for you to tell us what that report says, you remember the one, the one that was going to look into the impact of COG caused by the slight change in the design, the one that didn't mention accidents or investigation into accidents, the one you use as definitive evidence without any summary of the findings.



The one posted is very definitive about investigating structural failures occured to Spitfire Mk Vs.
It definietely mentions accidents. Structural ones. With the Spitfire.

I don't know what your alleged report says, because I haven't seen it, because you have not been able to post it, and I don't think I've seen such report ever myself that would say things about a practice 'only concerning a couple of squadrons'' or a ''slight change in the design''.

Or are you saying that it is me who should provide the document which you claim to have seen/quoting etc, too? In other words, I am supposed to provide evidence to your own statements as well...? That would be odd..



> I admit that its only my memory, but my memory ties up well with what NZTyphoon has stated in his posting.



Actually I am under the impression that you have seen no report at all, and only repeating the same claims NZTyphoon has made but failed to support despite numerous requests to him.


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## Kurfürst (Jan 15, 2010)

Juha said:


> The test plane was a 109F with 109G wings, aileron movement was halved to reduce risk of overcompensation. Maybe explanation for higher dive speed for 109K was the fact that with the original low tail plane lost stability at speeds over 650km/h (IAS). After installation of the taller tail, used in late 109G-6s and later versions, speeds up to 737km/h (IAS) was reached.
> 
> Juha



Actually there were several dives - aileron deflection was limited by half only final the last dive which reached the highest airspeed of 906 kph TAS / 737 kph IAS, after aileron overbalance was observed in previous dives reaching 850 to 890 kph TAS. Some 30 dives were performed in two months time. 

An interesting detail is that the final dive that went 906 kph was made on the test pilot, Lukas Schmidt's own request, against the protest of several of his fellow engineers.


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## Juha (Jan 15, 2010)

Of course there were several dives, a bit difficult to make only one dive if the tail was changed during the tests.

Quote:” aileron deflection was limited by half only final the last dive”

Really? Why then in Zustand der Maschine reads “ Für die ersten Versuchsflüge befand sich die Maschine bis auf die Beschränkung der Querruderausschläge..."

That means that for the first tests flights a/c was standard 109F with wings of the G-model but aileron movement limitations (and an ejection seat, Germans were forefront in these).

Juha


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## Glider (Jan 15, 2010)

Kurfürst said:


> The one posted is very definitive about investigating structural failures occured to Spitfire Mk Vs.
> It definietely mentions accidents. Structural ones. With the Spitfire.


Where does it say this? The posting you have just done is not from a report



> I don't know what your alleged report says, because I haven't seen it, because you have not been able to post it, and I don't think I've seen such report ever myself that would say things about a practice 'only concerning a couple of squadrons'' or a ''slight change in the design''.


I don't have it and I repeat never claimed to have it, only that I have read it in the past. the slight change in design is on the paper that you posted in post 37. The exact wording in para 4 is
The effect of flattening down the lip that existed in the rear edge of the elevator shrouds was investigated on the Spitfire VB.
Para 1 deals with the fact that they are going to look into several accidents to Spitfire V aircraft.

What we need to see is the summary of the findings of that paper. There are two known possibile issues
a) It is the firing of the guns that damaged the Oxygen feed to the pilot mentionind in the extract from the book. A modification to the oxygen feed was also mentioned in my posting of the Me109F thread.
b) It could be the COG problem mentioned by myself and NZ Typhoon.
c) It could be some major structural fault not mentioned by anyone
We don't know only you have the paper and for some reason you will not post the findings. As to why you will not post the findings I don't know. I can only think of two reasons
1) they agree with either A or B above
2) you don't have the rest of the paper



> Or are you saying that it is me who should provide the document which you claim to have seen/quoting etc, too? In other words, I am supposed to provide evidence to your own statements as well...? That would be odd..


All we are asking you to do is to post the results of the paper that you say you have, to support your position. What exactly is wrong with that? As I have said if it is something else unknown then I will happily stand aside.
As for supplying supporting documents your track record is shall we say patchy (dare I mention the 100 octane). So support your position.



> Actually I am under the impression that you have seen no report at all, and only repeating the same claims NZTyphoon has made but failed to support despite numerous requests to him.


One slight problem with that theory. I mentioned it first, its difficult for me to repat the claims that NZTyphoon has made, if I made them first.


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## Kurfürst (Jan 15, 2010)

Juha said:


> Of course there were several dives, a bit difficult to make only one dive if the tail was changed during the tests.
> 
> Quote:” aileron deflection was limited by half only final the last dive”
> 
> ...



Yes, REAALY dear Juha. Lukas Schmid is quoted by Radinger/Otto, and he makes it clear the first flight certainly did not have any aileron limitation - this was only added after a number of dives. 

ie. first dive: _"On 29 January all was ready, it was time to carry out the first diving flight."_... later: _"With the stabilizer trim now in order. I conducted a test flight to find a stabilizer position in which the elevator control force was manageable; this position was limited by a stop. As speed was increased — I was in the area between 850 and 890 kph — an aileron over-balance became apparent. Aileron deflection was *subsequently* limited by half, which certainly prevented a later crash._" and then _"Thus, I was able to carry
on, for I was by now curious to determine The terminal dive speed. I achieved this after peeling off into an 80° dive from an altitude of 10700 meters, reaching 906 kph and Mach 0.80 (see flight report)."_

Your report only deals with one of these dives, the one that achieved 906 kph TAS, and describes the condition of the aircraft for that (final, I believe) test dive.


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## Juha (Jan 15, 2010)

Now Flüge is plural of der Flug (flight) and maybe a look into Flugbericht Nr. 901/274 will confirm that during several flights, in fact during 14 flights, after tail was changed to taller one the movement of the ailerons was halved.

Juha


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## Soren (Jan 15, 2010)

The test pilot himself made it pretty clear that the aileron movement was halvated first after having taken the a/c to both 850 and 890 km/h, in which speed regime the overbalance first became apparent. I really don't see how this can be misinterpreted.


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## Juha (Jan 15, 2010)

Tests were made because “1. Klärung von Unfällen bei der Truppen (Ûberausgleich des Querruders und unzureichende Wirkung des Höhenruders bei hohen Mach’schen Zahlen.
…”
So it stands on the page one of the test report.

Ie. Because there had been accidents in front line units, suspected reason having been overcompensation of aileron controls and insufficient elevator authority at high mach numbers.
…

Juha


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## NZTyphoon (Jan 15, 2010)

Kurfürst said:


> Source with quoute please. If you wish to ignore the evidence, be my guest.





Kurfürst said:


> Actually I am under the impression that you have seen no report at all, and only repeating the same claims NZTyphoon has made but failed to support despite numerous requests to him.


Numerous requests??  Since when has one sarcastic comment become "numerous requests"   Funny how Kurfurst invariably and automatically provides ALL all of his scources and quotes on request  ; however, to the point: Quill devotes an entire chapter to longitudinal stability (pages 229-241 Murray 1983) in his book "Spitfire a Test Pilot's Story" in which he goes into detail about the problems involving several Spitfire Vs which broke up in 1942; Quill describes the problem of Spitfire Vs breaking up; he then goes on to describe the solutions which were a): to ensure that when new equipment was added that the loading was kept within limits and b):the design of bobweights, which were added to the elevator circuit, as well as the modified elevators fitted to later Spitfire marks. After the bob-weights were fitted, and the loading sorted out, the problem disappeared.

Quill
"In general configuration the Mk I and Mk II production aeroplanes were almost identical to the prototype and so there was no problem with their stability." (231-232) 

"The Mk III Spitfire did not go into production, but the success of the bobweight experiment in curing its instability...opened up the possibility of its use for later marks of Spitfire....which was just as well as we had to...respond to a nasty situation which developed in 1942.
The Mk V aircraft was...in full service with Fighter Command and,...a fair amount of additional operational equipment had gradually crept into the aircraft, most of it stowed within the fuselage. The aftmost acceptable position for the aircraft's centre of gravity had been fixed in the mormal course of flight testing by the firm and by the A AEE....Any rearward movement of the centre of gravity in service, for whatever reason, would begin to destabilise the aircraft. Therefore, for each sub-variant of the Mk V detailed instructions for the correct loading of the aircraft were issued to squadrons...._However the importance of these loading instructions was not generally appreciated in squadrons and in the daily round of operational activity they tended to be disregarded._" (pages 232-233 -Quill goes on to describe 65 Sqn's Spitfire Vbs which were found to be dangerously unstable)

"There was thus a real chance that, as of that moment, _in almost every squadron in the Command Spitfires were flying in a dangerous state of instability_....Up to that time there had been a distressing and increasing incidence of total structural failure of Spitfires in the air, which was causing great comcern in the MAP and especially at Supermarine." (pages234-235) Once the bobweights had been introduced and, in later marks, the modified mass balances on the elevators...it was statistically established that, as soon as the longitudinal stability of the Spitfire was thus brought under control, the problem of the unexplained breakings-up of aircraft in mid-air,...'softly and suddenly vanished away'." (page 238 )

What is interesting is that Quill points out that the majority of Spitfire Vs in service may have been dangerously unstable. If this was the case it is even more striking how few of them actually broke-up. 

The report, one page of whick Kurfurst uses to imply that all Spitfires were inherently likely to break-up, is dated April-July 1942, and is one of those written during the investigations of the problems described by Geoffrey Quill.

X4266, according to Morgan and Shacklady, was originally a Mk I "11-4-42 hand(ling), stab(ility), recovery from dive and steep turns. Comp. trials with BM559..."

BM559 "hand stab characteristics recovering from dives. Steep turns to assess aeroelastically stresses. Comp trials with X4266 fitt (?) DeH and Rotol props. Trls with and without 6 1/2 intl wt in elevator system.



Glider said:


> Unfortunately you have chosen to present part of the paper that says what they are looking into *not the piece that deals with the investigation*. If this is the paper that I read in the entirety, the problem was associated to the change in the COG as new equipment was added to the Mk V which was easily fixed once the problem had been identified.





Kurfürst said:


> The report doesn't say any such thing. You don't have the report - you were asking for it just a couple of days ago - and you have made the above up.



No, Glider was not making this up - as Quill has described, the problems were caused by bad loading at squadron level, which led to problems of Spitfire Vs breaking up in a dive. It's very easy for Kurfurst to make all sorts of claims, based on selected pages (including a set of "Pilot's Notes", the provenence of which is unknown...), but I don't believe he had the experience of Quill in actually testing and approving the flight qualities of all marks of Spitfire.


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## Juha (Jan 16, 2010)

Hello Kurfürst
To put it more clearly, on what you based your claim, that “aileron deflection was limited by half only final the last dive”?

Both the summary of the tests, dated 15 April 43 and the Flight report Nr. 901/274 on tests flown between 15 Feb and 12 March 43 (14 flights) clearly stated that the movement of the ailerons was halved. On the other hand looking again after a long time the Flight report Nr. 879/270 on tests flown between 28 Jan and 4 Feb 43, it didn’t mentioned that and in the end demanded enlarged tail and limitation of the aileron movement to 50% before greater speeds were tried 

Juha


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## Milosh (Jan 16, 2010)

Does it not seem strange that Kurfurst will take an Aussie document on 100 octane fuel that a person has read as 'gospel', yet questions a report that Glider has read on the Spitfire.


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## NZTyphoon (Jan 16, 2010)

Now, the pages from Morgan and Shacklady presented by Kurfurst as "evidence" that the Spitfire was inherently prone to breaking up. What is striking is how many of the reported incidents can be attributed to external factors;

1): From the line on page 161 "A visit was paid to Farnborough..." the conclusion of the report reads: "It is significant that the panel did not fail at the vertical wall attachment rivets, which indicates that the cracks and rivet failures discussed _WOULD NOT have had serious consequences_."

2): A PRU Spitfire had "oil canning" of a wheel well plate, but no conclusion was reached as to the reason for this. A scratch connecting several rivets was thought to have been caused by a riveting dolly,_ which may have led to future problems_.

3): Spitfire VBs buckling of top skins was caused by discontinuity of stringers "...and are not of serious consequence." "The buckles behind the main spar _are not detrimental to strength_ and only seem to occur on VB wings."

4): AB200 (Mk VI) incident on 29 January 1942. Damaged wings were replaced and AB200 served on 124 Sqn from June '43 and was sent to 33 MU in October.

5):AA912 violent oscillation of elevator at dive to 465 mph; pilot pulled out..."An examination of mainplane and ailerons _revealed no defects_....When the tail unit was removed _it was found that the tail-plane spars were of the non-reinforced type_."

6):One genuine incident of a Spitfire breaking up after entering a high speed dive. Break-up due to "...excessive normal loading produced by an uncontrolled dive at high speed." No mention of how many hours flown, whether the aircraft had taken damage, either in combat or earlier in its career.

7):BL513; Buckling of the fuselage _due to heavy landings_, which were enough to bend the tailwheel leg. Also, aircraft lost drogue while target towing on previous flight, causing damage to rear fuselage (implied). 

8 ): EP335 returned to base after damage during combat manoeuvers and after a high speed dive, during which the pilot blacked out;"The wings and centre-section buckled and tailplane damaged." (By this time EP335 had been in service for 10 months - what the report doesn't say is that EP335 was being used by an OTU at the time of the accident. )

Only two of the Spitfires mentioned were right-offs, with one fatal breakup. There is also a description of several Spitfires crashing due to damage to oxygen regulating apparatus on firing the Hispanos, and over-long oxygen piping in which condensation could freeze - again, these were factors external to the basic design Finally there were problems caused by manufacturing faults which were "rooted out" by the Accidents branch. 

What was the point of reproducing these pages? There is nothing startling or new about any of this; the Spitfire was a mass-produced aircraft, subjected to operational wear and tear, not to mention production problems with wrong rivets etc. What is interesting is that many of the incidents described were caused by external factors, while others "_Would no have had serious consequences_" or "_are not detrimental to strength._", something Kurfurst didn't bother to point out.


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## Juha (Jan 16, 2010)

Hello Glider
On Your question in Your message #64 Quote:” what the changes were in the design of the K wing?”

There should have been wheel well doors (and a fully retractable tailwheel) and modified ailerons but according to both Fernández-Sommerau’s 109 Recognition Manual and Poruba’s and Janda’s Bf 109K many 109Ks didn’t have the wheel well doors or the fully retractable tailwheel and at least absolute majority of Ks had same ailerons than Gs. K’s had big bulges across upper surface of wings as they had bigger 660x190mm tyres but so had also many G-10s. So in essence many K’s were aerodynamically more or less identical to G-10s and so were the wings like those in G-10s. It would be interesting to know what was the max permissible dive speed for those non-standard K’s. If the critical elements were wheel well doors and/or the fully retractable tailwheel, it sould be the same as for Gs but if the tall tail was the the critical element or the question was that the earlier lower dive speed was overcautious to newer models then it should have been the same as that for standard Ks.

Juha


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## Glider (Jan 18, 2010)

Juha
Thanks for this. There is little doubt that the 1942 restrictions were significant and I would have expected the Luftwaffe to get them increased again as quickly as possible. They may have been over cautious or they may have been defined for a reason we simply don't know.

Anyway thanks again for your comments


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## slaterat (Jan 19, 2010)

I would argue that both the Spitfire and the BF 109 proved that a sucessful 1940s fighter could be built around a weight saving single spar wing. In both cases its what helped to make them great.

Slaterat


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## Kurfürst (Jan 28, 2010)

Juha said:


> Really? Why then in Zustand der Maschine reads “ Für die ersten Versuchsflüge befand sich die Maschine bis auf die Beschränkung der Querruderausschläge..."
> 
> That means that for the first tests flights a/c was standard 109F with wings of the G-model but aileron movement limitations (and an ejection seat, Germans were forefront in these).
> 
> Juha





Juha said:


> Both the summary of the tests, dated 15 April 43 and the Flight report Nr. 901/274 on tests flown between 15 Feb and 12 March 43 (14 flights) clearly stated that the movement of the ailerons was halved. On the other hand looking again after a long time the Flight report Nr. 879/270 on tests flown between 28 Jan and 4 Feb 43, it didn’t mentioned that and in the end demanded enlarged tail and limitation of the aileron movement to 50% before greater speeds were tried
> 
> Juha



No further comments seems necessary on Juha's self-contradiction. 8)


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## Kurfürst (Jan 28, 2010)

Milosh said:


> Does it not seem strange that Kurfurst will take an Aussie document on 100 octane fuel that a person has read as 'gospel', yet questions a report that Glider has read on the Spitfire.



Does it not seem strange that after both of your previous login handles, AL Schlageter and KraziKanuk were permanently banned from this board for just being here to stirr up trouble, you are still here stirring up trouble under a new login... I guess that one is easy to fix.


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## Juha (Jan 28, 2010)

Hello Kurfürst
So we agree that after 9 initial dives from 28 Jan to 4 Feb 43 the test team demanded that for higher speed dives the higher tail a la late Gs and Ks must be installed and aileron movement be limited by 50%.

After these mods 14 further dives were made from 15 Feb to 12 March 43 during which speeds up to Mach .805 was achieved.

Juha


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## Kurfürst (Jan 28, 2010)

NZTyphoon said:


> Now, the pages from Morgan and Shacklady presented by Kurfurst as "evidence" that the Spitfire was inherently prone to breaking up.



Alas, putting them into quotation marks, or picking out a select few examples when I have already posted to whole text for everyone to read and make up their own mind would hardly succeed in dismissing the documented evidence.

We know that:

a, The *Spitfire II manual* specifically warn about the low pitch stability of the aircraft and sensitive controls, which can easily lead to structural failure. That pretty much read to me as Spitfire was inherently prone to breaking up, as it was too easy to overload. It wasn't a structural strenght problem, it was a control characteristic problem.

b, We know from *Morgan and Shacklady*, page 143 that this problem was already encountered in 1941, but the suggested fix, elevator inertia weights were not introduced to Mk Vs at the time,

c, We know that the problem of* unwanted tightening up the turn during pullout and consequent structural failures kept persisting into 1942*, and lead to numerous total structural failures , evidenced by the 1942 report, and the inertia weights were looked into again.

d, We also know that the inertia weight/pitch instability problem was only half the story, as there were significant problems in co-existance due to *aileron instability and flutter*, that also lead to structural failures.

e, We also know that there were *occasional problems with structural strenght later in the war*, see the mention of buckling wings and U frames in fighter-bomber sorties, and signal of prohibition of diving attacks of Mark VIIIs in the Far East.

The evidence is numerous, convincing, and irrefutable I am afraid.



> What was the point of reproducing these pages? There is nothing startling or new about any of this; the Spitfire was a mass-produced aircraft, subjected to operational wear and tear, not to mention production problems with wrong rivets etc.



Well the point is to provide verifiable, referenced evidence to the factors that contributed to the Spitfire's structural incidents that lead to loss of aircraft during flight to give the readers objective basis to form their opinion on. After all, thats the very purpose of this thread, to learn about the factors contributing to breaking up of 109s and Spitfires during the war. 

IMHO there is a surprising amount of parallel between the time frame and cause of these accidents, despite what fanboys of a specific aircraft would like to tell people, that while the the 'other' fighter was riddled with problems unique only to it, 'his' fighter was utter perfection and completely free of any such defect. The evidence and detailed history of these aircraft show different.

After all, Spitfire fans posting in the thread appear to be _somewhat_  reluctant to share this information with others, being very busy trying to dismiss the evidence posted, and even engage in building CONTHEOs of forged manuals and such silly stuff.  The evidence is mounting and tend to show that the Spitfire had its share of problems on its own - some of them (sensitive pitch and instability) were inherent with the design itself, some of them were related to the rather infamously poor quality control at Supermarine. However, from the original question POV of which one is more likely to break up in a dive, it is irrevelant wheter it was a design defect or a production quality defect, the result was the same.

At this point, when evidence is a mountain and all attempts to dismiss every single manual, wartime report and the respected Spitfire Bible by Shacklady and Morgan that was shown have failed, Spitfire fans start to be extremely liberal, and there is suddenly talk of 'mass-production', 'operational wear and tear' and so on. Oddly enough, these causes didn't apply to the 109 a few pages before.


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## Kurfürst (Jan 28, 2010)

Juha said:


> Hello Kurfürst
> So we agree that after 9 initial dives from 28 Jan to 4 Feb 43 the test team demanded that for higher speed dives the higher tail a la late Gs and Ks must be installed and aileron movement be limited by 50%.



Yes and they reached 850 km/h to 890 km/h speed during those trials.



> After these mods 14 further dives were made from 15 Feb to 12 March 43 during which speeds up to Mach .805 was achieved.
> 
> Juha



Yes after limiting the ailerons deflection to half, they reached speeds 16 km/h higher, up to 906 km/h, than before limiting the ailerons.

Also it should be noted that they widely exceeded the official dive speed limitations of the Bf 109F both in the dives with aileron limitation and both in the dives without aileron limitation with no serious incident.


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## Juha (Jan 28, 2010)

Hello Kurfürst
yes, and after all the plane was not a normal F but F with stiffer wings of 109G.

Juha


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## Kurfürst (Jan 28, 2010)

NZTyphoon said:


> No, Glider was not making this up - as Quill has described, the problems were caused by bad loading at squadron level, which led to problems of Spitfire Vs breaking up in a dive.



Indeed Glider did not make that up, it was you who made it up, in a previous thread, and Glider was only quoting your claims, believing he read them in a report. 

Contrary to your claim, it had nothing to do with 'poor maintenance' at a squadron level. 

Contrary to your claim, it was not limited to a 'few squadrons'. You refer to Quill having said that, which is false, and it is actually your own very liberal interpretation of his words: _"However the importance of these loading instructions* was not generally appreciated in squadrons* and in the daily round of operational activity they tended to be disregarded. ... There was thus a real chance that, as of that moment,* in almost every squadron* in the Command Spitfires were flying in a dangerous state of instability...."_

That is very far fetched compared to your claim that it only effected only a few squadrons - Quill states exactly the contrary.

Also contrary to your claims, the main cause of this defect was a faulty decision.

Morgan and Shacklady details these on page 143: the RAF was well aware that the Mk V may have problems with the CoG shifting as a result of added equipment (given that it was originally meant as an interim solution, basically a Mk I with a new Merlin 45 engine). The idea of adding inertia for the Mk VA and Mk VB was already considered in June 1941. As a result of dismissive comments from pilots from operational Squadrons with this installation (compaints of inertia weights making the Spit difficult to land and reducing its manouveribility), and trials at RAE it was decided to fit the inertia weights only to the Mk Mk VI, PR IV, VI, VII and Seafire I and II. 

*However, the inertia weights were not to be fitted I, II, and *V in 1941, provided several items were to be deleted. In retrospect this was a faulty decision, and lead to several fatal accidents with the MK V involving total structural failure, and prompted another investigation in early 1942 (the paper I have also posted, which you also implied to be forgery or manipulative  ). Eventually the inertia weights were to be fitted after all, but not until several planes and pilots were lost to this design defect, that could prove fatal with the type's inherent low pitch stability characteristics.



> It's very easy for Kurfurst to make all sorts of claims, based on selected pages (including a set of "Pilot's Notes", the provenence of which is unknown...),



Of course its very easy for me to make statements, because, unlike yourself, I am fully able to back them up with a mass of primary and secondary source, and unlike you, I am not forced to desperately make up pitiful conspiracy theories about 'selected pages' and petty, underhand implications that a manual posted as evidenced is my forgery - BTW Glider just posted the same manual in another thread, and I haven't sent it to him. *OOPS!* 



> but I don't believe he had the experience of Quill in actually testing and approving the flight qualities of all marks of Spitfire.



What the heck are you babbling about..?

The evidence posted come from

- the 'forged' Spitfire II manual, issued by the Air Ministry. It certainly not approves of the stability characteristics, which are described to be poor and potentially dangerous; 
- the 'selected' 1942 reports of investigating Spitfire structural failures in pullouts - surely those serviceman concerned and responsible because of these wing failures were a bunch of idiots, too...
- Morgan and Shacklady, authors of by far the most definitive history of the Spitfire, who devote two chapters of aileron related and diving accidents in their book. Surely they were doing this because they though the issue was insignificant...  

Besides Quill is also in good agreement with these sources, describing the same problems, and saying something utterly different than what you put into his mouth. 8)


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## Kurfürst (Jan 28, 2010)

Juha said:


> Hello Kurfürst
> yes, and after all the plane was not a normal F but F with stiffer wings of 109G.
> 
> Juha



Yes I would believe there would be very little point in testing a model (109F) that by 1943, when the test was done, was practically retired from service. In any case the US Material Command document shows there were no problems with the 109F wing/aileron either.

Anyway, its nice to know that the diving limitations of the Bf 109F/G could be considerably exceeded without serious ill effects, using extreme diving methods (vertical dives at full power from maximum altitude, and subsequent violent pull up) as was shown during the trials.


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## Kurfürst (Jan 28, 2010)

More from Morgand and Shacklady, Spitfire: The history. 

It would appear that the invastigation of series of Spitfire accidents related to structural failures in flight were not only rooted in pitch instability, but also in aileron instability experienced in flight. 

Other salient point being the sepeation of the tail unit in flight at frame No.19 due to lack of weak design of the tail unit. On the good side, the pilot was usually catapulted out of the aircraft, presumable through the plexiglass, when this occured.

Details are below:


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## Kurfürst (Jan 28, 2010)

AA 876, disintegrated in dive at 520 mph. Via Morgan and Shacklady: Spitfire, the History.


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## Glider (Jan 28, 2010)

Kurfürst said:


> Indeed Glider did not make that up, it was you who made it up, in a previous thread, and Glider was only quoting your claims, believing he read them in a report.



Kurfurst. 
First. I have adressed this before and you are ignoring what I said. I pointed out to you that its difficult for me to repeat someones claims if I made them first. 
Secondly you never did say what that report said only showing the front cover.
Lastly At the end of the day the number of instances are small compared to the number produced and in service.

Have you any numbers for the german losses due to accidents?


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 28, 2010)

Play nice everyone...


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## NZTyphoon (Jan 28, 2010)

Kurfürst said:


> Indeed Glider did not make that up, it was you who made it up, in a previous thread, and Glider was only quoting your claims, believing he read them in a report.
> 
> Contrary to your claim, it had nothing to do with 'poor maintenance' at a squadron level.



This is HEROIC!  Kurfurst says the problems with the Mk Vs had nothing to do with poor maintenance at squadron level. First he claims that I made it up that Spitfire Vs were being badly loaded at squadron level, yet the paper, reproduced below (courtesy of KF), clearly states


> ( 1st para) This report forms part of an investigation...undertaken..._as a result of several accidents to Spitfire V aircraft in service_... (2nd para) The purpose of the investigation was to study the handling qualities of the Spitfire I and Spitfire V with particular reference to the dive and pull-out and tight turns. _The effects of centre of gravity position, inertia weight_...were to be obtained








He then quotes my quote from Quill...: 



Kurfürst said:


> Contrary to your claim, it was not limited to a 'few squadrons'. You refer to Quill having said that, which is false, and it is actually your own very liberal interpretation of his words: _"However the importance of these loading instructions* was not generally appreciated in squadrons* and in the daily round of operational activity they tended to be disregarded. ... There was thus a real chance that, as of that moment,* in almost every squadron* in the Command Spitfires were flying in a dangerous state of instability...."_
> 
> That is very far fetched compared to your claim that it only effected only a few squadrons - Quill states exactly the contrary.



This was my quote from Quill, with my comments (post #80)



NZTyphoon said:


> The Mk V aircraft was...in full service with Fighter Command and,...a fair amount of additional operational equipment had gradually crept into the aircraft, most of it stowed within the fuselage. The aftmost acceptable position for the aircraft's centre of gravity had been fixed in the mormal course of flight testing by the firm and by the A AEE....Any rearward movement of the centre of gravity in service, for whatever reason, would begin to destabilise the aircraft. Therefore, for each sub-variant of the Mk V detailed instructions for the correct loading of the aircraft were issued to squadrons...._However the importance of these loading instructions was not generally appreciated in squadrons and in the daily round of operational activity they tended to be disregarded._" (pages 232-233 -Quill goes on to describe 65 Sqn's Spitfire Vbs which were found to be dangerously unstable)
> 
> "There was thus a real chance that, as of that moment, _in almost every squadron in the Command Spitfires were flying in a dangerous state of instability_....Up to that time there had been a distressing and increasing incidence of total structural failure of Spitfires in the air, which was causing great comcern in the MAP and especially at Supermarine." (pages234-235) Once the bobweights had been introduced and, in later marks, the modified mass balances on the elevators...it was statistically established that, as soon as the longitudinal stability of the Spitfire was thus brought under control, the problem of the unexplained breakings-up of aircraft in mid-air,...'softly and suddenly vanished away'." (page 238 )
> 
> ...



Ah, Yup : ; 'nuff said...8)



Kurfürst said:


> and prompted another investigation in early 1942 (the paper I have also posted...  )



So, this paper, reproduced above, had nothing to do with the problems described by Quill... 



Kurfürst said:


> Also contrary to your claims, the main cause of this defect was a faulty decision.



Not that I actually made such claims...but do go on.



Kurfürst said:


> Morgan and Shacklady details these on page 143: the RAF was well aware that the Mk V may have problems with the CoG shifting as a result of added equipment (given that it was originally meant as an interim solution, basically a Mk I with a new Merlin 45 engine). The idea of adding inertia for the Mk VA and Mk VB was already considered in June 1941. As a result of dismissive comments from pilots from operational Squadrons with this installation (compaints of inertia weights making the Spit difficult to land and reducing its manouveribility), and trials at RAE it was decided to fit the inertia weights only to the Mk Mk VI, PR IV, VI, VII and Seafire I and II.
> 
> *However, the inertia weights were not to be fitted I, II, and *V in 1941, provided several items were to be deleted. In retrospect this was a faulty decision, and lead to several fatal accidents with the MK V involving total structural failure, and prompted another investigation in early 1942 ... Eventually the inertia weights were to be fitted after all, but not until several planes and pilots were lost to this design defect, that could prove fatal with the type's inherent low pitch stability characteristics.



And so? I happen to agree that this was an appalling decision. Doesn't change what I said in #80, that the paper presented by Kurfurst was written because of the problems of Spitfire Vs falling apart in 1942, exacerbated, as Quill says, by poor maintenance at squadron level - up until now Morgan and Shacklady p. 143 hadn't been mentioned at all.



Kurfürst said:


> - the 'selected' 1942 reports of investigating Spitfire structural failures in pullouts - surely those serviceman concerned and responsible because of these wing failures were a bunch of idiots, too...



Quite possibly



Kurfürst said:


> Of course its very easy for me to make statements, because, unlike yourself, I am fully able to back them up with a mass of primary and secondary source??, and unlike you, I am not forced to desperately make up pitiful conspiracy theories...



It was Glider who provided the Spitfire II Pilot's Notes_ in full_ - not KF, who posted a selected set of pages on photobucket; I will take Glider's word, rather than KF's. BTW page 9 of the manual, under *Fuel, oil and coolant* states
*Fuel.........100 Octane (Store Ref.34A/75)*



Glider said:


> This might be of interest.  It should be noted that the words are very similar to Kurfurst's paper. He did post a link once and there were some problems with the paper he put a link to.
> 
> Namely it was dated June 1940 but gave the instructions for firing 2 x 20mm and 4 x LMG or 8 x LMG. Also it had the details for both 87 and 100 Octane fuel. In June 1940 the were no Spit IIB and they all had 100 Octane fuel.
> 
> ...





Kurfürst said:


> It should be noted that all the above claims by Glider are made up on his own regards the contents of the manual - it doesn't contain anything like he says, in fact he just posted exactly the same manual I have...



Now according to KF Glider is telling porkies about the Pilot's Notes - Supermarine Spitfire Mk IIA - IIB - Merlin XII Engine yet it clearly says: Page 9...(Fuel, oil, coolant) Fuel... 100 Octane (Stores Ref. 34A/75)  , p. 5 (7) ... 8 Browning .303s machine guns are mounted in the mainplanes... [/U] Then KF claims this is the same manual that he had just posted, thus contradicting his claims about Glider's comment regarding the "contents of the manual".  ( Note: The Pilot's Notes on Zeno do quote 100 and 87 octane fuel and both armament arrangements.)


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## Glider (Jan 28, 2010)

This may be of interest. Its the link Kurfurst posted to the copy of the Pilots Notes he was using. It shows the hard copy Kurfurst posted, where the pilots notes came from that he used and my observtions as to some of the differences between the notes.

This is very different to notes I posted.

http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviation/use-100-octane-fuel-raf-pt-2-a-20108-8.html

Kurfurst I would appreciate your withdrawl of the accusation that I was making things up.

PS there is a clear overlap between this thread on the one onSpitfire vs 109. Can I suggest one of them be locked to save confusion.


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## pbfoot (Jan 28, 2010)

Glider said:


> http://www.ww2aircraft.net/forum/aviation/use-100-octane-fuel-raf-pt-2-a-20108-8.html
> 
> Kurfurst I would appreciate your withdrawl of the accusation that I was making things up.
> 
> .


fat chance he'll do that I don't believe he is capable of admitting a mistake


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## Kurfürst (Jan 28, 2010)

NZTyphoon said:


> Nope, all KF does is misquote other people's postings and say things that were not said.  Which is why it is so easy to mistrust much of what he says or posts.



*Moderator pleas*e - this person first accused me of select quoting the 1942 British paper and shared, than implied, several times in this thread and elsewhere that I outright _forged_ the page from Spitfire II manual I posted in the thread, the absurdity of which claim can be verified since Glider in the meantime also have found and posted the _same_ manual of identical content from a different, independent source. 

Despite this member did not retract or apologize for his accusations, and continued to rely on hysterical, ad hominem attacks after receiving a clear warning from Adler. It continually poisons the atmosphere, and replaces the mature discussion based on verifiable sources with pitiful accusations and conspiracy theories of forgery.

The use of such underhand tactics make any serious discussion impossible, as it either forces the participants of the discussion to lower themselves to this level, or leave the discussion.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 28, 2010)

Alright final warning! You all act like children! People can not learn a damn thing on these forums because people can not act like adults! Soren and m kenny could not either. They chose to ignore it when moderators told them to stop the bullshit! They are both permanently banned from this forum. We are serious when we say to quit the bullshit. You can discuss these things without acting like children!

For crying out loud Harrison acts more mature than you guys, and he is only 14!

If you guys have problems with each, then you need to either:

1. Take it to a PM.

2. Take it off of these boards.

It is detrimental to the other members of this forum.

As stated, this is the final warning! NO more what so ever at all! If you keep up this bullshit, then you all will join Soren and m kenny! That goes to everyone involved!

Do you all understand?


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## Kurfürst (Jan 28, 2010)

Glider said:


> This may be of interest. Its the link Kurfurst posted to the copy of the Pilots Notes he was using. It shows the hard copy Kurfurst posted, where the pilots notes came from that he used and my observtions as to some of the differences between the notes.
> 
> This is very different to notes I posted.
> 
> ...


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## Glider (Jan 28, 2010)

Kurfurst 
On the link to the 100 octane thread you should check out 
a) your posting 108 where you wrote
_Please see the Spitfire II pilots notes from July 1940, showing similiar limitations when 87 octane fuel is used (a PDF version can be found at Zeno's Warbirds website)._ The hardcopy you posted showing the Spit II Pilots notes with both 87 Octane and 100 Octane.
b) my posting 112 where I wrote
_ Re the Pilots Notes we have an interesting situation. I also have a copy of the Spit II Pilots notes dated July 1940 and they only mention 100 Octane. Its odd as I would expect the Pilots notes for around May 1941 to mention both fuels as by that time they were being passed to training units that didn't have 100 Octane._
c) My Posting 116 where I wrote _I have been looking at the two different copies of the Pilots Notes and the one on Zenos warbirds site as quoted by Kurfurst cannot be for June 1940. I say this as in section 35 page 9 on the firing controls it gives a description of the controls for the IIA which had 8 x LMG and the IIB with 2 x 20mm and 4 x LMG. In June 1940 the IIB wasn't even a glimmer on the horizon.
The original one only mentions the LMG and doesn't refer to it as a IIA only a II which again is correct.

Its only fair to add that Zeno's is dated June 1940 so no blame can be given to Kurfurst for his confusion._

There is no doubt that 
a) you posted the Zeno website Spitfire II as evidence,
b) that I checked it out
c) that I commented on the differences

To pretend that you didn't is clearly wrong

*PS* In view of your keeness (post 102 this thread) to get people to retract inaccurate statements and/or apologize for any accusations, the above clear evidence and your statement

_*Originally Posted by Kurfürst *
It should be noted that all the above claims by Glider are made up on his own regards the contents of the manual - it doesn't contain anything like he says, in fact he just posted exactly the same manual I have..._

Can I look forward to your retraction and apology?


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## Njaco (Jan 29, 2010)

Stop with the "He post, she post" [email protected]! Like Adler said, this is ridiculus. And as far as apologies, you all need to start a whole thread for that!!! I've been reading this nit-pick stuff across 3 maybe 4 threads. It has got to stop. Your points don't matter anymore because it is so difficult to follow. It makes no sense.

Stop!


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## Glider (Jan 29, 2010)

Fair enough, I will just let others make up their own minds.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 29, 2010)

If I hear anymore "he said she said bullshit", Soren and m kenny will have some company.

The threads are no longer informative, but it is almost impossible to find any usefull information in all the childish bullshit that is written. I know children that act more mature!

Again: Any more BS and it is over. There are no warnings, and it does not matter what thread.


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## claidemore (Jan 29, 2010)

Just want to point out that this poll closes on Feb 4, 2010. 
Thus far it's approx 62% of opinion that the Spitfire wing was stronger. 
It's unfortunate that advocates of either plane often feel the need to 'prove' that their favorite was better in any and every respect to it's principal opponent, or failing that must find some insignifficant but fatal flaw in the other that 'proves' it was a useless hunk of tin. 
The fact is, when comparing two types of fighter aircraft, both will have performance advantages over the other, which may or may not be advantages over other types. 
In the case of wing strength/weakness of the Spitfire and 109, we can't prove which was stronger, and in any case the difference was probably not that great. 
But we have been shown two different approaches to corecting the reported problem. The Luftwaffe reduced diving speed limitations, which would not have improved pilot confidence in the plane. A mistake IMO. 
The RAF found fault in a technical glitch, (arguably at squadron level) which was easily solved. So... 'problem solved', 'carry on lads', 'nothing to worry about!'. 
Consequently we have a perception, that is still evident to this day judging by this polls results, that the Spitfire wing was stronger. That's a huge phsycological advantage for the pilot of the Spitfire. 

On the subject of use of 100 octane fuel, interesting as it is academically, IF the RAF was using primarily 87 octane during BoB (which I do not believe was the case), and the use of 100 octane was not a significant contributor to winning the battle, then what was? 

109 pundits have argued that the Hurricane and Spitfire did not have a turn advantage. 
They argue that RAF fighters did not have a performance advantage from use of higher octane fuel. 
They argue that 109 pilots were more experienced and better trained. 
They argue that the 109 gun system was superior. 
They argue that Hurricane and Spitfire fuel tanks were more vulnerable to fire. 
They argue that accidents due to landing gear were no different for the 109 than the Spitfire. 
109s were easier to produce, easier to repair, had fuel injection instead of carburators, cannon vs mgs, used better tactics, enjoyed numerical superiority, etc, etc, etc. 
This plane was completely successful against every nation and plane it went up against (including the USSR in 1941), as well as Hurricanes in France. 
Yet when they went up against Spitfires during BoB, they were ultimately unsuccessful. 
The old Spitty must have been able to do something better.


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## riacrato (Jan 29, 2010)

You had to start again didn't you


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## Njaco (Jan 29, 2010)

Claide, that post has done nothing to further any knowledge whatsoever about this discussion and only serves to incite even more. Any more and thats it.


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## claidemore (Jan 30, 2010)

I thought the first half of my previous post offerred some insight and interpretation on the thread and poll. 
I will admit that the second half was simply my opinion on a touchy subject. 
I have PM'd the admins and mods as to my feelings on the matter.


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## Kurfürst (Jan 30, 2010)

Glider said:


> _*Originally Posted by Kurfürst *
> It should be noted that all the above claims by Glider are made up on his own regards the contents of the manual - it doesn't contain anything like he says, in fact he just posted exactly the same manual I have..._
> 
> Can I look forward to your retraction and apology?



I see no need for a retraction, even less an apology, since I have already made my position clear above which you quoted, and its still valid. I have made clear what I posted, and when. If you are incapable of grasping that, then it is your problem.

You are on my ignore list until you publicly apologize for the above accusations of forgery.


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## evangilder (Jan 30, 2010)

This thread is now officially closed. The bickering back and forth is ridiculous and we have been more than patient with all of you on this.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Jan 30, 2010)

I know 8 years that act more mature...


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