cheddar cheese said:
I agree, I personally believe if the Germans had wanted to the 309 could have been a good aircraft she just had to be developed more.
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cheddar cheese said:That said the Me-309B looks sleeker and potentially more impressive than the first Me-309.
Messerschmitt's designation Me 209 was actually used for two separate projects during World War II. The first, described below, was a record-setting single-engined race plane for which little or no consideration was given to adaptation for combat. The second, the Me 209-II was a proposal for an enhanced version of the highly successful Messerschmitt Bf 109 which served as the Luftwaffe's primary fighter throughout World War II.
The first Me 209 was in fact a completely new aircraft whose designation was used by Messerschmitt as a propaganda tool. Although the plane was designed only to break speed records, it was hoped that its name would associate it and its world-beating performance with the Bf 109 already in combat service.
The Me 209 was constructed in 1937 and shared only its Daimler-Benz DB 601 engine with the Bf 109. Willy Messerschmitt designed the small plane with a cockpit placed far back along the fuselage just in front of its unique cross-shaped tail section. Unlike the Bf 109, the Me 209 featured a broad-track undercarriage mounted in the wing section instead of the fuselage. The plane achieved its purpose when test-pilot Fritz Wendel flew it to a new world speed record of almost 756 km/h (470 mph) on April 26, 1939.
The idea of adapting the Me 209 racer to the fighter role gained momentum when, during the Battle of Britain, the Bf 109 failed to gain superiority over RAF Spitfires. The little record-setter, however, was not up to the task of air combat. Its wings were almost completely occupied by the engine's liquid cooling system and therefore prohibited conventional installation of armament. The plane also proved difficult to fly and extremely hard to control on the ground. Nevertheless, the Messerschmitt team made several attempts to improve the aircraft's performance by giving it longer wings, a taller tailplane, and installing two MG 17 guns in the engine cowling. Its various modifications, however, added so much weight that the plane ended up slower than the contemporary Bf 109E.
This first Me 209 project was soon cancelled, and though it never went into wide-scale production, Messerschmitt's design did make its mark with its impressive speed record, which was not broken by another piston-engined aircraft until August 16, 1969, by Darryl G. Greenmayer's highly modified F8F Bearcat.
A fuselage of the Me 209 is currently on display at the Polish Museum of Aviation in Cracow, Poland.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_209
The second incarnation of the Me 209 project came in 1943 when Willy Messerschmitt proposed an heavily modified version of his extremely successful but aging Me 109. This Me 209 would compete against Focke-Wulf's high performance Fw 190D-9 and Ta 152 fighters. Like these enhanced versions of Kurt Tank's design, the new Me 209 would share most of its airframe with a proven model, in this case the Me 109G. This marked a departure from the first failed Me 209 and later Me 309 projects which had proposed completely new designs.
Unfortunately for the design team, the Me 209's proposed DB 603 engine was in short supply and they were forced to use the Jumo 213E engine which offered inferior performance. The Me 209 featured a new tail section, broad-track landing gear, a taller tail, and an annular radiator which gave the engine a superficial resemblance to a radial powerplant. As with the original 209 project, however, successive modifications undermined the original purpose of the plane, in this case to build a superior fighter as similar to the existing Me 109G as possible.
As the project progressed, increasingly cumbersome designations signalled the Me 209's evolution from a simple, enhanced version of the Bf 109 to a progressively incompatible airframe. The Me 209 V5 featured armament of one MK 108 and two MG 131 in the wingroots. The V6 was the first version to be converted to use the Jumo 213 engine and had MG 151/20 guns instead of the MG 131. The Me 209H V1 was a high-altitude variant with extended wings and reverted to the DB 603.
Despite this proliferation of variants however, the program met a swift end when the Me 209 V5 prototype first flew in late 1944. It was 50 km/h (31 mph) slower than the already-available Fw 190D, however, and offered no improvement in handling characteristics. After its disappointing show, the Me 209 project was cancelled and with it ended Messerschmitt's last attempt to build a high-performance piston engine fighter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_209-II