Bf 109 Landing Gear Geometry Issue

[GregP]

I still say it was very probably a very minor part of accidents. Much worse would be one flap coming down but not the other one. You'd roll right in unless you were mighty quick to retract the down flap. That almost always happens at low atitude. Otherwise, you usually don't deploy flaps at all past a "combat" setting, which is very small deflection in all planes thaht HAVE a combat setting.

 

[Milosh]

Once the pilot started winding down the flaps on the 109 he would know that one was not working properly.

 

[GregP]

Yes ... if he encountered problems, he would reverse the process. It had better be quick since he's going to be low.

 

[Aozora]

Speaking of the Bf 109 undercarriage; just got a book called Nest of Eagles. During a couple of test flights from Regensburg in late 1942 - early 1943 at least two test pilots discovered that only one leg was coming down while landing. Flugkapitän Trenkle bailed out, while Joseph Haid took a chance and landed. The cause of the undercarriage legs sticking was corrosion on the locking bolts.

 

[GregP]

I can believe it. The uplocks are a bit unusual ... and seem like a design prone to failure ... but we haven't noticed that at all. Of course, our Hispano does NOT sit outside; it is in a hangar.

I do not know the frequency of Bf 109 uplock failures and have NO feel for whether it was an issue or not.

 

[bobbysocks]

like everything else it should have had a time table for maintenance. if they knew or discovered it failed after X amout of hours/weeks/landings/etc. they would have serviced it prior to that and eliminated "most" of the problem.