Historical Performance Comparison
British - Aircobra Mk.I
vs
German - BF-109F-2
:::
Max Speed: (WEP)
483km/h at Sea Level (Aircobra Mk.I)
515km/h at Sea Level (BF-109F-2)
-
506km/h at 1000m (Aircobra Mk.I)
534km/h at 1000m (BF-109F-2)
-
527km/h at 2000m (Aircobra Mk.I)
554km/h at 2000m (BF-109F-2)
-
552km/h at 3000m (Aircobra Mk.I)
573km/h at 3000m (BF-109F-2)
-
578km/h at 4200m (Aircobra Mk.I)
593km/h at 4000m (BF-109F-2)
-
564km/h at 5000m (Aircobra Mk.I)
615km/h at 5200m (BF-109F-2)
—————
Rate of Climb: (Military Power)
Time to 3000m: 5:04 (Aircobra Mk.I)
Time to 3000m: 3:12 (BF-109F-2)
-
Time to 6000m: 11:25 (Aircobra Mk.I)
Time to 6000m: 6:30 (BF-109F-2)
——————
Stall Speed: (Sea Level, No Flaps)
162km/h IAS (Aircobra Mk.I)
157km/h IAS (BF-109F-2)
——————
Armament:
Aircobra Mk.I
1x 20mm Hispano Mk I (1x 60 RPG)
2x 12.7mm M2 Browning (2x 200RPG)
4x 7.7mm Browning (4x 1000 RPG)
BF-109F-2
1x 15mm MG151/15 (1x 200 RPG)
2x 7.92mm MG17 (2x 500 RPG)
——————
Germans and British recieved these planes respectively in Spring of 1941.
As you can imagine… The plane that was advertised to go over 644km/h could actually only did 578km/h and the altitude performance sucked so the British sent them back to the Americans and pretty much said "You can keep these pieces of shit"
The Americans designated these P-39C's with British weapon armament as "P-400" which caused it to be ridiculed further. That it was a P-40 with a Zero on its tail.
Just think… BF-109F-2 climbs to 6000m in 6.5 mins but the Aircobra takes 5 minutes longer than BF-109F-2 to climb to that same altitude
Not only does the BF-109F-2 completely outclimb and outaccelerate the Aircobra, it has undisputed energy advantage. But then the Aircobra is slower at all altitudes as well. On top of that the Aircobra has higher stall speed which means a larger turn radius than BF-109F-2 whilst also due to its worse power to weight ratio, it holds its energy a lot worse during its turns than the BF-109F-2 does.