Centauro fighter

[Glider]

I was trying (with little success, I admit) to show how the adding of the guns on the wing would impact the turn performance of the Me 109, ie compare the three gun Me109 v the five gun Me109.

The question of other aircraft came about when I made the observation that the G55 was designed to carry wing guns and these factors would have been incorporated into the design, whereas the Me 109's wing guns were an addition and the forces would not have been incoporated.

 

[GregP]

This is starting to get funny. Ailerons don't impart momentum, they impart force. The equation for momentum is p = mv, or momentum = mass * velocity. Angular momentum L = r x mv, or radius cross product with linear momentum. The equation for force is f = ma, or force = mass * acceleration.

Since a small added mass is a very small percentage of the existing mass, gondolas have almost no effect on roll rate and roll breakout. However, once the roll start moving, the entire aircraft has rotational momentum and so it takes longer to stop the roll , once it is developed, and thus it take longer to reverse teh roll, too.

Sorry guys, two MG in pods, while it will affect the roll momentum, have almost no effect on initial roll and rate of roll, but they DO have an impact if the target reverses the roll. Thus, while it reduces maneuverability in a way, it will have almost no effect unless the target reverses iteself in roll.

As for turn radius, the formulas do NOT contain any mention of weight.

An aircraft's minimum turn radius depends on the speed, the g-force, and the bank angle. An aircraft's stall speed in a banked horizontal turn depends not on weight at all. It depends on the 1-g stall speed at the weight in question and the g-load only.

By way of example, if an aircraft has a 1-g stall speed of, say, 86 mph, then the stall speed at 6-g is 211 mph. If there is insufficient pwoer to sustain 211 mph at 6-g, then the aircraft will stall or pull less g, and minor differences in weight have almost no effect.

If a pane weighs , say, 7,000 pounds and you add two 225 pound gondolas, then the mass difference is only 6.4 % and the aerodynamics is almost unchanbed except for a very slight change is 1-g stall speed and the roll inertia once the roll develops. If the 7,000 pound plane has a 1-g stall speed of 86 mph, then the stall speed at 7,450 pounds is 88.7 mph (a 1% difference, sorry .. that is a 3% change ... thanks Shortround). So, the handling characteristics are almost unchanged.

 

[KiwiBiggles]

I think you have the physics wrong here. Rotational acceleration, irrespective of whether you are initiating or reversing a roll, is torque/(second moment of mass), The torque, imparted by the ailerons, obviously varies with many factors (speed, roll rate etc). The second moment of mass is basically the sum of the mass of the body multiplied by the square of the distance from the axis of rotation. So the bulk of the aeroplane, being concentrated in the fuselage and wing roots, will have only a small second moment. But adding point masses well out along the wings (outside of the propellor disk, at least), will considerably increase the second moment, and must have a significant effect on rotational acceleration.

Two 225 lb gondolas my be a very small fraction of the overall weight of the aeroplane, but because of their location well out along the span, they will disproportionately affect the rate of roll initiation.

 

[GregP]

Sorry, I don't have the physics wring here. The ailerons don't move around on the wing ... they are fixed in place. They create the same force at the same speed at the same deflection every time. The moment of inertia for two identical airceraft except one has 6.4% more mass is complex but is proportional to the mass and the square of the span. Roughly, if mass increases by 6.4% the moment of inertia changes by about 1%.

Moment of Inertia (I) = (m L^2)/12, where I = moment of inertia, m = mass, and L = span. That assumes the aircraft to act like a rod of constant mass distribution supported at the center. Of course, the real formula is a bit more complex and is proportortional to the square of both the square of the length and the square of the span, and so the REAL moment of ineertia will change by less than 1% for a 7,000 pound aircraft with two 225 pound gondolas hung under the wings at about 1/3 span. They aren't "well out" on teh wing, they are hund just far enough to miss the prop arc.

C'mon guys, there some aerodynamicist in here other than me and intuition doesn't work. Physics does.

 

[KiwiBiggles]

OK, these are my back-of-an-envelope calculations.

A 3000 kg aeroplane of 10 m span. Estimate the wing mass at about 10% (300 kg), the rest in the fuselage (including guns and fuel in the basic Bf 109G). It's been too long since I did integration to work this out accurately, but approximating wing as by a straight rod of constant density, and using mL²/12, and the fuselage as a solid cylinder of diameter 1 m and using mr²/4, should give us a ballpark figure. This gives (very rough) second moments thus:

Wing: 2500 kg m²
Rest: 170 kg m²

Call it 2700 kg m² for the whole aeroplane.

Then add two 100 kg point loads at 2 m out along the span. These have a combined second moment of 2x100x2² = 800 kg m². That is, adding the underwing guns will increase the second moment of mass by more than 25%. They may be a trivial increase to the overall mass of the aeroplane, but their location well out along the wings means they have a disproportionate effect on the rotational behaviour.

 

[Elmas]

..........................................
Then add two 100 kg point loads at 2 m out along the span. These have a combined second moment of 2x100x2² = 800 kg m². That is, adding the underwing guns will increase the second moment of mass by more than 25%. They may be a trivial increase to the overall mass of the aeroplane, but their location well out along the wings means they have a disproportionate effect on the rotational behaviour.

You've got the point.

 

[Shortround6]

AS far as the turning circle goes, increasing the stall speed from 86mph to 88.7 is about a 3% increase not 1%. This may move the 6 G stall speed to 217 mph? Now the real problem is not so much the actual speed of the aircraft in the turn but the energy being used, is the turn is a steady state turn (constant speed at constant altitude)?
a plane with a 1100hp engine needs 1200hp to go 3% faster. If you don't have the extra power to generate the "extra" speed to create the extra "lift" for the heavier plane then it either slows down and pulls less "G", opens the circle up or starts to descend to get the energy to keep the speed up.

Russian test result at low altitude was a 2 second increase in a 360 circle. Since the 3 gun version only took 20 seconds that is a 10% increase in 360 time. Now I don't know if they measured to 1/10ths of seconds or if the 5 gun fighter was a dog but something was going on. Now what happens when you shift the test results from 1000 meters altitude to 8000meters? does it stay a 2 second difference or a 10% difference in turning time? Intuition says 10% but I am willing to to be convinced.

 

[GregP]

Nice first-order approximation with data you lupped from somewhere, but it doesn't add up to a real 7,000 pound airplane when we did it in school. Sorry, but you first order is interesting but very incomplete. You forgot to account for the assumed radial engine as a mass ring you forgot the fuel (which handily outweight the gun gondola, and your figure are very nice for a simple figure combining two shapes ... but a WWII aircraft is more than that, and we fly them with each other all the time, buth with and without wing tanks.

I had to laugh about the 3-gun being escorted by a 5-gun situation too, necause they rather oviously haven't flown in formation. All that happens there is tyeh leader sets a vruise speed and the wingmen adjust pwoer to keep up and repoprt their manifold pressure. Both are at teh same rpm. Now the leader knows he can only advance his throttle by some number of inches if he expects his wingman to keep up. It is really very simple and they don't blindly push to full pwoer in combat if they want to keep their wingmen. nd ig they do, in a very short time, nobody will fly with them.

 

[KiwiBiggles]

Nice first-order approximation with data you lupped from somewhere, but it doesn't add up to a real 7,000 pound airplane when we did it in school. Sorry, but you first order is interesting but very incomplete. You forgot to account for the assumed radial engine as a mass ring you forgot the fuel (which handily outweight the gun gondola, and your figure are very nice for a simple figure combining two shapes ... but a WWII aircraft is more than that, and we fly them with each other all the time, buth with and without wing tanks.

I didn't forget about any of those. I believe the situation being discussed was a Bf 109, where the fuel is in a tank under the pilot's seat. Pilots and fuel are of very similar density. For any engine you can treat it as a cylinder of more-or-less constant density, for balance purposes. I think treating the fuselage as a cylinder of constant cross-sectional density would be a very good approximation, probably to within 10%. And I deliberately made overestimated with wings, by ignoring taper and lightening of the structure. If you like we can lower the wing value, and increase the effect of the gun gondolas correspondingly.

So far as I can see, your only response to numbers is sneer and anecdote. You are not the only person to have studied aircraft engineering.

 

[Shortround6]

I had to laugh about the 3-gun being escorted by a 5-gun situation too.

Glad you enjoyed it......If you can't figure out a hypothetical situation to illustrate a point.......



Why don't you tell us your theory as to why the Luftwaffe moved away from the 5 gun configuration?

 

[GregP]

Sneer? Hardly. I try to never sneer and, unless I miss my guess, I didn't sneer at any time in here, but you sound like my ex-wife. That's why we are exes ...

The landing gear in an Me 109 are heavier than the gondola and are within inches of the same location. If you want to figure them separately, then you have a real task of figuring them ALL separately and not lump things into one mass with 10% assumed to be a constant-density rod. Otherwise, your figures will simply be OK for simple shapes, but unrepresentative of an Me 109.

I had a visit from Davparlr today at the museum and asked him to get under our Ha.1112 (on jacks) and lift the gear into the wells. Not surprisingly, he could not, and the weight IS concentrated out near the gondola attach point which, conicidentally is almost exactly where the wing-mounted armement of ah Ha.1112 Buchon is mounted (and weighs about what a gondola weighs or more). And THEY don't roll any slower than an Me 109G, so while your point may be interesting from an academic standpoint, it just doesn't actually FLY that way in real, live experience.

In case anyone in here forgot, the Hispano Ha.1112 is identical to an Me 109G from the firewall aft, but has a Merlin in it and wing-mounted armament since there is no palce for a nose cannon to shoot through a Merlin. It just happened to be up on jacks today. The pilots don't notice any roll problems ...

If this reply is a sneer to you, check your dictionary and find out it isn't. Just real-world observations from someone who has seen them fly, helps restore them, and talks with the pilots who fly them. I have no axe to grind with anybody in here personally. I was advised some years back by a moderator in here to grow some thicker skin, and did. Sounds like you might try that, too. Nobody attacked you personally and, if it sounded that way, it was not intended that way.

How do you say to someone that you believe they are wrong in their assertion and still sound reasonable? If you can answer that one, we could avert a LOT of "spats" that were probably just someone being overly sensitive to a simple, "I think you are mistaken" type answer. Doesn't mean either of us is right ... it means one person doesn't agree with the other one. That's all.

Peace, cheers, and a beer to you. You are probably a really nice person ... but I still think you are mistaken.

No doubt you feel likewise about me, that I am mistaken. I wasn't trying to fight, just to disagree.

 

[GregP]

Hi Shortround, sorry we seem to come down on opposite sides of almost all things in here, but it ssem to work out that way, doesn't it?

My theory about why the Luftwaffe moved away from the 5-gun configuration is simple ... the pilots didn't think it was any better than the 3-gun or didn't like it as much. Simple!

If a pilot wanted his aircraft configured a certain way, he could usually manage it with his crew chief. it worked that way in the US, British, and Japanese Air Forces ... so why not in the German Luftwaffe? It doesn't mean the gondola-equipped planes were worse than the 3-gun planes ... it only means they were not considered any better by the pilots who flew them. They COULD have been worse, but not necessarily so.

I have read extensiverly on WWII aviation and I never read anything like the theory of the 3-gun versus 5-gun in a real wartime pilot anecdote or combat report. Of course, I could simply have missed it ...

I HAVE read that some pilots, particularly the higher-scoring Ace pilots, configured their Me 109's as they wanted them, and many flew the F-model well past when the G-model was in production and being deployed. They simply LIKED the F-model better and declined to switch until their trusty mount simply wore out and required overhaul or replacement. Hartmann flew the F as long as he could get one.

Surely you have read that, too ... yes? Or am I the ionly one who red the old books about WWII planes and pilots? Nahhh ... can't be.

Oh yeah, Happy Father's Day!

 

[Shortround6]

My theory about why the Luftwaffe moved away from the 5-gun configuration is simple ... the pilots didn't think it was any better than the 3-gun or didn't like it as much. Simple!

OK, but WHY?

More firepower with no loss of performance (or minimal), what's not to like?

Or is there a loss in performance or feel of the aircraft? Something that makes the pilot/s dislike the the 5 gun set-up?

IS it one thing or a combination of a lot of little changes in the way the airplane flies?

As I said in an earlier post there has been a division of opinion on this issue among us later day non-flyers for years with the Pro German ( or more correctly Pro 5 gun 109 fans) claiming there was little difference between the two planes and the other side claiming there is.
You have done a lot of reading, why did some of the German pilots dislike the 5 gun set up? Is it true that the Germans tended to equip squadrons (or units) with either one option or the other ( no formation flying with different gun set ups)? Were the different gun set ups used for different missions? I fully under stand that the 3 gun fighters could wind up intercepting bombers and 5 gun fighters could end up fighting allied escorts, The best plans only last until contact with the enemy is made. But what was the intention of the Lufftwaffe? And if there was a different "mission" intended for the 3 gun and 5 gun, WHY?

My own opinion is that the addition of the under wing guns did degrade flight performance and in a number of areas. It may have made very minor changes in certain aspects and gone to minor or not so minor in other areas. The loss of level speed is not that great and is less than the variation between a good airframe/engine and an airframe/engine that just scrapes though the acceptance test. I don't see why there should be ANY difference in peak or max roll rates. I do think there may be a small difference in the amount of time it takes to get to a high rate of roll but again, comparing just two planes may not provide a definitive judgement. The British certainly seem to have had a problem with aileron response varying from supposedly identical Spitfire to another even without the differences in wing tips and aileron construction. It may be this greater 'inertia' that helped change the "feel" of the plane even if the rate of roll didn't change, maybe not.
The Change in rate of climb is going to change the performance of the the airplane. as an illustration see:

http://www.zenoswarbirdvideos.com/Images/P-51/P-51NPC.gif

at the increased weight and power settings in the example the rate of climb of the heavier airplane is about 80% of the "same" plane using the same power levels. The problem comes at the higher altitudes where the SAME 300-350fps loss of climb becomes a bigger percentage of the total climb rate. I would also note, in the example given (and the difference for a 5gun and 3 gun 109 could very well be less) that even at this "cruise" climb after 18 minutes the heavier plane will be a couple of miles behind and 5,000ft lower. Certainly the "leader" can throttle back but that doesn't help the intercept problem does it?

as for the turning aspect. see:

http://www.spitfireperformance.com/spit109turn.gif

Find the curved line marked "angle of straight climb" going across the chart. At any combination of speed of "G" below the line the plane can climb. the further below the line the faster it can climb. At any combination of speed and "G" above the line the plane MUST descend to hold speed. the higher above the line the more the plane must descend to hold speed or it can hold altitude ( for a while) and bleed off speed. At any point along the line the plane can hold the speed and the rate of turn "G". changing the rate of climb moves this line up or down the chart. Adding a couple of hundred Kg to the plane may not change the "G"s that much or even the radius by much ( a few percent?) but moving that line up or down the chart ( or one drawn for 8000 meters) by by 15-25% (depending on altitude) IS going to change the the way the plane feels to the pilot. Where the lighter plane might be climbing at 250mph and a 2 g turn (60^ bank) the heavier plane might struggle to hold altitude or even slow down or descend slightly in the same maneuver.

It is my opinion that this loss of climb and "turn performance" is what the pilots didn't like, and it would be more pronounced at 7-10,000 meters than down lower.

 

[GregP]

Actually SHortround, there is ample writing from the great Luftwaffe Aces that suggests they believed very stongly in fuselage-mounted armament. As many a Luftwaffe Ace said, one in the fusleage is worth two in the wings. I believe as they did, fuselage armament does not need to be convergent ... just aim it along the centerline. Once armament is mounted in the wings, they must converge at some single point ... and that point is rarely where your enemy is located. So, I think the Germans dispensed with the wing guns in order to concentrate on the fuselage-mounted armament entirely as a matter of choice. I have rerad that many times in quotes from Luftwaffe pilots.

Just my opinion, and your may vary, and probably does.

Oh yeah, your first link doesn't go anyhere my PC can follow and the second one is not readable, though the graphs look good. I simply cannot read the numbers or the text.

 

[Tante Ju]

It is my opinion that this loss of climb and "turn performance" is what the pilots didn't like, and it would be more pronounced at 7-10,000 meters than down lower.

The problem is that the same may be well true to the P-51D as well which introduced two extra guns, ammunition compared to the B version. The same things you say is true for it as well, yet there is no lenghty discussion about how the D series Mustang was so inferior to the B series Mustang, how the roll would suffer because of roll inertia, how less climb rate especially at at 7-10,000 meters would negatively effect its fighting ability... or what happened when Spitfires begun to mount even bigger Hispanos in place of tiny RCMG in the wing, well outside the center of gravity..? I am sure they could hardly roll and turn afterwards. I also come to think of the Fiat G 55 being so more well suited for wing guns. It was 'designed' for them. "Designed for" really makes me think of those little stickers on printers saying its "Vista ready" - marketing. Like comes with a perk that weight and physics do not apply if it was 'designed for'. but for example checked the Fiat and Macchi fighter pedigree shows the airframes all started out with the typical Italian twin cowl Breda machineguns, wing guns were added as a late afterthought, so there was really nothing of an thoughtful design in them from start re: wing guns..

Either the effect of wing armament gets really overblown here or these aircraft had all serious trouble after these addition of mass into the wings. I am very unconvinced that all these terrible things happen to aircraft when a gun is mounted in the wing. Its certain not the most optimal thing ballistics point of view but is not such a horror story either.

Bottomline is that gondolas IMHO are so overblown in this discussion that I am starting to get the impression that any 109G was lucky just to get of the ground with them.. make a reality check with many pilots dogfighting with them successfully. And, apart from one Finnish pilot who did not like them (and who btw mentions another Finn pilot who was quite successful with the gondel-mersu) I really do not see that great dislike expressed by pilots.

 

[Juha]

Hello
on LW practices, at least NCO pilots could not easily decide the configuration of their a/c, at least some of those wanting to remove the outer wing cannon of their Fw 190As to make them more manoeuvrable were simply forbidden to do that.

And even German aces didn't unanimously prefer fuselage mounted armament, at least Galland and Phillips thought that wing guns were good idea. Most of Finns didn't like wing gondolas, and they were removed from those G-6s delivered to FiAF with them, idea was to use them in those G-6s that would have been given to a night fighter unit, if FiAF had had time to activate one (there were some 20 Finns in Germany at a night fighter pilot course when Finland made a truce with the SU). But there was at least a couple Finnish pilots who liked 109G-6/R6 configuration.

Juha

 

[Shortround6]

Actually SHortround, there is ample writing from the great Luftwaffe Aces that suggests they believed very stongly in fuselage-mounted armament. As many a Luftwaffe Ace said, one in the fusleage is worth two in the wings. I believe as they did, fuselage armament does not need to be convergent ... just aim it along the centerline. Once armament is mounted in the wings, they must converge at some single point ... and that point is rarely where your enemy is located. So, I think the Germans dispensed with the wing guns in order to concentrate on the fuselage-mounted armament entirely as a matter of choice. I have rerad that many times in quotes from Luftwaffe pilots.

Just my opinion, and your may vary, and probably does.

You are right, it does

There can a lot of reasons why a wing mount gun doesn't hit the same place as a fuselage mounted gun. Convergence is rather down on the list. Think about it, two guns mounted 12 feet apart and converging at 300yds. The bullets/shells will be 8 feet apart at 100yds (and 500yds) and 4 feet from the line of sight and 4 feet apart at 200yds (and 400yds) and 2 feet from the line of sight. How big is the target? Unless the firing plane is sitting EXACTLY on the targets 6 o'clock and the target is a small fighter (FW 190 engine is over 4 feet wide) the size of the fuselage is as big as the spread at most reasonable ranges. With bomber fuselages there isn't much of a problem at all (let alone wings). Wing flex, vibration of the mounting and pitching down due to recoil when the guns are fired can all affect wing mounted gun accuracy. The latter can affect fuselage guns too, as the story goes that is why the Beaufighter got the 6 wing guns, the 4 fuselage 20mm caused the aircraft to pitch down. Obviously the effects of these factors vary from plane to plane. F4Fs and F6Fs have less to worry about from pitching down than some other planes

IMO the Germans don't have a lot of room to talk (no disrespect to the pilots who, 4999 times out 5000 didn't get to pick the armament in the aircraft) seeing as how they often mounted different caliber guns with different trajectories and different times of flight to a a given range, some times 3 different guns in the same plane. Granted many other air forces use two different guns in the same fighter but the convergence issue is not all that it is made out to be.

Please note that I have never said a thing about the location of the wing guns on the 109, I don't know enough about them and any conclusions would be more speculative than than what I am saying.

Oh yeah, your first link doesn't go anyhere my PC can follow and the second one is not readable, though the graphs look good. I simply cannot read the numbers or the text.

First is a climb chart/table for a P-51 at 9200lbs or less with either 2 500lb bombs or 2 75 gallon tanks and the same only weighing from 9800-11200lbs. Basically is shows that loss of 300-350fpm of climb at sea ( at the power level listed) level continues to be a 300-350fpm loss of climb even as the "base" rate of climb falls from 1500fpm to 450fpm. What is a tolerable loss in climb rate at sea level ( or even at 20,000ft) may become a rather large liability at 26-32,000ft. It depends on where a particular aircraft starts to really fall off in climb performance.

As for the second see if your browser will enable you to enlarge it. Too much and it gets grainy though. As this chart is for a 109 E ( the bottom one) and was done by the British it's actual accuracy may subject to question but it is the 'principle' that I am trying to bring out.
Climb rate can affect the "turning ability" of aircraft if you count the ability to hold altitude and speed in a turn as turning ability. It also relates to the ability of aircraft to stay in formation at higher altitudes were the difference in climb is more pronounced between the lighter and heavier aircraft.

 

[Shortround6]

The problem is that the same may be well true to the P-51D as well which introduced two extra guns, ammunition compared to the B version. The same things you say is true for it as well, yet there is no lenghty discussion about how the D series Mustang was so inferior to the B series Mustang, how the roll would suffer because of roll inertia, how less climb rate especially at at 7-10,000 meters would negatively effect its fighting ability... or what happened when Spitfires begun to mount even bigger Hispanos in place of tiny RCMG in the wing, well outside the center of gravity..?

Some of it is a matter of degree and the fact that in some cases the difference in armament was also paired with changes in the engine/s. The P-51 and the Spitfire both got heavier with age and with increased armament and equipment. The later ones may not have been as light on the controls as the early ones and this is noted in histories of the Spitfire. Spitfires went from fabric covered ailerons to metal covered ones that did change their roll behavior. The Spitfire was also only made in handfuls with low powered engines and cannon vs by the hundreds or thousands with low powered engines with machineguns and high powered engines with cannon.
Now my own position is that while the weight of the guns out under the wings of the 109 may have changed the "feel" of the aircraft to the pilot it may not have actually changed the the planes ability to roll once it got rolling. And the "delay" may have been more of a hesitation. I don't know, the effect is going to be there, wither it slowed the 109s ability to reach full roll rate by 1/10 of a second or 3/4 of second I don't know and don't presume to guess.

The problem with trying to claim that the effects of adding armament to one plane (like adding a pair of .50s to the P-51) should govern how another plane acts (like adding the guns to the 109) is that it leaves out a lot of the differences between the planes to begin with. Adding two .50s with ammo is about 144 kg instead of the 215kg of the under wing pods on the 109 and that weight is being added to a 9000lb (4090kg) airplane instead of a 6700lb (3042 Kg) airplane. Considering that the P-51 is already carrying almost 300kg of guns and ammo out in the wings to begin with and I think that most of can see that a difference in fly characteristics, while there, would not be as pronounced as the change in the 109. AS to the climb issue, the difference in weight would make for a smaller change in climb rate for the P-51 and since the P-51 supercharger allows it to hold power to a higher altitude than the 109 (at least the basic 109 without GM 1 or the 605 AS engine) the fall off in climb performance doesn't happen until a somewhat higher altitude.

Either the effect of wing armament gets really overblown here or these aircraft had all serious trouble after these addition of mass into the wings. I am very unconvinced that all these terrible things happen to aircraft when a gun is mounted in the wing. Its certain not the most optimal thing ballistics point of view but is not such a horror story either.

See above. could you please come up with some facts instead of overblown rhetoric yourself? My contention is that the 5 guns planes were at a disadvantage performance wise to the 3 gun planes and especially at fighter to fighter combat at 25,000-30,000ft. Against bombers the difference in performance is of no great consequence and at lower altitudes the difference is not as pronounced.

 

[GregP]

Hi Shortround,

I agree that excess power affects the ability to stay in a horizontal turn, but do not think it affect general maneuverability. The pilot is free to descend if he wants to turn tighter than his excess power will allow, right up until he gets to ground level. Of course, descending takes you out of the fight, but maybe you would rather live than remain with an opponent who is out-turning you.

The extra weight might well affect the ability to stay in formation near the service ceiling, but people generally don't stay in formation at the service ceiling anyway. Since the planes we are generally talking about are Me 109's, their service ceiling varies considerably, but let's say they have a general service ceiling of 36,000 feet. If so, and if they have the wing gondolas, then I think they could afford to fly at 32,000 feet instead since the bombers were generally not that high.

So, I think the effect of the gondolas on dogfight maneuverability was definitely there and definitely bad, but the effect on maneuverability when not in a dogfight was almost nothing. That is, if they were attacking from ambush, there was no effect. Most kills did not happen in a dogfight, they were made from a blind spot.

So, I think the Germans dropped the gondolas due to pilot preference and lack of demonstrable superiority to the fuselage-only configuration. The gondolas would have been a good idea if strafing beaches or troops columns, so they would have retained the gondolas and the mounts on the aircraft.

I cannot seem to copy the charts so I am stuck with whatever zoom the zoom button gives, and it is too much, but I definitely believe the slight loss of climb and agree that while it doesn't mean much at low level, it will come into focus as you go higher. You also make a very good point about adding weight to planes that are basically 1/3 different in basic combat weight to start with. I liked that reasoning and it seem valid enough.

I doubt seriously that the gondolas would have adversely affected an E or F model, though they WOULD be noticeable and high altitude, but by the time the G-model came along, it had porked up considerably and was quite a bit heavier than an E or F model. Any extra weight would definitely have an effect on a G or later model Me 109.

 

[Elmas]

And some people here are forgetting the gyroscopic effect that masses distant from the CoG create......

And an heavy gyroscopic effect affects aiming very badly.