Combat Altitude throughout WW2

fastmongrel said:

I haven't come across a report of anything higher than 30,000feet and it's noticeable how fast combat descended when battle commenced.

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Air Combat Maneuvering at those altitudes in non turbocharged fighters has gotta be more of a slow motion waltz than a dogfight.
One day we took the Navy Flying Club's Cessna Acrobat and the T-34 up to do some altitude work. We stopped at 10,000 ft and did some gentle acrobatics, some formation work, and a half-hearted "dogfight". Then we huffed and puffed our way up to 12,000 and tried again. This time it was a joke. The planes (especially the Cessna) had so little reserve performance they couldn't do much manevering without drifting down in altitude. Anything more than a 30 degree bank would set the stall horn to blaring, and to keep it out of buffet, you had to lower the nose and give away some altitude.(remember, this was South Florida in late summer, OAT on the ground was 93 F, and we were burning 100LL in engines designed for 80 octane).
After the horror show at 12,000 we decided to try for 14, but at 13.3, full throttle, stall horn blaring, the 150 couldn't be coaxed any higher, despite having burned off over half its fuel. In fact I got a little clumsy on the controls and it fell off into a spin which I recovered from none too smoothly, causing a secondary stall and another spin, this time the other way.
At that point it penetrated my thick oxygen deprived skull that the thin air wasn't helping any, so I held full pro-spin controls, gyrated down to 9500 and made a proper recovery. My first experience with a protracted spin, and was impressed with how tight that little plane wound up over time and how long it took to recover when the time came. Out over the water, and with your instruments in full rebellion, it's kind of hard to keep track of how many turns you've made, but I'm sure the recovery took at least 2 - 3 turns, not the instantaneous recovery I was used to. The G meter showed 4.4, though I don't remember pulling that hard.
I'm guessing the behaviour of a Spit or a 109 attempting combat in the low 30s would be pretty similar.
Cheers,
Wes

XBe02Drvr said:

Air Combat Maneuvering at those altitudes in non turbocharged fighters has gotta be more of a slow motion waltz than a dogfight.
One day we took the Navy Flying Club's Cessna Acrobat and the T-34 up to do some altitude work. We stopped at 10,000 ft and did some gentle acrobatics, some formation work, and a half-hearted "dogfight". Then we huffed and puffed our way up to 12,000 and tried again. This time it was a joke. The planes (especially the Cessna) had so little reserve performance they couldn't do much manevering without drifting down in altitude. Anything more than a 30 degree bank would set the stall horn to blaring, and to keep it out of buffet, you had to lower the nose and give away some altitude.(remember, this was South Florida in late summer, OAT on the ground was 93 F, and we were burning 100LL in engines designed for 80 octane).
After the horror show at 12,000 we decided to try for 14, but at 13.3, full throttle, stall horn blaring, the 150 couldn't be coaxed any higher, despite having burned off over half its fuel. In fact I got a little clumsy on the controls and it fell off into a spin which I recovered from none too smoothly, causing a secondary stall and another spin, this time the other way.
At that point it penetrated my thick oxygen deprived skull that the thin air wasn't helping any, so I held full pro-spin controls, gyrated down to 9500 and made a proper recovery. My first experience with a protracted spin, and was impressed with how tight that little plane wound up over time and how long it took to recover when the time came. Out over the water, and with your instruments in full rebellion, it's kind of hard to keep track of how many turns you've made, but I'm sure the recovery took at least 2 - 3 turns, not the instantaneous recovery I was used to. The G meter showed 4.4, though I don't remember pulling that hard.
I'm guessing the behaviour of a Spit or a 109 attempting combat in the low 30s would be pretty similar.
Cheers,
Wes

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Wes,

Having participated in many fights both as a spectator and a participant it's incredible the differences. Involved in the fight and it's a 110% energy and focusing sucking event. Watch, and it's like watching a car rust in slow motion, oh God is it every going to end type event!

It's my guess that you did level turns only as the offender when needed, otherwise it was pretty much all downhill to some degree. The greater the descent the more abrupt or energy sustaining the maneuvers.

Cheers,
Biff

BiffF15 said:

It's my guess that you did level turns only as the offender when needed, otherwise it was pretty much all downhill to some degree. The greater the descent the more abrupt or energy sustaining the maneuvers.

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Like engaging in a wrestling match in a deep pool with diving weights on and no wetsuit, fins, or mask. It's all about DOWN.
Our first "dogfight" began at 10K and ended shortly thereafter at 9.1. At 12 we didn't even attempt ACM or formation, as the handling was so shaky and energy-sucking.
Cheers,
Wes

XBe02Drvr said:

WOW! Almost the speed of sound, straight up! Now THAT'S performance!

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we used the 1,000 ft/sec. formula for antiaircraft shot speed when doing evasive action.

the average alt for 8th AF would depend on the year. early on fighters were told they had to stick with the bombers and not give chase. so, if anything happened it would have been pretty close to whatever alt the bombers were at. after Doolittle took over and cut them free the alts could have been all over the place. my dad said battles would often start out 20-some thousand feet and end up down on the deck.

Hey XBe02Drvr,

When I got my pilot's license in 1982, I mostly used the C-172. But, sometime in 1985 I decided to have a go at our C-152 Aerobat. I got smart and went up to 9,500 feet (airport was 1,500 MSL). I managed to get it into a flat spin rather easily, without trying. At 6 turns of fully-held recovery controls I decided that if I had not recovered by 5,000 feet, I would jump. As luck would have it, I pulled one door pin at 5,200 feet and was about to go out when the nose dropped and it recovered in another 2 turns. When I started out, I had maybe 3/4 fuel and only me in the aircraft, so it wasn't out of CG or anything like that.

I put the door pin in my pocket and flew back to Scottsdale and landed, and then replaced the pin. I had never trained for flat spins, and I did the standard recovery technique (opposite rudder and release back pressure). It didn't work for quite some time and I eventually released the control wheel to prep for jumping. 3 or 4 turns later it recovered.

I told myself after that one to never let a spin develop beyond 2 turns in a C-152. I have spun a C-150 many turns with no ill effects, but it was an older straight-tail model. I have no idea if the straight vs. swept tail contributed or not, but I also never heard of getting a C-152 into a flat spin until I did it accidentally. STILL don't know how that happened.

I flat-spun MANY RC models and mostly had to use power to get them into the flat spin, usually with somewhat forward CG. One RC had a too-big engine on it with a pipe (piped .60 instead of an unpiped .40), and it could literally go to full power and not recover. I had to idle the engine and release in-spin rudder to recover. The C-152 above does NOT have anything near the power loading of that RC model, and I cannot think of anything I did to get the spin to go flat. I have pondered that for years with no firm answer.

XBe02Drvr said:

Air Combat Maneuvering at those altitudes in non turbocharged fighters has gotta be more of a slow motion waltz than a dogfight.
One day we took the Navy Flying Club's Cessna Acrobat and the T-34 up to do some altitude work. We stopped at 10,000 ft and did some gentle acrobatics, some formation work, and a half-hearted "dogfight". Then we huffed and puffed our way up to 12,000 and tried again. This time it was a joke. The planes (especially the Cessna) had so little reserve performance they couldn't do much manevering without drifting down in altitude. Anything more than a 30 degree bank would set the stall horn to blaring, and to keep it out of buffet, you had to lower the nose and give away some altitude.(remember, this was South Florida in late summer, OAT on the ground was 93 F, and we were burning 100LL in engines designed for 80 octane).
After the horror show at 12,000 we decided to try for 14, but at 13.3, full throttle, stall horn blaring, the 150 couldn't be coaxed any higher, despite having burned off over half its fuel. In fact I got a little clumsy on the controls and it fell off into a spin which I recovered from none too smoothly, causing a secondary stall and another spin, this time the other way.
At that point it penetrated my thick oxygen deprived skull that the thin air wasn't helping any, so I held full pro-spin controls, gyrated down to 9500 and made a proper recovery. My first experience with a protracted spin, and was impressed with how tight that little plane wound up over time and how long it took to recover when the time came. Out over the water, and with your instruments in full rebellion, it's kind of hard to keep track of how many turns you've made, but I'm sure the recovery took at least 2 - 3 turns, not the instantaneous recovery I was used to. The G meter showed 4.4, though I don't remember pulling that hard.
I'm guessing the behaviour of a Spit or a 109 attempting combat in the low 30s would be pretty similar.
Cheers,
Wes

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Wes,

An interesting thing would be how a Me-109 handled high altitude turns. If the slats pop the drag goes up quite a bit. Drag up means VERY soon the altimeter starts unwinding. I wondered which turned best at high altitude?

Cheers,
Biff

GregP said:

Hey XBe02Drvr,

When I got my pilot's license in 1982, I mostly used the C-172. But, sometime in 1985 I decided to have a go at our C-152 Aerobat. I got smart and went up to 9,500 feet (airport was 1,500 MSL). I managed to get it into a flat spin rather easily, without trying. At 6 turns of fully-held recovery controls I decided that if I had not recovered by 5,000 feet, I would jump. As luck would have it, I pulled one door pin at 5,200 feet and was about to go out when the nose dropped and it recovered in another 2 turns. When I started out, I had maybe 3/4 fuel and only me in the aircraft, so it wasn't out of CG or anything like that.

I put the door pin in my pocket and flew back to Scottsdale and landed, and then replaced the pin. I had never trained for flat spins, and I did the standard recovery technique (opposite rudder and release back pressure). It didn't work for quite some time and I eventually released the control wheel to prep for jumping. 3 or 4 turns later it recovered.

I told myself after that one to never let a spin develop beyond 2 turns in a C-152. I have spun a C-150 many turns with no ill effects, but it was an older straight-tail model. I have no idea if the straight vs. swept tail contributed or not, but I also never heard of getting a C-152 into a flat spin until I did it accidentally. STILL don't know how that happened.

I flat-spun MANY RC models and mostly had to use power to get them into the flat spin, usually with somewhat forward CG. One RC had a too-big engine on it with a pipe (piped .60 instead of an unpiped .40), and it could literally go to full power and not recover. I had to idle the engine and release in-spin rudder to recover. The C-152 above does NOT have anything near the power loading of that RC model, and I cannot think of anything I did to get the spin to go flat. I have pondered that for years with no firm answer.

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WOW! You got quite the ride. I've never flown a 152 Acrobat and haven't done all that much instructing in 152s. I have spun them a few times and they do wind up pretty well, but they always recovered promptly. I never did an extended spin in one. Most of mine were in 150s, all of the swept tail variety. The 152 has a heavier engine, for what that's worth.
You didn't mention what you did with ailerons during your adventure. They're crucial to spin behavior. When I want to spin, I always hold full opposite aileron full pro-spin rudder and full up elevator to keep the wing thoroughly stalled until I'm ready to recover. Then relax back pressure, full anti-spin rudder, and CENTERED ailerons. The longest a recovery took was 2-3 turns max.
Cheers,
Wes

BiffF15 said:

Wes,

An interesting thing would be how a Me-109 handled high altitude turns. If the slats pop the drag goes up quite a bit. Drag up means VERY soon the altimeter starts unwinding. I wondered which turned best at high altitude?

Cheers,
Biff

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Prejudiced as I am, I vote for lower wing loading, elliptical wing, and no leading edge devices to muck up the works. It really all depends on effective thrust at altitude. Possibly the fuel injected DB engine might have enough of a thrust advantage to handle the higher wing loading and the extra drag of deployed slats. But who knows? With my limited knowledge of the details of this scenario, it's a crapshoot as far as I'm concerned.
One thing's for sure. Neither pilot's going to be at peak performance, even on 100% O2. They're going to have about the same blood oxygen as they would have at 12-13K without nosebags.
Cheers,
Wes

i am surprised you could spin a 152 more than a turn or 2 if at all with out a lot of work. when I got my PL (1978/9) they were in the "don't teach spins" era. too many accidents were happening I guess so I didn't get to spin. I was taught spin recovery because when I started off it was in beat up 150s that would stall pretty violently and would/could go into a spin easily. then flight school got a brand new 152 with capped wing tips. when you tried to stall it, the stall warning would scream in your ear but the plane would just float along in level flight. even in an advanced stall it wouldn't want to go into a wing over like a 150. no doubting it can be done but the one I flew was such a tamed down beast.

Well, I don't want to drag out the off-topic stuff, but I really don't recall what I did with the ailerons to get it to go flat. But you can easily tell it is flat because the nose comes up to the horizon and the spin really winds up.

There is a school that teaches you to simply let go of all controls to recover (general aviation, non-aerobatic airplanes only). It is quite possible that when I let go of the wheel to pull the door pin and had recovery rudder held in, it was just enough to stop the spin. I've wondered for 30 years.

On the high-altitude fighter side of it, I might be inclined to think the Bf 109F would not be a great match up high for a Spitfire V. Bf 109F wing loading at loaded weight was 36.6 lbs/ sq ft with a span loading of 196.3 lbs/ft. Spitfire V had a wing loading of 26.9 lbs/ sq ft and a span loading of 177.1 lbs/ ft. At high altitude, span loading is a better indicator of maneuverability than wing loading. The Spitfire SHOULD have a slight advantage, even if only by 10% or so. That is an advantage, to be sure, but not much in the real world.

One might think the Bf 109G, being some 600 lbs heavier than the Bf 109F might be ever worse compared with a Spitfire IXe, but look at the numbers. Bf 109G-6 wing loading was 40 lbs/ sq ft and span loading was 213.5 lbs/ft. Spitfire IXe wing loading was 32 lbs/ sq ft but span loading was 227.7 lbs/ft. It has a short wingspan (32.5 ft) The decreased span of the IXe made it much less maneuverable at high altitude than a Spitfire with a full-span or even an extended-span wing. So the Bf 109 G-6 was about a dead even match for a short-span Spit IXe when at high altitude, maneuverability-wise by span loading.

These comparisons are based on span loading only, and can be overcome and even turned around by different engine and pilot performance. I have seen arguments for pages over minor differences in performance numbers, and it seems rather pointless.

Overall, I'd say that almost all escort fighters going from the UK to Berlin encountered Bf 109s that were attacking from above. So, we KNOW the 109 could EASILY get high. My bet is that the Bf 109 and the Spitfire in more or less contemporary versions were well-matched throughout the war, regardless of altitude. I'd give the theoretical turning advantage to the Spitfire but, in real life, that can only be exploited if both airplanes are turning at the ragged edge of stall. If you were there, the Bf 109 slats helped the Bf 109 hang in there with good control around the stall even though it had higher wing loading. But stall is a point on the performance envelope where NOBODY wanted to be in a real-life fight. If both were turning hard but not close to stalling, then there might be no advantage to be had other than the off-angle shooting skill of the pilot attacking. In the relatively rare case of a one-on-one dogfight, it might be a case of whether the pilot being attacked could get his aircraft off-plane with the attacker and separate with a roll and pull or a pull and roll. If the attacker could follow, he was probably a winner. If he could not follow, the fight was on again only if he could close and get in position to shoot. If not, then maybe the other guy reversed the advantage on him or else separated and lived to fight another day.

There probably weren't many Allied pilots who didn't respect a Bf 109 that surprised them and was attacking them. There probably weren't many Axis pilots who didn't respect a Spitfire that surprised them and was attacking them, either. A fight for life is always a wake-up call. That would be in contrast to the attitude when seeing the other plane before it was aware of them and was, thus, vulnerable. The real trick was to keep the other plane unaware of you. It would be interesting to hear the attitude of a WWII fighter pilot when both planes became aware of the other at the same time, same altitude, and same airspeed. If I were betting, I'd bet neither was overly comfortable.

bobbysocks said:

i am surprised you could spin a 152 more than a turn or 2 if at all with out a lot of work. when I got my PL (1978/9) they were in the "don't teach spins" era.

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I was teaching in 152s in 1976/7 and 150s 1978-83, then 152s again in 84/85, and I never had trouble getting any of them to spin. I didn't approve of the "don't teach spins" philosophy, and since I worked in a remote, low-profile environment, I ignored it. The reactions of students at their first experience of a spin convinced me that most would not have survived such an experience without the training.
We would always start by getting comfortable with all the various stalls and confident in their recovery. Then we progressed to the FAA recommended spin avoidance training. Finally we would actually spin the bird after a thorough briefing on technique and "muscle memory" practice on the ground in the plane. In flight, it was first, one to the left and one to the right, with me flying and the student following through hands on. Climbing back up we would discuss the visual impact and sensations and review the aerodynamics of what just happened. Then the student gets to do a couple using the same exaggerated entry as I had demonstrated, after thoroughly briefing me on every aspect of the maneuver. Once we're confident with that, it's on to spins of the "sneak attack" variety. This is where we simulate a gradually more cross-controlled turn by a ground-shy pilot who's trying to "stretch the glide" without adding power. Think traffic pattern turns by a pilot who doesn't want to advertise to all observers by a sudden steep bank that he's overshot his turn. This usually results in a stall with the inside wing dropping, causing the startled pilot to slam full opposite aileron, wrapping it up in a spin to the inside of the turn. Despite their previous practice, many students would freeze on the controls in this scenario. This would require a little more practice. By now, the lesson would be getting a little long and tiring, so we would do one more "easy" spin with a successful recovery and call it a day. Important to quit on a successful note, so as to not start the next lesson under a cloud.
My "exaggerated" entry consisted of gradually increasing back pressure until in an incipient stall condition, then applying full travel rudder/aileron cross controls. This results in a very positive spin entry, and as long as the controls are kept at full deflection and the inside wing is fully stalled while the outside wing is flying, the plane will stay in a spin. If any control backs away from full deflection, the spin will likely degenerate into a high speed, high G spiral dive. This is not good.
Using this technique, I never noticed any great difference between 150s and 152s, except the 150 wound up a little faster.
Cheers,
Wes

P-39 Expert said:

I'd take any mention of combat at 30000' (especially involving bombers) with a grain of salt. It may have appeared that way to an observer, but that was higher than the ceiling of most all bombers.

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I do remember something mentioned of some RAF B-17 operations going up to 32,000 feet. I should point out that the early B-17's were lighter and I'm not sure how much payload they carried.

eagledad said:

I have gone through mission reports of the 20th FG group from 12/28/44 through 4/10/44 and recorded the highest altitude flown by the top cover squadron. It appears that the other 2 group squadrons would be 1 to 2 thousand feet below those heights.

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I thought you'd want 3,000-5,000 feet above the planes?

The highest mission by a top squadron was 34,000 feet flown 1/11/44

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Now that's impressive...

Shortround6 said:

During the BoB air combat may have been at 25,000ft or so but the planes often flew a few thousand feet higher to order to get the bounce.

If you fly at 28,000ft and dive down several thousand feet before firing guns at what altitude did the "combat" take place?

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I figure the altitudes you'd reach at the peak point and the combat altitudes should be measured.

The British, either during or just after the BoB figured the "combat" ceiling of a fighter as the height at which it could still climb at 1000ft/sec.

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Yeah, that's something I've thought about: Some people used 100 feet a minute, others 1000 feet a minute, some like 400. It makes it damned near impossible to determine who was able to do what and when.

Zipper730 said:

Yeah, that's something I've thought about: Some people used 100 feet a minute, others 1000 feet a minute, some like 400. It makes it damned near impossible to determine who was able to do what and when.

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100fpm was the service ceiling and was pretty much accepted by everybody ( metric equivalent was close). Let's face it, once you are above that it tanks 25-20 minutes to gain another 1000ft and ALL you can do is flight straight and level with engine running at full power (whatever that is at that altitude).
Think about it. you are flying straight and level and the only excess power you have can only gain you 100fpm. if you throttle back much you will descend, you have very narrow margin between stalling, level flight and an climbing.

"Service" ceiling also covers the difference between "test absolute ceiling" and a plane in service condition.

The British (and some others?) figured you needed about 500fpm of climb in order to fly in formation and do low "G" maneuvers. Even with three/four planes
and doing a relatively gentile turn your drag goes up and your lift goes down while your stall speed increases, especially for the guy on the outside.


and again, you need to figure for the worst plane in the group.

to actually try to fight (see 2 G turn and 60 degree bank) the stall speed went up over 40%. Without a fair amount of excess power you are either slowing way down or losing altitude. Or both.