You have this upside-down: The Me-109E (and this extends to the G) preferred right turns at high speeds, but did prefer left turns at speeds below about 220 mph indicated. The difference at low speed was around 20 seconds left to 22 seconds right in Russian tests, which is noticeable, but the real 109G figures (with 30% reduced throttle) are probably a second or two less. The high speed right preference was a very pronounced feature that extended to the G. There was even a joke: "You can tell a Me-109 pilot by his overdeveloped left leg."
This is why the Me-109 required right rudder on take-off climbs (low speed) and left rudder at high speeds. The P-40 was somewhat similar, so I doubt they had a huge advantage. They were very close in turning performance.
In dive the P-40's left roll was so compromised that the pilot had to brace his right elbow against the cockpit wall to keep from rolling right in dives 400 mph and over... And this remained true even on the improved P-40N...
P-40s
had a rudder trim tab, which was pretty easy to use, and that made all the difference, apparently (though still annoying to a lot of pilots, as it was another thing to be dealt with - trim had to be dialed out when climbing out of a dive), and the torque issue was largely eliminated when they lengthened the fuselage / tail by 22", according to pilots like James "Stocky" Edwards who found this issue particularly frustrating.
As for turning and general agility, pilots operating in North Africa and Italy, on both sides, seemed to agree that the P-40 easily out-turned and out rolled the Bf 109. Which isn't really surprising as it had a lower wing loading and a much higher rate of roll at all speeds.
Canadian ace James 'Stocky' Edwards
note that here is another reference to a captured Bf 109 being used for training.
This is from Ospreys "P-40 Aces of the MTO" (2002), page 34, last paragraph. Source is a letter from the pilot. Context was an early morning 24 March 1943, the 59th FS flew a sweep back over Djebal Tebera and "encountered opposition over the target". This is from an interview with Lt Richard E. Holcomb,. who was credited with one Bf 109 damaged on this engagement:
"Lt Harry Haines and I ended up in a ground-level dogfight right over the German airbase. It was quite a fight, as we were out-turning them and shooting up aeroplanes on the ground while they climbed to start the fight again. We would run for home until their cannon shots came close to Harry's tail and again we would out-turn them. I felt sure we at least two were damaged as they left the fight but we couldn't confirm them."
General Benjamin Davis of the 99th FS ("Tuskegee") had a lot of praise for and confidence in P-40s:
"The P-40 operations in the Pacific and Europe were much like the F-86 and the MiG in Korea*. All the MiG's had to do was stay away from the F-86's; yet we had an eleven-to-one kill ratio of F-86's over MiG's**. Same thing with the P-40 and the Me 109. If the German fighters wanted to stay away, the P-40's couldn't get them. When the Me 109's came down to engage the P-40's we were superior."
Interview Tom Russel
https://www.3squadron.org.au/subpages/AAWRussell.htm
"After 3 Squadron had gone through Hurricanes at that time and onto Kittyhawks, Kittyhawk could out turn a 109, it couldn't out climb, but it could out dive it too because of its weight. But the Germans learned very quickly against Peter Jeffrey and his men, not to fight on an equal level. So they would stand up above and come down and pick you off if they could. "
Interview Jack Doyle
https://www.3squadron.org.au/subpages/AWMDoyle.htm
"Climbing was the plane's weakness, I think, wasn't it?
Yes. Look, there are three things, if you can have one of those things and get into a fight with enemy aircraft you can stay alive - if you can out-climb them, if you can out-run them, or if you can out-turn them you can stay alive. If you can't out-run them you've got to stay and fight as long as they want you to fight, as long as you don't run out of petrol first you're relatively safe - I'm speaking in theory. You're not safe if there's ten of them and one of you. But in the main the Kittyhawk could out-turn most enemy aircraft so you could at least stay alive, but you might have to stay where they wanted you to and not where you wanted to be. "
This is from an interview with 3 RAAF double ace and squadron commander Bobby Gibbes interview:
Australians at War Film Archive
"Well, against the Italians we probably had a superior aeroplane. But when the Germans brought the 109s in they were in many ways, almost every way, a very much better aeroplane. They could out-climb us, they were faster, they had a much better ceiling - in other words, they could get much higher - and they'd look down on us. We could never look down on them. The only .... Our ability, though, was we were able to out-turn a Messerschmitt and we could in actual fact, being a very heavy aeroplane, we could out-dive them. But when the Germans woke up to the fact that we could out-turn them, very seldom would they stay in and try and dogfight. They'd just generally dive - what they call `pick and zoom' - dive down, pick off a straggler, and then they'd climb up again and you'd probably only get a very fleeting shot at them because they'd be traveling at very high speed. Or else they'd dive straight past their target aircraft, keep on going down and with an initial speed there was no way you could catch them. We all, always tried to fly together as a team and not to work as individuals.
The first 109 I flew was a 109F and I carried out comparative tests with it with a Spitfire Mark V and the Kittyhawk. We all started in line abreast. The Messerschmitt ran away. The Spit V came fairly well after in climb and speed and they both left the Kittyhawk quite badly. And later when we captured the 109G at Gambut, it had been slightly damaged and it was repaired by my squadron engineering officer, Ken McRae. I then flew it forward to the base at Mersa Matruh - no, from Gambut up to the Martuba aerodromes, escorted by two Kittyhawks. While I had it there I carried out some simulated attacks on my squadron. By then the German Air Force had retreated out of range so I was able to do this with safety. My people knew I was up there. The purpose had been basically to let them see - some of the new boys see - what a 109 looked like. But its performance was quite terrific. Kittyhawk could out turn it quite comfortably and if the Messerschmitt boys came in and tried to dog fight, they were gone. We could dive away from them. If we started with same speed and they dived away, we could catch them in the dive."
As I noted previously, they captured several Bf 109s and tested with them.
The Germans by the way also drew very similar conclusions. These excerpts are from interviews transcribed in Shores Mediterranean Air War Volume II:
This is Rudolf Sinner, technical officer of II./JG 27 in 1942:
Frederich Körner Oblt I./JG 27 until shot down on 4 July 1942
Ernst Düllberg, Staffelkaptain of II.Gruppe JG 27 and later Kommandeur of II Gruppe
There were numerous references and claims, and attribution of combat losses, to the non-existent P-46 which is the long-tailed P-40F and L, and maybe also the K
Werner Schrorer, 'experten' ace with I and III. / JG 27:
"The superiority of the British types in dogfights was notorious"
The P-40 could out-turn the slightly more agile MC 202 as well:
This was from a
letter by Lt Richard T Conly of the 315th FS / 324th FG describing an April 29 encounter over Tunisia in which he scored his first confirmed victory:
'When I pulled back up, I had just climbed to about 7000 ft when another '202 jumped me at nine o'clock high. I turned into him, and he started turning to get on my tail. At this point I really swore by a P-40, because I could dogfight and out turn him with ease. He saw I was going to get a shot and headed for the deck, strait down. I never got farther than 100 yards behind him, and he stayed right in my sights. I watched my tracers pound into him all the way. Those good old six "fifties" raked him from the tail up. He hit the deck about 50 ft just offshore and went strait in. I almost got wet in the splash.'
On the Me-109 the weight on the left pedal started at around 220 mph indicated and climbed very rapidly even at 250 mph. I remember seeing weight figures of the effort and it was striking how suddenly it appeared and how fast it climbed, but it never got into an unreasonable range: It topped out at around 70 to 100 pounds depending on speed. But that is not pleasant...
M. B. Morgan & D. E. Morris, Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, Messerschmitt Me.109: Handling and Manoeuvrability Tests, September 1940, report RM 2361.
The relevant section is "Directional Trim." The passage reads:
and then, crucially:
A heavy foot load for just 2.5 degrees...
The report then makes the physiological consequence explicit:
And the G with the original tail was the exact same:
There is an important later source: Captain Eric Brown's 1944 evaluation of a Bf 109G-6, subsequently published in the RAF Yearbook article "Four of the Finest" (1975).
Brown wrote:
I think the high speed roll issues and lack of a rudder tab were pretty well known problems with the Bf 109
The P-51D was similar at low speeds, with a marked preference for low speed left turns below 220 ias, and a similar preference for right turns above that speed, though the pilot could relieve these intense rudder forces with the rudder trim tab. It should be noted that this relieved him from constant effort, but it did not change the aircraft's turn side preference.
Unfortunately for the P-51 pilots, the rudder was such a massive and powerful item that the trim tab response to pedal action had to be reversed from mid-B production onward, to prevent damage to the fin or hinges(!)... This meant the P-51D rudder forces were very heavy as the trim tab was now working against him... But all control forces were heavy on the P-51, so it kind of blended right in...
The P-47 Razorback also had a left turn preference, but it stayed the same at all speeds. The Bubbletop turned worse, but was probably more symmetrical.
You are conflating a difference in turn
rate with the actual locking up of controls, which isn't the same thing. Many aircraft had different rates of roll left or right vis a vis engine torque.
The A6M Zero did not like high speed right maneuvers, either roll or turn.
The A6M did also have a similar 'locking up' problem at high speeds. And a very similar escape maneuver was used with P-40s, P-39s, F4Fs and F4Us against the A6M ...
The FW-190A could not make high speed hard right turns without flicking into spin (terrible high speed handling generally, one of the very worst at high speed of WWII), but it was otherwise unusually symmetrical, and the Spitfire was probably the most symmetrical of them all until the Griffon engines were installed.
It's also well known that the Fw 190 did not turn well, though some people will insist to the contrary in the face of all evidence. Of course you can always find outliers e.g. Clostermann
Asymmetry was significant, and at least one P-51D pilot (with a tailing enemy) describes lowering the throttle during combat, just to get into the slower "left turn preference" zone. He noted: "The designers could not get them to be the same on both sides."
Actually many aircraft dealt with the torque by having one wing slightly shorter than the other (as on the MC 202) or having a canted vertical stabilizer (as also seen on the MC 202 and several other WW2 aircraft)
