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I haven't flown two otherwise identical a/c, one with slats and one not, but I fly the Cessna Aerobat, and I've tried several STOL a/c of the same weight, and they do turn a lot better.
Also we flew 3 STOL a/c in formation once, chasing each other, and I never felt any disturbance to the slats. Ofcourse I could feel the propwash, but so would I in any a/c.
And regarding what I said about the slats being deployed symmetrically, I was talking about a high performance turn where both wings have exceeded 15 degree's AoA, at that point both slats will be fully deployed and are therefore symmetric.
And for the love of God, would u please cease and desist in calling the Hellcats firepower "devestating/massive"... It was adequete for the job and should of had cannons...
The F6F was notoriously rugged, and hard for a Zero to bring down, and the Zero had double the cannon armament of the 109. The P-51, which had the same firepower as the F6F, had no trouble bringing down the Messerschmitt. So since we're comparing two aircraft in a hypothetical combat it's about relative firepower, not absolute. The Hellcat is a very large fighter, almost the size of a P-47, with a reputation for extreme ruggedness while the 109 is a much smaller and lighter airframe.
In terms of ruggedness, it was easier for a P-51 to bring down a 109 than a 190, due to the lesser amount of armor.
Judging from ammo expendeture figures of p-51 groups after action reports, no statistically meaningful distinction between fw-190 and bf-109 can be observed.
It appears that range was far more a factor for gun effeciency than the type of (fighter) aircraft engaged. This is not true for the Me-262 and Ar-234 jets. Both of which required more avg. rounds per kill.
I don't think the 109 was ever no trouble to shoot down, unless it had a real rookie at the stick. It was a good opponent for the P-51.
I disagree, esp. since the 109's slats did NOT pop in and out during turning fights because of a wake or turblunce, that is merely an old untrue myth. It never happens. If it were to happen it would mean that a normal wing would experience the same effect and a sudden drop of lift when following another a/c, but it doesn't.
Dave Southwood, a modern 109 pilot, has addressed this issue before and made it quite clear that he has never experienced such a thing in the 109G ever whilst following or turning with other a/c.
Hi Juha,
>The term Emberassed might come from the fact than in turning fight slats began popping out separately when 109 hit the wake of the other a/c and so ruined aiming. But what I remember on Finns experiences British seemed to have overstated this problem.
Absolutely. Radinger/Schick in their "Me 109" note that the Bayerische Flugzeugwerke and the Deutsche Versuchsanstalt für Luftfahrt undertook extensive trials of the slats in a major test program (worth 2,000,000 Reichsmark), which resulted in the deletion of the locking mechanism which originally held down the slats while the flaps were extended by less than 10 degrees. (If you're familiar with the US analysis of a captured Me 110, they found the remnants of such a locking mechanism which had been disabled, so it was not only used in the Me 109.)
Another series of test flights were undertaken in 1936 to determine if there was any danger of the slats during spins. Gustav Lachmann of Handley Page suggested that the slats should be equipped with a pneumatic retraction device to safeguard against the opened slats making the spin irrecoverable, but it turned out that this device had never to be used during the trials.
The results of these test flights were that the handling characteristics of the Me 109 were made much more docile in turns and aerobatics with flaps retracted by the freely operating slats.
If you read the French comparison report on the D.520 vs. Me 109E trials, you'll find that the two fighters had virtually identical turn rates at the test altitude, but the Me 109 could be flown reliably at the edge of the stall with sufficient warning to stay in the turn, while the D.520 lacked such a warning and sooner or later flicked out of the turn when the pilot inadvertently flew it into the stall.
(The Spitfire could be reliably flown on the edge of the stall like the Messerschmitt too, relying on aerodynamic wash-out to achieve a gradual instead of an abrupt stall. For the record, I don't think the Me 109 could match the Spitfire's sustained turn, except perhaps when you take a particularly heavy and poorly performing Spitfire variant like a tropicalized Spitfire V against a very light and well turning Messerschmitt variant like the Me 109F-4.)
Regards,
Henning (HoHun)