Focke Wulf FW 190-D9 "the best fighter of Germany"?

[GrauGeist]

Many German jet Pilots thought the 262 was a great dog fighter in which it was very hard to get shot down in but the guns were crap and cost one Nazi pilot his life after putting not one, but two 30 mms into a P-47, only to get hosed on the overshoot buy the 8 .50s. Most Allied and all Ruski single engine fighters only required one 30 mm hit to be shot down.

See Greg?

Reading and quoting this drivel of thiers is two minutes of my life I'll never get back...

 

[KiwiBiggles]

It's always worth a side-bet when Shooter raises his head as to how long it will be before he mentions the leading-edge slats on a 109.

 

[GregP]

I'll have to disagree with that Shooter. The slats only cover about 1/3 of the wing and basically only serve to keep the ailerons effective after a stall of the main wing. If the pilot pulls hard enough to have only the slatted area effective, he will not out-turn anyone, but can stop from dropping a wing due to stall departure ... and the slats only open near the stall. Yes the CL is increased, but only around the time when 2/3 of the main wing, without slats, is stalled or VERY close to it.

I don't believe the pilot can really pull hard enough at much over 280 mph to get the slats out, and certainly not at anything over 300 mph. The Bf 109, even without slats, wasn't a bad turning aircraft. I'd think the slats would come into play mostly at 180 - 220 mph, in a dogfight that involved hard turning while decelerating.

Better pilots tried hard to avoid that regime since that's where most pilots died while dogfighting. The top aces were mostly ambush hunters, who knew the value of escaping a bad situation rather than trying to fight it out. Hartmann was famous for never losing a wingman. You usually don't achieve that record if you engage in frequent dogfights. You can do that for a little while, but not for as long as Hartmann did without using sound ambush tactics.

Guys, I think you are right above and I'll probably decline to comment much more going forward. If I don't get deep into a basic discussion that is proceeding in a less than wonderful manner, it doesn't tend to get the keyboard fingers going without thinking happening at the same time. And getting that going tends to get me in escalating trouble. Better to just bow out.

That should have been obvious when the first thing that happened was to disagree with Drgondog. Having tried that somewhat unsuccessfully myself, and having come to realize he was right all along most of the time, it sets a tone best avoided by me.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Don't be so snarky!

Then don't tell people that their posts are not important.

Got it bud!

 

[tyrodtom]

I only pointed out what Hartmann said; He liked the LE Slats because "He could shoot across the circle farther than other planes could".
You are also right about his being a Zoom and Boom Ace! He never Dogfighted if he could avoid it. He also preferred the Mk-151-20 over the Mk-108 for his main weapon. He thought the 30 mm gun was very hard to get hits with.

I think you need to tell us the page # and book, or where ever this statement was made.

 

[GrauGeist]

I think you need to tell us the page # and book, or where ever this statement was made.

Don't hold your breath...

I'm still laughing over the "30mm was very hard to get hits with" part.

Oh, that and the Mk108 cannon on the Me262 was ineffective.

If it wasn't for the fact that the threads get flooded with all this horse=sh!t, I'd spend more time reading their posts for the entertainment factor.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Alright everyone. Lets not let this thread completely break down. Let us mods do our thing...

 

[GregP]

OK, Shooter, I'll bite one more time.

The Ha.1112 airframe is a Bf 109 G-2 unit, which I used for my estimate since I have access to one. It has 170 sq ft of area. I made the measurement via CAD and you are right, the slats don't cover 1/3 of the wing area. They actually cover 32.221% of the wing area, or slightly less than 1/3.

So the High Lift slatted area is 54.776 sq ft and the unslatted area is 115.224 sq ft.

If you go look at any 3-view, you'll see that the slats are located out near the skinnier part of the wing, near the tips, but they don't include the wingtips. The inner unslatted area is at the point of longer chord, making the area add up a bit quicker than around the ailerons.

I was close with my ballpark estimate, but precision really IS better.

 

[GrauGeist]

No book, I played golf with him three times on my first tour in Germany.

I have never heard of him playing golf and even if he did, why would he play golf with some random shave-tail nobody and out of the blue, discuss great in-depth personal sentiments with said shave-tail on said golf course.

Seriously...

 

[pbehn]

The 262's biggest problem was not it's aerodynamic performance witch was mostly, but not completely great, was it's guns! Which were almost worthless when compared to all other guns of the war. Even the Germans knew this after some little experience.

Can you give further details of the special guns that didnt work developed and fitted to the 262. Were these guns developed because of concerns over losses affecting US morale or simply to avoid four engined bombers dropping onto Gerrmany?

 

[wuzak]

This is why I do not have much regard for Eric Brown as a expert on the various types of WW-II planes.
Sure, he flew them all and has a huge resume', but anyone who thinks the Spit 14 was a great plane is either a Nationalistic Fan Boy, or delusional.

He may have know his stuff just a little better than you....

It was slow to service and had to have many defects fixed before it was considered safe to send out into less experienced hands.

I'd like to see a source for that.

As for slow to service, it was no longer than many of its contemporaries.

The size and area of the Verticle fin and rudder were both enlarged two or three times depending on who said what and how much of an enlargement we are talking about.

The fin was the same size, the rudder area increased.

Also, not an unusual thing to happen in prototype aircraft.

It was too heavy and they almost universally removed two of the four 20 mm guns to aid the rate of role and rate of turn.

Too heavy? Compared to what?

Apart from a small number of Mk Vs, and the later 20-series models (with new wings) none of the Spitfires were equipped with 4 20mm cannon. The usual armament was 2 x 20mm plus 4 x 0.303" at the start of production and later it was 2 x 20mm plus 2 x 0.50" when the E-wing came along (also used in the IX and XVI).

The Spitfire could give away quite a bit turn radius and still be comfortably turn inside a 109 or 190. The Spitfire XIV didn't roll as fast as a Fw 190A, but not much did. It was comfortably faster in roll rate than the Bf 109 and could out-roll most other allied aircraft up to 350mph IAS.

Most actual Spitfire pilots of the war claimed that either the Mk-V was the best of the lot in terms of how it flew, or they preferred the faster and more powerful Mk-IX even with it's snaking and poor pointability. The -IX's four bladed prop started the round of increasing the area of the tail to cure stability problems and the five bladed prop on the XIV made it down right dangerous until the "Spitful" tail was installed.

Dangerous?

The XIV required change of rudder trim with throttle changes.

Snaking? Poor pointability?

You are aware that the P-51B and -D suffered problems with lack of fin/rudder area too? Solved with the larger tail of the -H.

Then there is the fact that nearly, or more than, one year elapsed between the Mk-XIV's entry into service and it's first kill! If it was so great, why was that? How many pilots made Ace in the Mk-XIV? I mean during that exact same period of time that the -XIV was in service AFTER it's first kill and getting fixed, there were fifteen or twenty times as many new pilots who made Ace in the older types of Spit! IIRC only 22, or maybe 28 pilots made ace in the Mk-XIV? I've got the Osprey book on it someplace.

You better get your old Osprey book out and start quoting.

The Spitfire XIV became operational in January 1944.

It's first enemy aircraft kill was in 1944, but after they were used against the V-1s. I don't have the actual date, but it wasn't more than a year.

In any case, the lack of success speaks more to the lack of opportunity than any issues with the ability of the aircraft.

So, we have the opinion of a test pilot, with how many kills on the side of the Mk-XIV Spit, Vs the Opinion of Major General, IIRC, Chuck Yeager who thought the P-51 was the Cat's Meow, Vs America's top ace who thought the P-38 was it and Russia's top ace who thought the Yac-3, or P-39 was the best, or the Top Jap who shot down 86+- planes in a Zero and the top 300 Aces of all time who like the Me-109 for some unknown and totally mysterious reason! ( Given that it had less of almost everything than any of the other choises above!)

Dick Chuck Yeager fly a Spitfire XIV? Eric Brown flew P-51s.
Did Bong fly a Spitfire XIV? Eric Brown flew a P-38.
Brown didn't fly a Yak-3, but he flew a Yak-1, a Yak-9 and a Yak-11. Did the Russian ace fly a Spitfire XIV?
Brown did also fly the P-39.
And he flew several variants of the Bf 109.

He may have known a thing or two about the qualities of fighters.
List of aircraft flown by Eric "Winkle" Brown - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

btw the reason that the Bf 109 scored so many more kills than any other aircraft was simple opportunity. They were built in more numbers than any other fighter of WW2, flew more combat sorties than any other WW2 fighter, had more engagements than any other WW2 fighter.

 

[stona]

Good reply, but, in the nicest possible way, I don't know why you bothered. I'm certainly not going to
Cheers
Steve

 

[wuzak]

Good reply, but, in the nicest possible way, I don't know why you bothered. I'm certainly not going to
Cheers
Steve

I probably shouldn't have, but couldn't help myself.

 

[Shortround6]

Good reply, but, in the nicest possible way, I don't know why you bothered. I'm certainly not going to
Cheers
Steve

I, for one, will take your advice and use the ignore option

 

[tyrodtom]

No book, I played golf with him three times on my first tour in Germany.

After several months of this shooting across turn nonsense, now you say Erich Hartmann told you this while you were playing golf with him !!!
Do you really expect anyone on this forum to believe anything you say ?

 

[alex33]

So, I would say that before we can judge a plane from the past, you must ask what criteria do we use to score it?

I don't judge the plane at all. It's just that in most things that you read online it says "the D-9 is considered to be the best German fighter of the war" and so i thought this was true. but after reading the wright airfield report i became sceptical of it's performance and so i wondered if it actually was a good fighter plane after all

 

[pbehn]

I only ever went shooting and playing tennis with Hartmann, he said he hated golf.

 

[stona]

I played 'keepy uppy' with Rudel....he was rubbish, I can't imagine why

 

[Ascent]

I suppose a good definition of best might be "able to carry out it's design function the most effectively", but that probably opens a whole new can of worms.

 

[stona]

I suppose a good definition of best might be "able to carry out it's design function the most effectively", but that probably opens a whole new can of worms.

There was and is no 'best'. There were many capable aircraft. Throughout the entire war the most successful air forces were those that could maintain a significant core of experienced pilots and reinforce losses with pilots well enough trained to survive long enough to gain that experience. The pilot factor was far more important than any aircraft type.
The demise of the Luftwaffe and the Japanese air forces is directly linked to their inability to do this.
In the context of this thread, a Luftwaffe 'expert' would likely get the most out of his new D-9, but was unlikely to be any more successful in it than in his previous aircraft. He would fight either type to its strengths, knowing the relative weaknesses of his opponents. A new and inexperienced pilot was just as likely to die in a D-9 as in his previous aircraft.
Cheers
Steve