improving the 109??

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all that............. and to tell the ground crews that guns had been fired when an aircraft was landing, well that wasnt the plan but an aircraft that had fired its guns had a tell tale whistling from the open ports.....It was a moral booster for the ground crews in the early days.
 
pbehn said:
Not to disagree with anything in your post but the Me109 was designed around a circa 1000BHP engine as was the spitfire, many of the later issues they had reflect this.
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Actually the 109 was designed around a 600-700hp engine. The "1000 hp" engine was not fitted until about 2 years after the prototype first flew and over 3 years since design work started. And that was in two 'racing' planes.
Over 1000 production 109s were built with Jumo 210 engines, either DB was vveeeerrrry late or the 109 was NOT designed around a 1000hp engine. Production 109s with '1000' hp engines don't show up until 1938.
The 110 was about 1 year later in timing and while a number of them had Jumo engines it at this point Db was promising a 900-1000hp engine (and not delivering in numbers even in 1937).
in 1933/34 when work started on the 109 the potential engines were the Jumo 210 and the BMW 116, both about 20 liter engines.

DB had started work on what would become the DB600/601 in 1930 but didn't get a development contract for six engines until 1933. Up until then it was a company funded project. almost 2300 DB600s with carbs were built before production switched to the DB601.

From wiki: The first DB 601A-1 prototype, designated as F4E, was test run in 1935, and an order for 150 engines was placed in February 1937.[2] Serial production began in November 1937.

This designing around a 20 liter 600-700hp engine is what caused a number of the later problems of trying to stuff a quart into a pint pot.
 
@all,

Generally speaking very interesting thread. Some discussion points are ridiculous, but the information given to counter these topics were very helpful. I did learn quite a lot. Thanks for that.

S Shooter8 , although, I cannot judge you on your experience as pilot due to the fact that I don't have the required qualification, I'm able to provide you with my feedback as shooter; you might have shot a number of weapons in a Xbox environment but certainly not real ones.

Coming back to the original topic. I would suggest that Germany should improved the DB605 lifespan. In 1944, the Swiss Air Force was able to buy 12 Bf-109 G-6. The power-plants of these fighters needed serious overhauls within +/- 20 hours.

Cheers
 

If all 12 needed overhaul in that sort of timeframe, I'd be looking at how the engines were operated. Either that or Germany sold them lemons...
 
I'd like to see a link for the 20 hours. The TBO for a 605 was more like 250 hours I believe.

Edit: Now I remember. And yes the 12 delivered 109's did suffer from defects.

1. Poor manufacturing because of bombings, and forced labor.

2. The delivered aircraft where purposly not well built. They wear delivered to Swiss because of the deal made for a Bf 110.
 
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AFAIK, "mil-spec" refers to items procured for the US military, items such as nuts, bolts, bearings, etc.

So mil-spec would not refer to a German aircraft engine built in WW2.
 
wuzak said:
AFAIK, "mil-spec" refers to items procured for the US military, items such as nuts, bolts, bearings, etc.

So mil-spec would not refer to a German aircraft engine built in WW2.
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Correct - mil-spec is a US military standard, so wouldn't even have applied to British aircraft.
 
That "some Nazi" was usually a trained civilian performing QC...
 

Yes, they wold have been built to a standard, but not that standard.
 
James W. said:
The British Air-Min would likely have their own broad arrow HM Gov't stamp to apply,
but I think even the most pedantic 'mil-spec' enthusiast in the C21,
- understands that the term is basically generic - by now..
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I've never heard it used generically. In this, you lead the way...
 
bobbysocks said:
... as has been sited previously german pilots remarked how childishly easy the spitfire was to land.
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A more in-depth bit from the RAE's testing of the 109E that was captured in France.

Landing

This is definitely more difficult than on the Hurricane or Spitfire, mainly owing to the high ground attitude of the aeroplane. The aeroplane must be rotated through a large angle before touch down, and this requires a fair amount of skill on the part of the pilot, and tempts him to do a wheel landing. If a wheel landing is done there is a strong tendency for the left wing to drop just before touch down, and when the ailerons are used quickly to bring the wing up they snatch a little, causing the pilot to over-correct.

By holding off a little high the aeroplane can be made to sink slowly to the ground on all three wheels, and there is then no tendency for a wing to drop. A pilot quickly becomes accustomed to the landing technique required on this aeroplane, and should have no difficulty after a few practice landings.

The centre of gravity is unusually far behind the main wheels, and the brakes can be applied fully immediately after touch-down without fear of lifting the tail. The ground run is very short, and there is no tendency to swing or bucket. Owing to the large ground attitude, and the consequent high position of the nose, the view ahead during hold-off and ground run is extremely bad. Landing at night would probably be difficult.
 
It is also worth mentioning that the seemingly appalling accident rates suffered by ALL air forces in WW2 are not purely a function of the aircraft being flown. They are also a function of the training regimes and procedures taught and practiced at all stages of a flight. The Americans seem to have been most aware of this and attempted to reduce accident rates with everything from advisory pamphlets to written check lists (unlike the mnemonics so favoured by the British). The Germans seem to have been either the least worried or least pro-active in this field. I know nothing about Japanese or Russian practices.
When you took thousands of very young men, most of whom could not drive a car, and started to train them under wartime expediencies to fly the highest performing aircraft that their nations could provide a very high accident rate was inevitable. It was the steps taken to mitigate this which were probably more significant to the differences between the various air forces than the types flown.

There is also the contribution of youth. One of the losses I noticed for the RAF yesterday was a Spitfire which crashed, killing its pilot who was involved in "an unauthorised dogfight" with one of his colleagues. You can make all the rules you like, but young men will not always follow them!

Pbehn posted some figures for Fighter Command losses in the period July/August 1940. The 115 combat and 47 accident losses tally very well with my figures, as do the 106 combat to 68 accident damaged. I almost always make mistakes tallying figures over several source pages anyway . I reckon that almost 30 of those accidents occurred during night flying training. That's about a quarter of the total lost and damaged due to accidents in this period (about 115/120). It's an important point. Fighter Command was desperate to develop a night fighting capability at this time and flying at night given the aircraft and technologies of the day was a dangerous enterprise, even for experienced pilots.

Cheers

Steve

Found Bungay's book, knew I had it somewhere, and he attributes 28 accidents to night flying practice, I won't argue with that
 
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The Kohler said:
I would suggest that Germany should improved the DB605 lifespan. In 1944, the Swiss Air Force was able to buy 12 Bf-109 G-6. The power-plants of these fighters needed serious overhauls within +/- 20 hours.

Cheers
Click to expand...

I can't give a reference but I am certain I remember reading about this, the comment was that the Swiss were more than a tad pee'd off that they had been supplied with obviously & very 'tired' practically worn-out ex-Luftwaffe and not brand new machines.
I doubt this reflected the usual wear-rate/overhaul hours for either the DB605 or any of the rest of a 109G.
 
Just for curiosity it would be interesting to see what kind of life the Swedes got out of their DB 605 engines.
The engines were built in Sweden and powered 171 twin engine SAAB 18s and 298 single engine SAAB 21s.
The last of the single engine planes were phased out in 1954 and the last of twins phased out in 1959.

Such information should settle any arguments about the design of the DB605 as it was built in a country not at war and with a reputation of building quality equipment.

I would note that Swedes seemed to keep to the "normal" ratings for the 605 even in post war (1948) literature. 1475hp take-off at 2800rpm/6.3lbs boost. 1575hp at 7000ft (boost unknown) Normal (max con) 1250 at 19,000ft 2600rpm. this was done on 91/98 fuel.
What may have been done in experiments or in service at squadron level I have no idea. Getting higher rated fuel in 1948 or after shoul d not have been a problem but perhaps the Swedes were looking more at jet engines at the time.
 

Somebody once said you use ball and roller bearings when you don't trust your own plain bearings. There is certainly an element of truth to that as in many cases ball and roller bearings were replaced by plain bearings in a number of aircraft engines and car engines, and not because of cost.
Plain bearings are almost an art unto themselves and require (for use in high performance engines) certain alloys to be deposited on the bearing shell (backing plate,usually steel) in certain exact thicknesses. They also require compatible oil at high pressure and in large volumes.Ball and roller bearings use low pressure oil and at much lower volumes.
P & W developed a plain bearing using a silver alloy and licensed it to other manufactures for either a nominal fee or no fee during the war. This alloy is not used today because the additives in modern oil attack the silver and cause corrosion the bearing.
Bearing type and size and type/quality of oil are inter-related.
 

Hi Adler,

Yes to poor manufacturing, but no to your statement re purposely not well built. The air-frames as well as the engines came from multiple production lots. Need to dig in my books and translate the necessary facts later today.

Cheers,
 
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