improving the 109??

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

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,

My understanding is that the Germans gave them old and well used 109's. That is what I should have said.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

How about if I fly along in a helicopter at 5000' and hose sharks basking in the Gulf of Tonkin with an M-60?

I call BS!

The effective range of the M-60 is 1200 yards. 5000ft is 1600 + yards. Then you have to take into account the effect of the rotorwash and the wind caused by the moving aircraft. All of this with a suppression weapon.

Before you go any further, I was a US Army helo Crew Chief/Door Gunner and used the M-60.

Take your "No shit there I was..." story somewhere else.

 

[Peter Gunn]

Read up more. One of his comrades did just that, pot three Taliban walking, but at a slightly less phenomenal range.
Part of the original reply was about yanking and banking. Since many video games divorce the image on screen from reality, many people get the idea that the results of said Yank and bank happen instantly and that it makes a difference to how hard it is to shoot down a maneuvering plane. The plane's transient response is measured in degrees per second per second and I have never seen a chart of any WW-II plane that shows the number of degrees any stick movement would have in the first second, which is typically about 1/4 to 1/5 of the rate seen in all the charts I have ever seen.
But the most interesting part is that after the plane changes Attitude, it takes a further substantial fraction of a second for the plane to actually move in the new direction. So, a yank and bank might change the attitude of the target a grand total of 30 Degrees of pitch and roll combined, but the plane's inertia would limit the actual translation in space to about 5-7 degrees, or 20-25 meters displacement from the original trajectory and a distance from the shooter's line of sight two to three hundred yards back of less than 2 degrees.
So the shooter has to pull two or three degrees to cause his bullet stream to point at the new location of the target. Since the shooter's reaction time is much less than the inertia time of any plane of WW-II vintage, this is relatively easy to do. Once the shooter is within gun range and in the saddle as they say, there is little to nothing the greatest pilot on earth can do to avoid being shot down by any ace.

I have been following this thread with great interest and have learned a lot, especially about the P-40, you guys are awesome. Also the entertainment value has been quite high.

However, a few observations:

1. WTH does a sniper and how far he can pop someone, lying prone, on solid ground at close to or totally stationary target have to do with a 1940 vintage fighter plane moving at over 300 MPH have to do with anything? I'm no expert but last I checked, sniper <> fighter pilot.

2. WTH are you even saying anymore? I had four uncles that flew ops in the 8th, two were fighter pilots, I really wish they were still with us so I could ask them exactly how much BS your trying to shove into this blivet. I've been in aviation, although no where near as deep as many on this board that have already called you out, but because of a son that wants to fly, am getting re acquainted with the subject, and for the life of me, I can't see how you've ever flown anything outside an XBOX or PS4.

You seem like an intelligent fellow, and as such, you can learn a lot here, I have just by reading this thread. Also, the mods have been veeeery lenient with you, take their advice and you can have a lot of interesting and fun conversations here. Don't and well...

Also, I'm not angry or upset, just mystified about cluelessness. Is that a word?

Pete.

 

[pbehn]

Once the shooter is within gun range and in the saddle as they say, there is little to nothing the greatest pilot on earth can do to avoid being shot down by any ace.

This (and the rest of your post) is complete fantasy and rubbish.

Here is a video of a P51 firing guns on the ground showing the effects of recoil on the plane and its wing plus the spread of bullets now consider what that spread would be like at 1200m from an aircraft not sat on its wheels..

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niJ82YCiuYU


Two top aces in combat with each other with latest machinery rarely got a shot off at one another 80% of pilots shot down in the BoB did not see the person that shot them which is why all allied fighters were eventually fitted with tear drop canopies where possible..

 

[tyrodtom]

Shooter8, what do you consider to be the Gulf of Tonkin ?

 

[GrauGeist]

The Drag is not important when compared to the increase in vision it gave. Ask any fighter pilot, or look at all post war Friendly planes.

Drag is VERY important.

If you already have an airframe that has several performance penalties to start with, adding more is not a good idea.

 

[stona]

If you sit in a 109, you can easily see most of what's behind you, either through the bullet proof glass that has replaced the steel in most late model planes like the one above, or around the steel in early planes..

Since I have been lucky enough to sit in a Bf 109 I now know for sure that you haven't.

The view to the rear is terrible and made worse by the narrowness of the cockpit at shoulder level making it difficult to turn at all. It is much worse than the view from a Spitfire in which I have also sat, and it is not great from a Spitfire either.

I am of average height and fairly heavy build, the Spitfire was cramped, the Bf 109 unbelievably tight. I found it hard to imagine sitting for any length of time in that space.

I was obviously on the ground, so I cannot comment on the view forward when in a flying attitude. Some German pilots have remarked that the view forwards and downwards was better on the Bf 109 than on the Spitfire and given the relative positions of cockpit and wings on the two aircraft this seems reasonable.

Cheers

Steve

 

[tyrodtom]

Shooter8, you apparently take "artistic license" with a lot of what you post.
I was a crewchief/doorgunner of a OH-6 70-71, we called them a Loach, and it was just me and the pilot.

Though some units did have pilot, with a observer in the left front seat, and a gunner in the rear.
And our safety strap, "monkey strap" was a lot more elaborate than just a cargo strap under the armpits.

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Great post, but wrong! The M-60's "Range" was 1,200 Meters, or 1312 yards over flat ground. This is the range at which dispersion of the shot cone is such that a standing target is no longer guaranteed a hit with a 10 shot burst. Shooting at a nearly vertical angle, it's effective range is about 1250 Meters, both due to the lack of drop and the acceleration of gravity which helps the bullet not loose so much velocity. But the bullet is stable at 3,600 Meters and on a downward trajectory like that will have little trouble peppering a sun bathing shark from only 5000 feet. The shark always dashes from the strike and may, or may not be hit because of said pattern dispersion, but the reaction is always the same, hit or not. There is no way to tell. But if the burst of splashes surrounds the shark, it's a hit. It gets very much harder at 9000 feet altitude because the largest single difficulty in shooting sharks from a moving platform is the forward velocity of the shooter and the fact that he, or she has to aim behind the target's poss to get hits and the higher you go, the harder that is. But since helos typically cruise at speeds well under 170 MPH, it's not that hard.

Lots to respond to. I will do so after work...lol

 

[GrauGeist]

Well, here we go again:
"Shooter"...Thrustmaster has been on the market for quite some time and is still made currently in various forms - your reply means nothing, however, your fantasy comments gives a strong indication that you have learned a great deal from either FPS or Flight Sims...none of which apply to this discussion. So "nice try".

Regarding drag, yes, every bit of drag applied to an airframe contributes to the sum of the whole. If it was just that easy to slap a bubble canopy on top of an airframe, I am willing to bet that highly educated engineers would have done so long before your "expert" opinion suggested they do so. If you were actually familiar with aircraft, you would know that drag is the killer of performance - every last bit of parasitic drag needs to be addressed.

As it happens, I have sat in the cockpit of a Bf109E and since stand at 6'1", I was hard pressed to see behind me as the top of my head nearly touched the canopy and my shoulders were close to touching either side of the cockpit. Just turning my head back to look at either elevator required a bit of effort. I imagine with the seat adjusted forward some, it may help a little, but not by much.

With the Erla Haub, this increased the pilot's rear vision to either side by a degree, but not as good as a canopy such as the one on the Me262 (or Me309) would have offered. HOWEVER, to install such a canopy on the Bf109 would have required modifying the Bf109's airframe and thus slowed production of the aircraft at a time when they were in great demand.
So in short, it simply wasn't going to happen.

 

[rochie]

Only the Me-109 was the best fighter plane of WW-II and then by such a huge margin that second and third places went to different models of that plane before a single other plane shows up on the list!

Please tell by what parameters was Bf 109 the best fighter plane of WWII ?

 

[drgondog]

It Is A Waste Of Time Debating This Knucklehead..

 

[pbehn]

This is a great post and reinforces most of what I said before. The wing area was reduced, closer to the Me-109 in both size and design philosophy! More wing area means more drag and a lower speed. This was compensated by much more power.

You seem to think every designer was secretly trying to produce a Bf109 in disguise, wing AREA is one of the measures you can make, there are many others, how many of the Metrics quoted are anything like that of a 109?Surely Supermarine should have insisted on RR inverting the Griffon to have the exhausts in the perfect place (where they are on a 109).

 

[pbehn]

Please tell by what parameters was Bf 109 the best fighter plane of WWII ?

The same parameters that say the Spitfire couldnt shoot anything down, couldnt roll at 250mph+ and killed more of its pilots than the enemy did.

 

[GrauGeist]

Please tell by what parameters was Bf 109 the best fighter plane of WWII ?

It had black crosses on the wing, Karl...

This gave the aircraft an instant increase in performance, just as the RAF roundels imposed a decrease in performance on any aircraft they were applied to

 

[Peter Gunn]

The Drag is not important when compared to the increase in vision it gave. Ask any fighter pilot, or look at all post war Friendly planes.

Seriously?

 

[The Kohler]

My understanding is that the Germans gave them old and well used 109's. That is what I should have said.

Hi Adler,

the 12 G-6 with Swiss serial numbers J-701 till J-712 were new aircrafts, J-713 (G-6) and J-714 (G-14) were used ones. Let me go over my literature and I will be able to provide more information.

thanks and greetings from Texas

 

[rochie]

It had black crosses on the wing, Karl...

This gave the aircraft an instant increase in performance, just as the RAF roundels imposed a decrease in performance on any aircraft they were applied to

Ah yes i forgot, the 20% increase in speed, manouverability, range, climb etc that black crosses give aircraft yet the reverse happens when you paint a roundel on them !
Though to be fair there are those that believe the exact opposite, but i dont seeas many of those !

 

[pbehn]

Ah yes i forgot, the 20% increase in speed, manouverability, range, climb etc that black crosses give aircraft yet the reverse happens when you paint a roundel on them !
Though to be fair there are those that believe the exact opposite, but i dont seeas many of those !

Rolls Royce engines were highly magnetic and so easy to hit, German pilots achieved most kills by flying over Calais and shooting in the general direction of Canterbury

 

[GrauGeist]

Ah yes i forgot, the 20% increase in speed, manouverability, range, climb etc that black crosses give aircraft yet the reverse happens when you paint a roundel on them !
Though to be fair there are those that believe the exact opposite, but i dont seeas many of those !

Quite right and if they wanted the British aircraft to be world-beaters, they should have stuck a big white star on the side...this would have shown a marked increase in performance!!