improving the 109??

James W. said:

"Altering" what Steve?
The construction technique surely need not be altered, only the shape of the fuselage upper surface, aft of the canopy.
& since the Me 110 utilized a proud-standing canopy, featuring a rear-gunners post, it evidently wasn't an issue..

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Altering the production line.

Easy enough to change the design for a one-off.

James W. said:

"Altering" what Steve?
The construction technique surely need not be altered, only the shape of the fuselage upper surface, aft of the canopy.
& since the Me 110 utilized a proud-standing canopy, featuring a rear-gunners post, it evidently wasn't an issue..

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Altering the shape of the fuselage. I posted earlier that to create a low back Spitfire the structure of the fuselage hardly changed. The top of two frames and a few skins were altered. To change the Messerschmitt fuselage will require changing several of the sections which are rolled and pressed with the integral formers. The intermediate sections are simpler, more like typical skins.
It could have been done, at least for some test aircraft, the inevitable problems of lateral stability which seem to have arisen with just about every type altered for a cut down fuselage would have needed addressing. It was already marginal on the Bf 109. The British encountered other problems with the low back Spitfires (I mentioned the issues with hood jettison) and at least on the Mark XIV not all the deleterious effects on stability were completely solved, just brought within acceptable limits.
My personal feeling is that the solution was considered more serious than the problem. The Bf 109 had been flying since the mid 1930s and fighting successfully since the late 1930s. Maybe a case of if it ain't broke don't fix it? German research and development was far more focused on a replacement for the Bf 109 rather than further development, certainly not a major redesign of the fuselage. No major design work was done on the Bf 109 after the F series, sure, engines, radiators, undercarriage (wheels, tail wheel struts and some minor alterations to the geometry), the empennage (at least fin and rudder) and a plethora of bumps and bulges and access panels changed, but not the essential structure of the aircraft. A Bf 109 F and a Bf 109 K fuselage exhibit hardly any structural differences. Off the top of my head there may have been some gusseting to add strength to the K and someone would have to check the gauge of the different sections to see if any were heavier, I don't think they were but....
It is no accident that the Erla haube was an independent development from the drawing office of one of the Bf 109 producing plants.
Cheers
Steve

James W. said:

But why would it be any more difficult for a 109, than doing it for 'razorbacks' such as P-40/P-47/P-51/Spitfire, & etc?..

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Because of the very different construction. All the others were skins applied to frames as opposed to an integral structure.
Easy to hand build some aircraft for testing, a major step to make such a major alteration in the middle of series production at a time when all the emphasis was on producing single seat fighters in the largest quantity possible.

A report on the British aircraft industry cited the frequent modifications to existing designs in production as the primary reason that deliveries fell short of targets. It is easy to forget the effect even minor modifications could have on production. The Germans may well have decided that substantial alteration of the Bf 109 risked equally substantial loss in production, a risk they could not afford to take.

Incidentally the British solution was to make a limited sacrifice of quality to quantity at mass production plants like Castle Bromwich or Ford's Manchester plant, whilst accepting the disruption to production schedules caused by the continuous qualitative refinement at design factories such as Rolls Royce and Supermarine. Despite the best efforts of management nobody ever did work out a method of anticipating or even calculating this loss of production. The German aircraft industry never seems to have arrived at this compromise.

Cheers

Steve

Ok, after the joke photo here are couple that show what Stona is talking about.

and more clearly

and

Factory shot


A lot more photos at : View: https://www.flickr.com/photos/28092068@N03/13937421069/in/photostream/

For comparison here is a Spitfire.


While more than a couple of frames would have to be changed for a bubble top the skins wouldn't need a lot of rework, at least not new forming dies for each skin piece.
Another consideration is that the fuselage depth is part of the strength resisting the bending moment of the tail surfaces. Think horizontal Stab and elevators pushing down on the rear of the fuselage to pullout of a dive or in a tight turn.
You can make the fuselage skinnier top to bottom but you better beef up something to take the load.

Yes, there is a reason that the fuselage extending to the empennage was often referred to as the fuselage boom.

The loss of area was, I think, what led to lateral instability. The Americans ameliorated this on both the P-47 and P-51 with a fillet running to the fin.
In some Marks of Spitfire the low back versions could not use the rear fuselage fuel tanks under any circumstances as a result of the same issue.
I mention these issues because once again people are suggesting seemingly simple things to improve an aircraft without considering the problems that this might cause in other areas.
Cheers
Steve

Looking at the Spitfire there are 4 longerons which could be (and were) beefed up to handle heavier loads without changing frames,stringers or skin. Not to say that some later Spitfires didn't beef up one or more of those components, I don't know.
On the 109 you have the skin and "frames" made of essentially the same thickness material. There are NO Longerons. There are stringers.
Not saying it couldn't be done, just a lot more difficult.

I agree.

Cheers

Steve

Many thanks for the contributors here.

Interestingly, this very discussion is why we can't fly our restored Yokosuka D4Y3 Judy. The longerons were corroded away and the cost for new ones was prohibitive. So ... a couple of us volunteers (Bob Velker and me) made up longerons consisting of 3 pieces of Aluminum riveted together forming a "Y" channel. It is strong enough to hold the weight of the plane and might survive flight, but we didn't do a thorough strength analysis because it was going to be a static restoration you can start and taxi, not a flyable unit. So, we can't say for sure if it would be strong enough. Ergo, we will not fly it in the condition it is in, but it looks pretty good.

If someone shows up with a big bucket of money and wanted it to fly, we could make that happen at the cost of replacing all the longerons. Actually, the pros at Fighter Rebuilders would do that, probably not us volunteers.

They are just finishing a beautiful Canadair Sabre Mk VI that has been converted to slats with the long wing. Every Sabre should be so beautiful! And should have the avionics this one has including Garmin GTN 750 / 650 units where the old radar used to be. Talk about a Cadillac, this is it.

Want a great restoration? Talk with Steve Hinton at Fighter Rebuilders! They can get it done.

Very good photos of the making of Me-109, it shows how simple was the alluminium skin interlocks.

Shooter8 said:

If the Mods are mad at me, how do I find that out?

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I'm sure if they are mad at you, you will know!

And could you stop placing your replies inside quotes. It's hard to read and follow, and sometimes, at least on my pc, the quote window does not expand.

Shooter8 said:

Not at all. It was as much as a game between us as it was real practice shooting from a moving vehicle to a stationary target.

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To me it sounds like cruelty to animals, and so I shall report you to the ASPCA.

Shooter,

I posted this before but maybe you missed it. The slats do NOT give the Bf 109 the ability to maneuver as if it had a larger wing at any given speed. Wrong.

The slats only cover roughly the ailerons and really aren't all that big, and they only become effective when the aircraft approaches a stall. The leading edge airflow must depart before it pulls the slats out. Now we all know you can stall at most speeds in light and aerobatic planes but, in the case of the Bf 109, that simply isn't true. The elevators got pretty heavy after about 300 mph and the pilot could NOT pull hard enough to stall it if he was going much faster than that. Also, the only time any fighter pilot wanted to be anywhere NEAR a stall was as a last-ditch attempt if everything else failed. Otherwise, the pilots might pull hard enough at low-to-medium speeds to regain strong aileron control if they needed to for aiming, but it was never a good place to be, tactically or aerodynamically, in combat. Being out of airspeed is bad if your opponent has it.

Being very fast at max continuous power means very little if that makes the Bf 109 going faster than 320 mph because the ailerons were like being set in stone and the pitch was very difficult at higher speeds. If a Bf 109 was going fast, he was getting to a fight (positioning) or running from one, but he wasn't attacking anything much other than a bomber because almost everything else in the air could do it better than he could going fast. The much-vaunted Bf 109K-4 that could hit 450 mph was a straight-line aircraft at that speed, but still had good fighting capability at 180 - 300 mph, like all Bf 109s did.

None of the above is a knock on the Bf 109. It was and has been a great fighter aircraft of the time, and has a very strong case for being near the top of the heap. But let's not credit it with attributes it didn't have. To make it clearer, there were NO piston fighters that were maneuverable at 450 mph relative to their abilities at lower speeds. The Me 262 and Meteor might have been pretty good at 450 mph, but the rest were dealing with slow roll, slow pitch, and complaining engines when going that fast, so the Bf 109 wasn't alone in that weakness. But most of the others were better at it going 450 mph than the Bf 109 was ever going to be without major redesign.

No it can't unless it deploys the slats. Why not actually READ the reply before inserting foot?

Shooter8 said:

I would dispute the idea that the 190 was preferred over the 109. Most of Germany's top aces flew the 109 and had a very marked preference for the type.

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If you're only looking at the top 3 it's because they were all JG52 members, and the sole reason was because JG52 was equipped with exclusively BF109s simply for the fact that there weren't enough 190s on the eastern front, even the premier 190 fighter group on the eastern front , JG54 was forced to convert back to the 109 for sometimes.

If you look at the Western front, the vast majority of the top German aces flew the 190.

Shooter8 said:

Try to keep it all together?
1. Yak and Migs used lower aspect ratio wings and that made them somewhat easier to see than the 109, but much harder to see than the P-51 which was better than the Spit, which beat the -47 which was vastly better than the -38?

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The frontal profile of most of those aircraft were the same from another pilot's perspective.

Case in point, Royal Bulgarian pilots over Sofia thought that inbound P-51Bs were additional Bulgarian Bf109s coming to their aid during a bomber intercept, Stoyan Stoyanov survived that mistake, but it shows that even veteran pilots were hard-pressed to distinguish who was who during battle.

Shooter8 said:

2. Ruski planes were equipped with really bad 20s, but great .50s. The 109 had probably the best all around 20 on the planet at the time. No matter how weak you think the 109's firepower was, it shot down more planes than the next three allied types combined.

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The "Rusky" planes and their poor armament did a fairly decent job on the Luftwaffe, didn't it?

Shooter8 said:

3. Turning circle has many connotations and definitions depending on what you are talking about. In this case it refers to the ability of a slatted plane to either pull more G at any given speed, or it's ability to shoot farther across the circle than any other plane in the war?

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Slats don't have any bearing on "shooting farther across a circle". The muzzle's direction dictates where the bullet travels.
If you can get into a tight turn and guess where your opponent might be (because they are blocked by your engine cowling) and get hits by extreme deflection shooting, then you're doing something right.

Shooter8 said:

4. Wing mounts did not work fine, or it would have been more effective! The 109 only had one 20 mm gun, but it was vastly more effective than the tempest's four. As an example; Head on pass, open fire at 700 meters. The Tempi starts taking hits at once, if the aim is true. The Tempi can not get hits if the pilot aimed true until the wing guns range is about 300-350 Meters at best, or 50-100 meters after the Messer has broken off the attack to avoid a head on collision! get the idea?

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The Bf109 had a wide array of armament. Some models had a 20mm "motorkanone", some had the 20mm gunpods in a rustsatzs...some didn't have any 20mm at all.
As far as your head-on pass combat sim anaolgy goes, try reading some of the Allied or Luftwaffe pilot's comments regarding that.

So, in a nutshell, do you know what STFU means? If not, google it and get the hint.

You are not only sadly misinformed and way off base, but you have proven me wrong in that my former mother-in-law was the most annoying creature on the planet.

I was wrong...you are.

Heh, if he's an actual competent sim flyer he'd know that in aerial combat, using proper tactics, high speed fighters with good high speed maneuverability like the 190, Mustang kick the crap out of the 109.

GrapeJam said:

Heh, if he's an actual competent sim flyer he'd know that in aerial combat, using proper tactics, high speed fighters with good high speed maneuverability like the 190, Mustang kick the crap out of the 109.

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Not if he has Full Switch realism turned off...along with stalls, blackout/redout, realistic landings and such.

And he's probably selected unlimited ammo

Tomo pauk wrote:
We can also note that Re.2005 and G.55 were not as fast as MC.205, on same engine power, the MC.205 sporting far smaller wing.

And for this very reason MC 205, that was a better armed, more powerful and heavier MC 202, was outclassed by both G55 and Re 2005 above 6.000 m and his handling was by far more delicate at all heights. Regia Aeronautica refused at first MC 205 but was compelled to admit the plane for industrial ( the production lines were those of the MC 202, practically, and it was the only modern fighter of the Serie 5 that was possible to produce in any numbers, here and now ) and political reasons (Macchi firm was very influential).
The design of not only a fighter, but of every aeroplane is always the result of a compromise.
Or, better, of many compromises, I dare to say.