improving the 109??

With a combination of living with fighter pilot, hanging out with fighter pilots, diving deeply into historical research, having an MS in Aero, design experience, having ability to parse and understance the tech documents and assumptions regarding performance, etc

I can, and will say that by and large 'vet's recollections' - particularly after age of 40- are over rated.

Understandably some will embellish events, altering time lines etc to suit the story. Clostermann certainly does this. Other may have an axe to grind, 'Dizzy' Allen certainly did, even in his 'Battle for Britain'. Many are propaganda, certainly something like David Crook's 'Spitfire Pilot' and most others published during the war. Some might have their own reasons for recounting a sanitised version of history, think of Galland and several other Luftwaffe personnel.
I have read these and many more, they are not bad books, only some are dishonest, but they must be taken in context and understood for what they are. They are rarely reliable tellers of history.
Cheers
Steve

Pilots recollections were not even accurate, at the time frequently aircraft were mis identified, some like the hapless Fw190 pilot did not even know the country they were landing in.

pbehn said:

Pilots recollections were not even accurate, at the time frequently aircraft were mis identified, some like the hapless Fw190 pilot did not even know the country they were landing in.

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Look at all the He113s that were encountered!

Check the claims for He 113s during the BoB! The British pilots buying into German propaganda.

Mis-identification was common and sometimes surprising. I was recently reading reports in which bombing aircraft were identified as Ju 87s. They were in fact either Bf 110s, twins and an unlikely mistake, or the Jabo Bf 109s of Erprobungsgruppe 210.
Most likely the 'Ju 87s' were in fact Bf 109s.

Bf 110s and Do 17s were often confused in British combat reports too.

Cheers

Steve

Look at Bob Johnson's scoreboard and some of the aircraft claimed. I see a few ME 209s there!

The Typhoon was so frequently confused with the Fw109 that stripes were painted on them.

stona said:

The Kiwis (485) disposed of their Tempests in March 1945 in favour of Typhoons which they kept for barely a month before disposing of them and reverting to Spitfires.

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That being said, the Typhoons were with 485 for famil training only before the unit was to convert to Tempests as James stated earlier. This from Thomas and Shores The Typhoon and Tempest Story;

P.137: "It may be recalled that when 33 and 222 Squadrons returned to 135 Wing in Holland with their new aircraft, 349 and 485 Squadrons had been sent to Predannack, in February 1945, similarly to convert. Owing to intense activity taking place in north west Europe, few Tempests could be spared for these new units and these were so slow in arriving that a handful of redundant Typhoon FR.Ibs were borrowed from the GSUs to give the Spitfire pilots an introduction to the Hawker 'stable'.

P.179: "485 Sqn (wrongly identified as RNZAF - this was an RAF unit) began conversion from Spitfire IXs to Tempest Vs at Predannack Feb 1945. First tempest flown 28 Feb, but this type was withdrawn early in March and replaced by Typhoons, as a temporary measure. However, conversion was abandoned April 1945, the last Typhoon flying having taken place on the 10th."

In a recent 485 Sqn book published in NZ, I don't have further details as I snaffled this info from an NZ aviation forum, includes the following serial numbers for those interested, of Typhoons and Tempests operated by 485:

Typhoons; EJ900, '904, '975, EK252, '347, '492, '512. Tempests: EJ882, NV682, '701, '756, '762, '922, '939.

James W. said:

Thanks Nuuumannn, & I would add the point that certain documents, such as pilot log books which
give details as to aircraft serials & flight purposes/times, written at the time - are fairly reliable.

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Again, caution. Log books were not, and are not, always written up at the time. I know this for a fact, even in peacetime, because I have all three of my own father's log books and you don't need to be a forensic hand writing expert to see that at many times, usually when very busy on exercises like 'Polar Mist', 'attacking' the Royal Navy or having converted to helicopters flying commandos to Port Said "for assault", several days were filled in after the events

Some Luftwaffe log books are very unreliable and there is good evidence that some at least (one I know for certain) may have been altered post war, this is not a discussion I will enter into here! Like arguments about claims it will just generate more heat than light

Cheers

Steve

From the Trades Union Congress (TUC)

"1944 marked the peak of wartime strike action with over two thousand stoppages involving the loss of 3,714,000 days' production. This led to the imposition of Defence Regulation 1AA, supported by the TUC, which now made incitement to strike unlawful."

It should know as it was its own members striking!

I don't know specifically about strikes at the Hawker factory, but it would not be extraordinary. Sometimes aircraft production was lost due to other industrial action. I know one of the Avro plants was temporarily shut down because the gas supply was cut off due to a strike by workers in that industry.

Cheers

Steve

James W. said:

No documents of the kind can really be '100% kosher' though - can they Steve, not even ORBs...

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Of course, there are certainly some parts of some squadron ORBs which were not written up as promptly as they should have been.

Cheers

Steve

A good friend who sadly passed away a few years ago used to collect union badges and was something of a historian of the trades union movement in Britain. He himself had been involved in ship building on the Clyde as a young man and could tell some stories!
What amazed me was just how many trade unions there were. The process of amalgamation into the big composite unions (like the T&GWU) was underway by the 1930s, but in an aircraft plant the workforce could still be represented by literally dozens of different unions. Labour problems were compounded by many factors. Foremost was the so called dilution of the skilled workforce by unskilled or semi-skilled labour, which started in the late 1930s and continued throughout the war. Second was that old faithful, demarcation. Particularly in an industry that was rapidly developing, with new techniques and technologies this was at the heart of much unrest.
In 1935 the Engineering Employer's Federation (EEF) was sufficiently worried that the Chairman of its Aircraft Manufacturers' Aircraft Committee wrote.

"The variation in practice...in regard to the classes of work people employed in the different operations ...rendered the firms open to attack by the Trades Unions along the lines of comparison of practice between one firm and another."

He was referring to practices like those at Vickers where wood workers, no longer needed in such numbers, were being converted to sem-skilled metal workers, whilst at other firms all metalwork was done by members of metal working Unions. There is a big difference to a Trade Unionist between a skilled man who has served a full apprenticeship and another man simply being payed as skilled, even if he is skilled in another trade. In February 1940 Dobson (of A V Roe) wrote that the payment of skilled rates to unskilled labour was "the agreed bargaining position" but to imagine that this did not rankle with the Unions would be naive.

Here's a couple of examples of the sort of problems, to us petty, that could arise.

As Handley Page sought to increase production machining work, normally undertaken by skilled men, was allocated to lower rated men.
The Union maintained that this work had always been undertaken by skilled men. Handley Page argued that although skilled labour had been used for small batches of parts where 'setting and operating' were done by the same man, the work for larger batches had to be divided between skilled 'setters' and semi-skilled 'operators'. Handley Page also argued that this was standard practice throughout the industry, which it was not. Cue industrial action!

Modern aircraft had metal skinned wings. At Dobson and Barlow (Bolton) the Amalgamated Engineering Union attempted to establish Blenheim wing assembly as skilled work on the grounds that the first set of wings had been skinned by fully rated men.
Sheet metal workers at Fairey's Hamble factory claimed that their Union had the right to undertake all metal skinning work.
Industry took a hard line. Roy Dobson again.

"The point is that metal skinning of aircraft would be an impossible job if we had to rely solely on tinsmiths to do it, and it is our intention to avoid the use of this class of labour entirely on such work. In some cases we are using fitters and in other cases entirely unskilled people."

The EEF went further, the Chairman of its National Technical Committee wrote

"we have to eliminate not only the sheet metal workers, but shipwrights and people of that nature, as this work is essentially semi-skilled."

One EEF Director wrote of a dispute over wing production at one of his factories.

"the job was not a fitters job, or a patternmakers job, or a woodworkers job, but one which had developed in the evolution of the industry, metal wing assembly, and the employer had the right to select the men most suitable for the job, irrespective of the Union to which they may belong."

Faced with such an assault on their most cherished principles it is hardly surprising that the Trades Unions resisted this sort of measure, and industrial action was always one of the weapons they could use to fight the changes. In 1944, with the war clearly being won, it is no surprise to me that many issues, previously tolerated in the interests of war production, started bubbling to the surface, the plethora of strikes and other industrial actions simply reflecting the frustrations of the work force, sometimes built up over several years.

Cheers

Steve

Shooter8 said:

Part two; Because British testers were not familiar and experienced with LE Slats they did not duplicate the true performance of the plane and because of the sudden lurch as the slats deployed, they were afraid, or reluctant to enter that part of the envelope. (Remember that stalling was often fatal and should be avoided at all costs!) Were those trials more free form and combat oriented, the above differences would have been very easy to see.

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This is (part) of what the RAE had to say about the Bf 109E they had received from the French:

Royal Aircraft Establishment Report No B.A.1460 said:

5. Fighting Qualities of the Me.109
5.1 Dog Fights with Spitfire and Hurricane
Mock fights were staged between the Me.109 and a Spitfire, both flown by pilots of the R.A.E. In addition a number of fighter pilots, all of whom had recent experience of operational flying, visited the R.A.E. with their SPitfires and Hurricanes in order to practice combat with the Me.109; during these fights the Me.109 was flown by an R.A.E. pilot who had completed the handling testes described earlier in this report, and thus was thoroughly familiar with the aeroplane and could be expected to get the best out of it. A brief account of teh information provided by these fights has already been published. The following notes summarise the results obtained.

The arrangements made were for the aeroplanes to take of singly and meet at about 6000ft. The Me.109 then went ahead and commenced to turn as tightly as possible to see if it would out turn our own aircraft. After doing three or four tight turns in both directions, the Me.109 was put into a dive, followed b a steep climb. The aeroplanes then changed position and repeated the above programme, after which the pilots engaged in a short general fight.

When doing tight turns with the Me.109 loading at speeds between 90mph and 220mph [IAS] the Spitfires and Hurricanes had little difficulty in keeping on the tail of the Me.109. During these turns the amount of normal "g" recorded on the Me.109 was between 2½ and 4g. The aeroplane stalled if the turn was tightened to give more than 4g at speeds below about 200mph. The slots opened about ½g before the stall, and whilst opening caused the ailerons to snatch; this upset the pilot's sighting immediately and caused him to lose ground. When the slots were fully open the aeroplane could be turned quite steadily until very near the stall. If the stick was then pulled back a little more the aeroplane suddenly shuddered, and either tended to come out of the turn or dropped its wing further, oscillating meanwhile in pitch and roll and rapidly losing height; the aeroplane immediately unstalled if the stick was eased forward. Even in a very tight turn the stall was quite gentle, with no tendency for teh aeroplane to suddenly flick over on to its back and spin. The Spitfires and Hurricanes could follow the Me.109 round during the stalled turns without themselves showing any signs of stalling.

The good control near the stall during these turns at full throttle contrasts with the results obtained from the ADM. 293 tests, for when gliding the aeroplane becomes unsteady about 10mph above teh stall. Slipstream thus appears to have a steadying influence on the behaviour of the Me.109 near the stall.

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Royal Aircraft Establishment Report No B.A.1460 said:

When the Me.109 was following the Hurricane or Spitfire, it was found that our aircraft turned inside the Me.109 without difficulty when flown by determined pilots who were not afraid to pull their aeroplanes round hard in a tight turn. In a surprisingly large number of cases, however, the Me.109 succeeded in keeping on the tail of the Spitfire or Hurricane during these turning tests, merely because our pilots would not tighten up their turn sufficiently from fear of stalling and spinning.

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Doesn't sound like the RAE testers had any issues flying the Bf/Me 109 at or near the stall in a turn.

Shooter8 said:

But they certainly do have almost everything to do with "maneuverability"!
Slats allow more AoA before the plane stalls and increase the CoL dramatically! These traits do wonders for "Maneuverability" in more ways than just allowing the plane to turn tighter at any given speed, they also reduce the need to chase the target around the circle so far before you shoot him! That is because the dramatically increased AoA gives you as much as 10-12 degrees more "Chord Angle" to shoot across the circle!
Example; Draw a large circle on any piece of paper, then Bi-sect it. At the intercept of the diameter and circle, draw a line tangent to the circle. Then at that triple point use a protractor to construct a line as a "Chord" angle of 13 degrees to the tangent line. This line represents the MAXIMUM possible range from the attacking plane to the target. ( I use 13 degrees as it is closer to the stall angle than 95% of all fighter pilots in WW-II could SAFELY fly! Stalling at anything less than 2-4000' AGL is always fatal!)
Then draw a second cord line, but this time use a 25 degree angle to the tangent. See how much farther the target is from the shooter.
You have just extended the "Effective" Range of your weapons, provided that they are not "geometrically limited"! ( Read ALL planes with wing mounted guns!)

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This "shooting across the chord" has been bugging me for a while.

Firstly, I assume it is the chord of the radius on which the attacking aircraft is turning.

But isn't that physically impossible in WW2 aircraft? That if the AoA is increased the turn is tightened, and that at the stall the turn cannot be tightened further.

To "shoot across the chord" would require the aircraft to be at an angle to the tangent of its turn radius. But if the turn is already so tight that you are at the stall, how can you do that? Can it be done in WW2 aircraft at all? Is that sort of like the start of a Cobra manoeuvre? And wouldn't your Bf 109 be falling out of the sky if you tried it?

Shooting across the chord of the target's turn radius is much more understandable. This can even be done with the attacking aircraft flying in a straight line.

If both aircraft are in a turn, then the attacker needs to be turning more tightly than the target. Physics tells me that the bullets fired from fixed guns on a fighter will always go outside the radius of its turn. In other words, below the aircraft and out of sight of the pilot, unless the turns re quite wide.

wuzak said:

To "shoot across the chord" would require the aircraft to be at an angle to the tangent of its turn radius. But if the turn is already so tight that you are at the stall, how can you do that? Can it be done in WW2 aircraft at all? Is that sort of like the start of a Cobra manoeuvre? And wouldn't your Bf 109 be falling out of the sky if you tried it?

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Exactly.

Every wing, whether slatted or not, has an angle of attack at which it stalls. Basic aerodynamics.

It is easy to compute the radius of turn at any given airspeed and g-load. If any 2 planes are both pulling 4-g at 180 knots, they both have exactly the same radius of turn in a level turn. In WWII, very few fighters had enough excess power to sustain high g-loads in a level turn for long, and none had the extra power to sustain high g-loads in a level turn at 25,000 feet. If they wanted to "reef it around" up there, it was in a descending turn, not a level turn.

I'd venture to say that no Bf 109 could turn with a well-flown Spitfire of any mark and any Bf 109 variant. But the number of pilots who could reef a Spitifre around near stall safely at low altitudes was probably about the same percentage as the number of Luftwaffe pilots who could do it equally well in their Bf 109s.

The Bf 109 also had a good indicator of impending stall when the slats went out, so they probably knew they could pull at LEAST until the slats nibbled out. Spitfires only gave a slight airframe shudder before departing. A good pilot in combat will know his mount well, and the ones who did had an enormous advantage over the less-seasoned pilots of the opposition, regardless of which side they were on.

Certainly Bf 109s turned with and shot down Spitfires. The reverse is also true, even when good pilots were in the Bf 109s.

No surprises there. The good pilots were good for a reason and had a better chance of survival than the less-skilled pilots when dogfighting. Neither one had a good chance of survival if he was caught napping straight and level by an ambushing enemy, even if the enemy was average in skill.

wuzak said:

This is (part) of what the RAE had to say about the Bf 109E they had received from the French:





Doesn't sound like the RAE testers had any issues flying the Bf/Me 109 at or near the stall in a turn.




This "shooting across the chord" has been bugging me for a while.

Firstly, I assume it is the chord of the radius on which the attacking aircraft is turning.

But isn't that physically impossible in WW2 aircraft? That if the AoA is increased the turn is tightened, and that at the stall the turn cannot be tightened further.

To "shoot across the chord" would require the aircraft to be at an angle to the tangent of its turn radius. But if the turn is already so tight that you are at the stall, how can you do that? Can it be done in WW2 aircraft at all? Is that sort of like the start of a Cobra manoeuvre? And wouldn't your Bf 109 be falling out of the sky if you tried it?

Shooting across the chord of the target's turn radius is much more understandable. This can even be done with the attacking aircraft flying in a straight line.

If both aircraft are in a turn, then the attacker needs to be turning more tightly than the target. Physics tells me that the bullets fired from fixed guns on a fighter will always go outside the radius of its turn. In other words, below the aircraft and out of sight of the pilot, unless the turns re quite wide.

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Wuzak,

I think what he is saying in current fighter speak is called shooting across the circle. The circle term comes from what a plane appears to be doing from a Gods eye view. Imagine if you will a plane is in an established turn and its leaving bread crumbs as it flies. Eventually it would arrive back roughly where it began and that appears to be a circle. Now imagine there are two planes, one chasing the other, and for the offender to be able to shoot at the defender, he needs to be in gun range, nose in lead, and in plane (we will skip the latter for now). The offender can not be in lead &a range unless his turn circle is not aligned (called misaligned). That is called shooting across the circle (usually referred to in missile shots today) and is what I believe he is speaking to.

Circle sizes vary greatly due to speed, altitude, and how hard a guy is pulling, as well as whether or not it's a level turn or descending. They "breathe" in size with the above variables in mind.

If a bandit is on your turn circle, and you are max performing your plane, and the bandit is of close performance and maxing out his plane, he can't shoot you with the gun unless it's canted up (like the Eagle). However if he misaligned circles he can.

Cheers,
Biff

BiffF15 said:

Wuzak,

I think what he is saying in current fighter speak is called shooting across the circle. The circle term comes from what a plane appears to be doing from a Gods eye view. Imagine if you will a plane is in an established turn and its leaving bread crumbs as it flies. Eventually it would arrive back roughly where it began and that appears to be a circle. Now imagine there are two planes, one chasing the other, and for the offender to be able to shoot at the defender, he needs to be in gun range, nose in lead, and in plane (we will skip the latter for now). The offender can not be in lead &a range unless his turn circle is not aligned (called misaligned). That is called shooting across the circle (usually referred to in missile shots today) and is what I believe he is speaking to.

Circle sizes vary greatly due to speed, altitude, and how hard a guy is pulling, as well as whether or not it's a level turn or descending. They "breathe" in size with the above variables in mind.

If a bandit is on your turn circle, and you are max performing your plane, and the bandit is of close performance and maxing out his plane, he can't shoot you with the gun unless it's canted up (like the Eagle). However if he misaligned circles he can.

Cheers,
Biff

Click to expand...

If I understand correctly, if the circles on which the two aircraft are turning are concentric then neither will be able to get a shot off with fixed forward firing guns.

But if the circles are not concentric there will be points at which one or both of the aircraft will be able to get off a shot.

In which case, it seems to me, that the radii of the circles doesn't really matter. The only thing that matters is the relative position of those circles and that the tangent intersects at some point.

BiffF15 said:

However if he misaligned circles he can.

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Not precisely what you are referring to, but an anecdote comes to mind;

Two days later on a similar type of sortie, after encountering no opposition, I dived the Wing to eight thousand feet and did a circuit or two over a fighter base near St. Omer. As I circled the field, I saw a lone Junkers 87 taxiing out on the main runway. To my amazement, he turned into the wind and took off. Initially, the pilot must not have known that we were above him. As soon as he was airborne, he must have switched on his radio and been warned of our presence by the Ground Station. He did a very sharp turn and attempted to come in to land again. Claude Weaver was leading Yellow Section of 421 Squadron and at that moment was inside me and below as I circled the field. His request to attack the Stuka was granted. As the Stuka leveled off to touch down, Claude's cannon shells were exploding all around him on the runway. Understandably, he went around again. Twisting and turning, the 87 was chased by his pursuers away from the airdrome while I circled above him at three thousand feet. The Stuka pilot gave an admirable performance of defensive flying against overwhelming odds and just over the top of the ground turned inside his pursuers repeatedly as they attacked. Ignoring my feeling that his performance had earned him a chance to live, I called Claude Weaver and said:

'Yellow One, if you guys don't put that fellow out of his misery in another minute, I'll go down and do it for you.'

My message had been like waving a red flag to Weaver. Leaving the rest of his Section to keep the Stuka busy, he dived away from him on the treetops and came back at him from below. Attacking on a tangent to the Stuka's orbit for the first time I saw cannon shells exploding all over the aircraft. As though in slow motion the Stuka, pouring smoke, sliced into the ground with his port wing and, with his engine on fire, ground along in a cloud of dust. Claude Weaver reported that at the very last, the pilot stood up, the cockpit a cauldron of fire. He put him away with a merciful burst of machine gun. The Stuka pilot had gained the respect of everyone, but the time in the War had passed for chivalry - Hitler had one less pilot for the final battle.

- Wing Commander Hugh Godefroy DSO, DFC and Bar, Croix de Guerre with Gold Star (Fr)

wuzak said:

If I understand correctly, if the circles on which the two aircraft are turning are concentric then neither will be able to get a shot off with fixed forward firing guns.

But if the circles are not concentric there will be points at which one or both of the aircraft will be able to get off a shot.

In which case, it seems to me, that the radii of the circles doesn't really matter. The only thing that matters is the relative position of those circles and that the tangent intersects at some point.

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The inner circle will get a shot at the aircraft on the outer circle, but not the other way around...

wuzak said:

If I understand correctly, if the circles on which the two aircraft are turning are concentric then neither will be able to get a shot off with fixed forward firing guns.

But if the circles are not concentric there will be points at which one or both of the aircraft will be able to get off a shot.

In which case, it seems to me, that the radii of the circles doesn't really matter. The only thing that matters is the relative position of those circles and that the tangent intersects at some point.

Click to expand...

Wuzak,

Your assumptions are mostly correct for two fairly equal planes / pilots. If one plane turns better, over time with no change to the fighting techniques, the better turning plane will have the advantage. Hence the reports that read something along the lines of how many turns (circles) it took for one to get on the tail of the other.

However, if the poorer turning plane can get into what is called the riding position he can still maintain the offensive if he makes the proper adjustments. I will not go into more detail than that for fear of publishing techniques an adversary could use.

Cheers,
Biff