Long range, high speed Spitfire fighter: the best approach?

Maybe just a bad memory. Note two examples

1 Some German aces such as Hans Joachim Marseille shot down 17 English Spitfires in one day (8 were in 10 minutes) in his Bf109
2 The max speed of a SPit V 400mph and the P51D 395 mph

LOL - Tomo, I was only dealing with the small part that was fact. The pilot in the youtube video owns a 109 and certainly entitled to his opinion.. wish he could have demonstrated his skill against my father or Henry brown or Preddy or name 500 others flying a P-51D or B or Spit IX..

My numbers after looking at 6000+ 8th AF encounter reports suggest the number of credited 109s shot down by 8th AF was ~ 2519 Bf 109s, then 1964 Fw 190s (out of total 5169 all types) for loss in the air of ~ 640 P-47/P-38/P51/Spits.

Of course I can't get a handle on losses due only to 109s but if 100% that would be 2519/640 =3.9:1.........

zjtins said:

So much for a near current pilot flying both planes... he must be a liar.

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Nah - merely a.) factually correct on CLmax, a.) misinformed about both stick forces at high speed for roll and turn for the P-51 and Spit , b.) incorrect about performance statistics for the models he cited and c.) entitled to his opinion.

He would have to cite his direct experience in air combat maneuvers versus a similar minded equal skill pilot in a well restored P-51D and Spit IX against his 109, and both the other pilots willing to push their Merlins to limits often used in WWII air combat (~67" or greater depending on fuel) - for his Personal experience to be relevant. Offhand I don't know any warbird pilots willing to risk their $3M+ birds to do this... but I'm willing to bet Yeager at his advanced age could whip his ass.

Forget about him being a liar.. consider the possibility that the person that keeps blowing chaff in this thread with zero to minimal facts to base his Tourette's syndrome blurts is a moron.

PS - I may be a moron also.. so don't take the comment to heart.

zjtins said:

So much for a near current pilot flying both planes... he must be a liar.

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Didn't say a word about the pilot.
The data, or 'data', listed in the table named chart 2 is flat wrong, and whole article is trumpeting about just how ideal the 109 was.

Glider said:

Maybe just a bad memory. Note two examples

1 Some German aces such as Hans Joachim Marseille shot down 17 English Spitfires in one day (8 were in 10 minutes) in his Bf109
2 The max speed of a SPit V 400mph and the P51D 395 mph

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I don't believe it's a case of bad memory. Complete data in the table is wrong, speed, RoC, range, year of introduction. The Bf-109 ends up as a champion.

Hi, Bill,

I suppose zjtins has a reason to post the opinion..but that is not particularly evident from prior track record of his posts so far..Do ya suppose Gaston has returned?

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I can understand zjtins - he was looking at sources to back up his claim, and posted a link to the one he found fit; doing that, I believe, in good faith. Gaston's posts are way more voluminous, though.

So no-one watched the video??? He has both planes (ME109 and P52D) and flies them.
So the author of the page misquoted of typo' what about the pilot of the two aircraft?

drgondog said:

I suppose zjtins has a reason to post the opinion..but that is not particularly evident from prior track record of his posts so far..Do ya suppose Gaston has returned?

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I assumed from the bad grammar, worse spelling and inability to face facts zjitins was the lastest sockpuppet of Shooter. Also known as Stewart Davies who was a Porsche works driver, a Vietnam special forces veteran, black ops deep cover agent, a tank warfare instructor in the German Army, a medal winning shooter and a Star Wars X Wing fighter pilot. Oh and Shooter is also principal of a college in Illinois busy chap aint he.

zjtins said:

So no-one watched the video??? He has both planes (ME109 and P52D) and flies them.
So the author of the page misquoted of typo' what about the pilot of the two aircraft?

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The gent would have to fly both - at the same time - or fly his 109 against another pilot in a Spit and/or P-51D..

Here is what YOU don't know. In What condition (airframe and engine and control harmony) are the aircraft that he flies. What are the respective GW of the aircraft when he compares performance, what boost is he using in the comparison... how is the engagement 'tested' relative to turn G's, etc.

I henceforth dub you sockpuppet moronis and banish you to using words of one syllable or less.

Huh?

One of the secrets of the Me109 is its wing. A unique design like no other.

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"I was particularly interested in the operation of the slats. the action of which gave rise to aileron snatching in any high-g manoeuvres, such as loops or tight turns."

"A number of dummy attacks on a co-operative Lancaster and a friendly skirmish with a Mustang flown by one of the RAE pilots revealed the fact that the slipstream of these aircraft caused the intermittent operation of the Bf 109G's slats so that accurate sighting became an impossibility."

"At its rather disappointing low level cruise speed of 240 mph (386 km/h) the Gustav was certainly delightful to fly, but this situation changed as speed increased; in a dive at 400 mph (644 km/h) the controls felt as though they had seized!"

With the same power in the Me109 and an empty weight of 1,700 lbs. less, the climb rate of the Me109 was substantially higher than that of the P-51. Because of the fantastic handling characteristics of the Me109, the P-51 was not match for the Me109.

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"The Mustang III possessed a clear speed advantage at all altitudes, this ranging from around 30 mph (48 km/h) at the Bf 109G-6's rated altitude to some 50 mph (80 km/h) at 30,000 ft (9 144 m). The Gustav offered marginally better climb rate up to 20,000 ft (6 096 m) but between this altitude and 25,000 ft (7 620 m) the Mustang had a very slight advantage. When dived and then pulled up into a climb there was little to choose between the US and the German fighter, but the Mustang could steadily out dive the Bf 109G-6 and had no difficulty in out turning the Messerschmitt."

The performance of the Me109 and the Spitfire is almost the same. However, the Spitfire had an average 25%C plain aileron which, despite differential control, gave it a very heavy stick force in roll compared to the light stick force of the Me109.

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"The Air Fighter Development Squadron flew the Bf 109G-6 for tactical trials with a Spitfire LF IX, a Spitfire XIV and a Mustang III (P-51C) and found thast the first mentioned type had a slight speed advantage up to 16,000 ft (4 877 m) when using 18 lb (8.16 kg) boost, but the situation being reversed between this altitude and 20,000 ft (6 096 m) at which the Spitfre LF IX regained the speed advantage to the extent of some 7 mph (11 km/h). Using 25 lb (11.3 kg) of boost the Spitfire proved to be about 25 mph (40 km/h) faster below 15,000 ft (4,570 m) and around 7 mph (11 km/h) faster above this altitude, which climb was superior to that of the Gustav at all altitudes and particularly below 13,000 ft (3 960 m). The Bf 109G could leave the Spitfire LF IX behind in a dive without any difficulty, but when both aircraft were pulled up into a climb from a dive their performance was almost identical, the Spitfire slowly pulling away as soon as climbing speed was attained."

With a 50% span and narrow chord, Frise, aileron, the Me109 stick forces were very low in roll and it could roll quicker and was more evasive than the Spitfire which was slow in roll.

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"The rolll rate and turning circle of the British fighter was very much superior at all speeds."

The control harmony of the Me109 could not be matched by any Allied aircraft in WWII.

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"Control harmony was poor for a fighter, the rudder being light, the ailerons moderately light and the elevators extremely heavy."

Information courtesy of Eric Brown from Wings of the Luftwaffe.

Lets stop with the personal insults and attacks.

Only warning given...

Aircraft
Gotta love this quote:

The Me109 had a long tail moment arm and the rudder was 50%C. As such it could be yawed from right to left by 45 degrees to spray bullets. The P-51 could not be yawed and had to be flown at the target for its bullets to hit the target.

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I can just see fighter pilots being trained to spray their bullets at 45° either side of the flight line. Would love to see this guy in combat...

Some German aces such as Hans Joachim Marseille shot down 17 English Spitfires in one day (8 were in 10 minutes) in his Bf109.

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Yet, a glance at Hans-Joachim Marseille - Wikipedia1 September 1942 shows Marseille claimed mostly Hurricanes and Tomahawks and Kittyhawks with just one Spitfire.

Oh yes, this website should be a standard reference for all 109 enthusiasts.

I kind of liked this sentence;

"One of the secrets of the Me109 is its wing. A unique design like no other."

Since Me was licencing the slats from Handley Page and quite a number of British Planes ( and few other countries) used leading edge slats this statement needs a bit of backing up.

Or more than a bit.

The elderly 'interviewer' in the 109 YouTube clip was pretty clueless across the board.. there isn't enough space to detail what he didn't know or have facts to support.

As to the wing - it was a nice design, strong, detachable easily for transport, light and the LE slats offered low speed increase to CL without sacrifice of higher induced drag with 'normal' washout/wing twist. Can't think of one single uniqueness or patentable idea.

In addition, the CD of the Bf 109 was about 50-60% higher than the P-51 which contributed to the necessity of requiring a major and continuous upgrade of Hp to keep the 109 reasonably current with respect to airspeed but as a result suffered increasing handling quality degradation due to the torque combined with no major tail increase authority until the K.

The knucklehead completely dismissed the huge advantage in speed and roll at medium and high speeds the P-51 had when the P-51B entered combat against the Bf 109G-5 and G-6.. and somehow even a couple of hundred feet per minute better climb rate doesn't seem as important when your adversary is on your tail...

forgive a dufus for dragging the topic into the conversation, but aren't we overlooking something? or at least not weighing it much - extending range was tried by Supermarine all the way from Dunkirk until at least the Mk V?

Mk IIa got a 40 imp gallon external tank introduced about the beginning of 1941 (penalty 26 mph in top speed (I have one poor secondary reference)
Mk III got 2 x 30 imp gallon wing tank option from the get go IIRC
Mk V had a range of external tankage options up to 170 imp gallon blister (drag penalty 35 lb at 100ft/sec
From Morgan and Shacklady) the latter tankage option could get you to Berlin on a 'reinforcement' escort sortie with minimal time over target for actual fighting (and probably worse performance in every other way. And the V was a stop gap... )
Mk IX was a higher power and I'm not sure ...


so if that's logical or agreed or even roughly right then...
maybe this thread would need not one solution, for the best last griffon powered Spitty for example, but as many as 4, 5, or 6 different solutions from October 1940 until April/May 1944 - one for each mark and another for each major variant if necessary.

I am impressed by the huge knowledge on display. But isn't analysis of the original solution necessary before jumping into a design war? Might attention to the original effort even limit the time taken to get something agreed? Personally I'd like to hear reasons with each proposal why it is better than the original modification in service, not better than the base spec. That or reasons why 20-20 hindsight shows that 'one size fits all'

(Did I say 'agreed'? I, of course, meant not disputed with the last fibre of the being. Ready to run for cover again... apologies if it's nonsense)

(I say October 1940 to April/May 1944 as I believe that's roughly when the RAF went on first significant post BoB fighter offensive operations to the time when the bulk of escort P51 equipped squadrons had actually entered regular escort ops with their new equipment as far as I can tell, ie i'm quickly guessing the earliest and latest relevant reasonable date, assuming the need for range was identified in May 1940 directly after Dunkirk - but it is a rough guess aimed to limit the area for disagreement)

Part of the Spitfire's legend and also part of it's curse was that Smith Company could usually bodge together some sort of short term solution to a new problem that did not require screwing up the production lines too much and causing too great delay in deliveries. Unfortunately this demand for few and/or short delays meant that more extensive revisions were often sidelined.

For instance the MK VIII had the leading edge tanks. But I believe (and could very well be wrong) that the MK VIIIs came from one factory and the other producers stayed with the wing without leading edge tanks (the MK IX) rather than convert so as to avoid a disruption in production ( and everybody knew that you couldn't make a long range single engine fighter ). Perhaps more could have been done with rear fuselage tanks by moving some equipment about, strengthening a few parts, moving the engine forward just a bit ( for CG reasons) but all would require both engineering time and some retooling (lost production).

The Spitfire got very few well thought out, total make overs considering it's long history. The Mustang got 2, Allison to Merlin and the D to H. the 109 got 2 or 3( jumo 210 to DB 601, E to F, and G to K ?) The Spitfire is 4 years older than the P-51 and had to wait to the MK 21 for a really extensive make over. Granted it was pretty well stretched by that time

Shortround6 said:

The Spitfire got very few well thought out, total make overs considering it's long history. The Mustang got 2, Allison to Merlin and the D to H. the 109 got 2 or 3( jumo 210 to DB 601, E to F, and G to K ?) The Spitfire is 4 years older than the P-51 and had to wait to the MK 21 for a really extensive make over. Granted it was pretty well stretched by that time

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Shows the benefit of getting it right from the start

Gently does it.

by getting it right from the start you mean either
a) the right approach is to give the original designers a spec including every possible use of a/c- use of crystal ball comes extra
- or
b) don't build a spitfire because elliptical wings are wrong - gently does it.
or
c) an implied nod to the circumstantial limitations of the design problem that won't start another riot
or
d) be lucky, start late and design a P51

I think it's c) - just a guess

I think it's c) - just a guess

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I agree with Glider; the Spitty's designers did get it right - the changes that were made whilst retaining the centre fuselage demonstrates the brilliance of the design. It was designed with a certain amount of growth potential in it; it's interesting to note that the most mass produced variants were intended as temporary expedients, which were models already in production but were fitted with uprated engines; the V, IX and XIV. The fact that there was little change between the fuselage between Frames 5 and 19 throughout almost every mark of Spitfire proves its genius. New wings, tail section, armament, undercarriage, powerplant mated to the same design of fuse was pretty impressive. Of course the designers couldn't have foreseen the actual growth of the aircraft, but its growth potential was no accident.

bbear said:

Gently does it.

by getting it right from the start you mean either
a) the right approach is to give the original designers a spec including every possible use of a/c- use of crystal ball comes extra
- or
b) don't build a spitfire because elliptical wings are wrong - gently does it.
or
c) an implied nod to the circumstantial limitations of the design problem that won't start another riot
or
d) be lucky, start late and design a P51

I think it's c) - just a guess

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A ish. Build an aircraft pre war, that has the ability to stay in the front line, be second to none (apart from range) in its primary role, be flexible enough to be a contender as good as the best in other roles (Thinking PR), carry a decent payload in the GA role, and even be of use on a carrier (alright would you settle for just about good enough as a carrier plane). All without a major redesign.
Nearest is the 109 which you pointed out had a major redesign with the F and never had the flexibility of the Spit.

Nearest US aircraft would be, erm, let me think, err nope cannot think of one. P38 was closest but was later, didn't serve on a carrier, and wasn't as good as a PR aircraft.

To be fair to the US aircraft designers, there were a large number of firms building aircraft for specific roles that the likes of the multi-role single airframe, such as the Mosquito or the Spitty rarely appeared. The fact that the likes of the P-38, P-47, B-25 et al were adapted for different roles outside of their original spec is indicative of the versatility of the types, but there was rarely a need to adapt an 'Army' aircraft for a carrier role, for example. The Seafire and Sea Hurricane were expedients brought about by a lack of a suitable modern British aeroplane for the role, rather than a conscious decision based on the versatility of each type.