Messerschmitt 109 - myths, facts ...
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KraziKanuK
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- 792
- Jan 26, 2005
Johannes Steinhoff, Sicily, Commander JG 77 (July 1943):
The Malta Spitfires are back again... They're fitted with a high altitude supercharger and at anything over twenty-five thousand feet they just play cat and mouse with us.
At 28,000 feet the Spitfire could turn in an astonishingly narrow radius. We on the other hand, in the thin air of those altitudes had to carry out every maneuver with caution and at full power so as not to lose control.
Johannes Steinhoff, Messerschmitts Over Sicily, (Stackpole Books, 2004), pp. 97-98, 111.
Günther Rall commented on the Spitfire, having had the opportunity to fly various captured allied aircraft, as well as the Me 109G:
The Spitfire, too (referring to the P-38 with power ailerons), was a very maneuverable aircraft, very good in the cockpit."
...Nicknamed Gustav, the BF 109G was well armed but not as light as the earlier E and F versions. Its more powerful engine meant higher power settings whose inital climb rate sent it soaring to 18,700 ft. in six minutes but at low speed the plane was difficult to handle. ...Most of us considered the 109G over-developed. Poor landing characteristics added to its woes.
Jill Amadio, Günther Rall: a memoir, (Tangmere Productions, Santa Ana, CA), pp. 148, 242.
The Malta Spitfires are back again... They're fitted with a high altitude supercharger and at anything over twenty-five thousand feet they just play cat and mouse with us.
At 28,000 feet the Spitfire could turn in an astonishingly narrow radius. We on the other hand, in the thin air of those altitudes had to carry out every maneuver with caution and at full power so as not to lose control.
Johannes Steinhoff, Messerschmitts Over Sicily, (Stackpole Books, 2004), pp. 97-98, 111.
Günther Rall commented on the Spitfire, having had the opportunity to fly various captured allied aircraft, as well as the Me 109G:
The Spitfire, too (referring to the P-38 with power ailerons), was a very maneuverable aircraft, very good in the cockpit."
...Nicknamed Gustav, the BF 109G was well armed but not as light as the earlier E and F versions. Its more powerful engine meant higher power settings whose inital climb rate sent it soaring to 18,700 ft. in six minutes but at low speed the plane was difficult to handle. ...Most of us considered the 109G over-developed. Poor landing characteristics added to its woes.
Jill Amadio, Günther Rall: a memoir, (Tangmere Productions, Santa Ana, CA), pp. 148, 242.
KraziKanuK said:
That is what I have heard by most people who have flown the 109.
