On Soviet turning time tests. Comments Please

[vanir]

the spit requiring more lbs of force, but having more room and stick travel to achieve it.

This also follows comments made by pilots who flew both types.

Test conditions are important however. Two 109s and two Spits from different period/role may all be very, very different animals in all respects. These guidelines are for a MkII or MkV Spit and Emil or early series Friedrich, yes? I would assume MkII and Emil, the typical comparison for wartime appraisals between the types, or a MkVb and F-2.

 

[claidemore]

Spitifre Mk1 and Bf109E.... E3 I think.

 

[vanir]

I've read the Griffon Spits were a little on the unforgiving side in pilot handling, heavy and at times lacking authority.
Similarly I've read the 109K and G-10 in some layouts were perfectly competitive with the latest Allied types in all respects (assuming a good production example). Rall said in comparison to Allied fighters that he flew, the only remarkable departure was the very comfortable cockpit of the Mustang which he quite like for this reason. But in performance for the pilot there was very little to choose overall between good examples of all the types, he was very clear in asserting the 109 remained competitive at the end of the war, but it was an older fighter with a lot of character (read: an inexperienced pilot would fly a newer type better).

I like this kind of reasoning myself. That basically very similar aeronautical technologies were available to all the belligerent nations throughout the war (being a matter of the common scientific community by and large), there may be some individual preferences but the constant flux of combat meant just about everything approximately contemporary was quite competitive and pilot skill and other factors played a major role.

You might call some control heaviness in a Spit to be its character. You might fly better with an aircraft set up like that, where your wingman may fly worse and prefer light controls to get the most out of his particular flying style. Two pilots as good as each other might say two completely different aircraft were better than each other, and where does that leave us? Most pilots tend to say the Spit/109/Mustang/Yak they faced was a very good aircraft type and they feel lucky to still be around.

I think a poor pilot in a better plane had better write his family letters before facing a good pilot in a worse plane. Who could ever say with authority how much this played on specific combat records? I am frequently saddened by short media "documentaries" which claim an American superiority in aircraft design and manufacture as winning the air war in Europe in the last years of the war, where well trained and increasingly experienced US pilots were facing inadequate recruits being tossed into aircraft types they neither liked to fly nor could fly well. Some of the saddest gun camera footage I've seen is watching a late series 109G or 190A flying low and slow, practising slow banking turns as an evasive manoeuvre whilst being shot to pieces by a diving Mustang or Thunderbolt. Even the credited pilot reports he believed the e/a to have been a fresh cadet with no combat experience.

I've got a diary report by a JG27 Messerschmitt pilot. He turned up to get his new fighter aircraft and was pointed in the direction of G-14, G-10 and K-4 parks and told to simply take what he wanted and go away. He says the flight leader was the only experienced pilot in the squadron, in which the average life expectancy was two-three sorties. So much for combat training.
The reputation of poor performance in the late war 109 is often from these sources. Cadets reported it was heavy and difficult to fly, especially in interceptor configuration (gun pods and tanks). Runway fatalities skyrocketed with the late G versions in 1944 (the torquey 605 liked to pancake and kill inexperienced pilots who opened the throttle too quickly). British comparative testing used a captured G-14 in bulky interceptor layout and gave a very poor review of new 109 models. Plus being thrown together often from surplus parts and spare engines some of that type were very rough indeed, you wouldn't compare it to an Erla G-10 or a Regensburg K-4 in clean fighter layout (most agree a clean Erla G-10 with the MG151 motorkanone is the fastest Messerschmitt breaking 435mph at medium combat altitude with excellent handling characteristics).

And then in contrast you'll some surviving aces preferring it over other types and placing it in the same category as a Yak, Spit, Thunderbolt or anything else. Hartmann's combat record is a brilliant example of the 109 remaining contemporary, it astounds me the bulk of his victories were in 44 and flying a plain old G-6 he requisitioned from a training squadron (build quality was better).


I mean we're sitting here examining one or two seconds difference in turn times with almost no genuine context and I'm thinking it means exactly zip unless you get two identical twins flying against each other in those respective aircraft types.
Better turn times ought really be related to what it infers than any kind of genuine combat advantage. Among raw recruits and combat inexperienced pilots for example, a faster turn rate means it probably recovers from a stall a little easier, it can handle higher deflection on the shoot, or it has a good initial climb. But that doesn't suggest whether or not it gets into stalls quickly, or with any warning. It doesn't make it better to fly for a particular pilot, who may fly better in a more stable but slower turning type and gain advantageous positions easier in this style.

Documentation for turn rates of the Me-109G and Mustang puts the Messerschmitt ahead, but then there is a publicised combat report of a flight of Mustangs comfortably out turning a flight of Me109G on their tails, which forced the German fighters to break up formation as the situation got reversed. Then one of the Mustangs followed one Messerschmitt into a climb and kicked its butt there, the 109 stalled out first and then the Mustang outdove it in the chase to set up a good kill.
In some of these points the comparative data is contradictory, but this is combat. All bets are off.

The Yak-1 has great turn rates, but has a habit of losing its wing skinning in sustained hard turns, and can barely function above 4000 metres, plus it has a serious supercharger efficiency drop at 2700 metres which is a very bad altitude to start losing performance. The 109 relies on good pilot training and a bit of technique for good turn rates, but it has shining sustained performance in any sphere (where most types begin to lose on sustained vertical performance). The P-40 was highly regarded because it is both very stable and has excellent turn rates at low altitude, plus a great dive to get there quickly, in the early war period not much could hope to outdive a P-40 and it has really terrific performance under 1000m at 56"Hg. The Spit has good turn rates from its excellent climb, but it loses out on a bit of streamlining in the dive and in the later era, maximum level speed capabilities and acceleration, but most types can manage 66"Hg for a few minutes and that's pretty impressive for initial everything. The Zero can turn like a butterfly and has a great initial climb, but no dive or sustained climb to speak of, but it can fly for a thousand kilometres, do hard nose combat for an hour and then go fly another thousand kilometres with swiss clock reliability, if you don't know an attack is coming you might as well just forget an interception sortie, you're not going to follow them back to base or anything at respective pursuit/escape power settings.

Turn times, max speed listings, power ratings, very academic in the not too realistic sense.

 

[Juha]

Hello Vanir
First of all as I have wrote earlier, I personally think that vertical manoeuvrability was more important than horizontal but climb rate info is usually easily available on WWII fighters but turn time tests are harder to find. Secondly there is many tread on this site on "was x a/c better turner than y?" So I put together info on the one series of turning time tests made on numerous a/c types I know plus added comments and turning time tests from another country from the other side of frontline.

Of course it is only on one aspect of manoeuvrability and in fact on only one type of turning, namely sustained.

IMHO at least most understand that tests and combat situations are two different things.

Was some a/c better than others? In this I disagree with you. For ex. IMHO 109E was clearly better than MS 406 and better than Hurricane Mk I and 109F was clearly better than LaGG-3 Series 4 and so on. But in spite of that situation, pilot skill and tactics used always had big impact to end results. It was perfectly possible to MS 406 pilot to shot down 109E.

IIRC British got, or at least some writers on WWII airwar got rather poor opinion on late 109s because of British tests on 109G-6 night fighter subversion which landed in error to Manston in May 44.

In fact turning time differences had also impact in real life, for ex Finnish Brewster B-239 pilots used different tactics against I-153s, tried to avoid horizontal and tried to keep combat in vertical, than against MiG-3s, tried to suck MiGs into horizontal fight. Simply because one tried to fought with rules which better suited to one's mount.

I would say that Spit XIV didn't lack speed, maybe at one height band against 109K using MW50, but generally it was fast enough, of course it's speed was too slow when compared to Me 262.

Soviet planes were tailored to Eastern front conditions, so they were low level fighters except MiG-3 but its production was stopped early on, its engine manufacture's capacity was needed to produce more engines for Il-2s but also because its high altitude capacity was seldom needed and at low level it wasn't match to 109.

Juha