P51D/K vs Me109K-14

Which would win?

  • Kurfurst

    Votes: 50 35.7%
  • Mustang

    Votes: 54 38.6%
  • Draw

    Votes: 9 6.4%
  • Impossible to say

    Votes: 27 19.3%

  • Total voters
    140

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Hehe, trust me Altea, there is plenty of evidence to show that the Bf-109 turns a lot tighter than either the P-51 or Fw190, both in the form of testing and pilot testimonials. According both to pilots physics the Bf-109 was even a close match for the Spitfire when it came to turning. I believe the Spitfire generally might have been a bit better though, except for the Mk.XIV vs the 109 K-4.
 
If US Merlin Mustang, has the same turning rate than US FW 190, and better turning rate than US 190, may only show that US FW-190 has better turning rate than US Bf-109.

I won't praise the lack of accuracy of some US, british, german tests....

i'm agree with the lack accuracy on enemy plane test.
but your conclusions are illogical if US Mustang (the mustang it's US own) has the same turning rate of US 190 (190 it's Deutsch own), and the Deutsch 109 has best turning rate of Deutsch 190 you can't conclude what your conclude, you can conclude that Deutsch 109 has best turning rate of US mustang because it's sure that Deutsch 190 its' not badest of US 190
 
Hehe, trust me Altea, there is plenty of evidence to show that the Bf-109 turns a lot tighter than either the P-51 or Fw190, both in the form of testing and pilot testimonials. According both to pilots physics the Bf-109 was even a close match for the Spitfire when it came to turning. I believe the Spitfire generally might have been a bit better though, except for the Mk.XIV vs the 109 K-4.

I don't understand well why should i (we) trust you that Bf-109 G turns tighter, moroever a lot tighter than the P-51D. I don't care a lot about testimonials and their contradictions (well if i do, it's far, far away in the last place and even for a very few of them...), and all testing we have are showing exactly the opposite.

According both to pilots and physics Bf 109 was outurned by virtually all oponents in so called TsAGI test trials you have previously quoted: Spit, P-40, P-39, P-63, Hurricane, Yak-1, La-5F, 5FN...Exception are made by MiG 3, early La-5, and some heavy late 1941's, early 42's Yak-7 and LaGG-3 without slats and old M-105P engine.
 
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I don't understand well why should i (we) trust you that Bf-109 G turns tighter, moroever a lot tighter than the P-51D. I don't care a lot about testimonials and their contradictions (well if i do, it's far, far away in the last place and even for a very few of them...), and all testing we have are showing exactly the opposite.

According both to pilots and physics Bf 109 was outurned by virtually all oponents in so called TsAGI test trials you have previously quoted: Spit, P-40, P-39, P-63, Hurricane, Yak-1, La-5F, 5FN...Exception are made by MiG 3, early La-5, and some heavy late 1941's, early 42's Yak-7 and LaGG-3 without slats and old M-105P engine.

Sorry but that's quite simply false Altea. Check out the 109F2 which managed 19 sec to 360 deg in Soviet tests, and that was with a worn and damaged a/c.

But just out of pure curiousity, would you care to show me the physics which prove that the Bf-109 didn't turn tighter?
 
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The 109K-4 squeezed the last little bit of life out of an antiquated airframe. Sure it could go faster but it handled poorly, was less robust, and was less maneuverable at high speeds. No 109 flew for any amount of time at high speeds like that so that stat is useless. Pilots were key and clearly the 109 pilots in that time frame were too few and poorly trained to match the average P-51 pilot. Apologists for the Germans beware...you lost.
 
What was worn and what was damaged???????????

I admit that I was wondering about that. Whenever a German aircraft is tested it often is labled as being worn and/or damaged and/or the flaps are damaged and/or the testing country doesn't have the ability to fix obvious errors and/or the test pilots are scared.
 
I admit that I was wondering about that. Whenever a German aircraft is tested it often is labled as being worn and/or damaged and/or the flaps are damaged and/or the testing country doesn't have the ability to fix obvious errors and/or the test pilots are scared.

Agree.

If we're talking flight tests that involved sustained maneuvers that don't involve full power, the test results should be pretty evident and accurate excluding any damage to the airframe that will cause it not to perform to its aerodynamic design.
 
Sorry but that's quite simply false Altea. Check out the 109F2 which managed 19 sec to 360 deg in Soviet tests, and that was with a worn and damaged a/c.

Certainly not 19, but 19.8-20.6 that makes 20,2 s to me.
Moreover the plane reached 515 km/h at SL, so it wasn't that damaged, and AFAIK tested without it's guns and ammo, those being send to another NII-APIB test center in the meantime.

In it's turn soviet Mustang was reaching only 459 nom. and 483 km/h forced (5min WEP) at S.L. And it took full 10.5 or 9 min to climb to 5 000 m. So if there were be a worned and damaged plane, it should be that one.

It changes nothing to the fact that no P-51 D was never tested at NII.


But just out of pure curiousity, would you care to show me the physics which prove that the Bf-109 didn't turn tighter?

If you would give me the full TsAGI, NACA or STAé wind tunnel results for the both planes, then certainly i will. And you?

Regards
 
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I admit that I was wondering about that. Whenever a German aircraft is tested it often is labled as being worn and/or damaged and/or the flaps are damaged and/or the testing country doesn't have the ability to fix obvious errors and/or the test pilots are scared.

Yes, even if they were 3 points kiss-landed on soviet (allied) side by slovakian renegades or german pilots due to navigation errors and Kursk magnetic anomaly, captured dry of fuel on airfields or bought directly to german manufacturers.
 
Would the Mustang tested by the Soviets be one of the 10 Allison Mustangs received from the British?
 
Certainly not 19, but 19.8-20.6 that makes 20,2 s to me.
Moreover the plane reached 515 km/h at SL, so it wasn't that damaged, and AFAIK tested without it's guns and ammo, those being send to another NII-APIB test center in the meantime.

In it's turn soviet Mustang was reaching only 459 nom. and 483 km/h forced (5min WEP) at S.L. And it took full 10.5 or 9 min to climb to 5 000 m. So if there were be a worned and damaged plane, it should be that one.

It changes nothing to the fact that no P-51 D was never tested at NII.




If you would give me the full TsAGI, NACA or STAé wind tunnel results for the both planes, then certainly i will. And you?

Regards

Altea - I have never seen a 'full set' of full scale wind tunnel tests for any of these birds and certainly not for a fully functioning B/C/D Mustang with Radiator in operation generating potential thrust - and certainly not a full range of both Parasite drag and trim drag at various Reynolds Numbers and angles of attack.

If you go back and check the various threads, we have been down many a manueverability rathole and the required data to model these birds through a full range of asymmetrical, various altitude, different inital airspeed, for different flight regimes has not been available for good modelling.

Additionally I have often wondered about the intangible of stick forces at high speed as well as the slat effects and true change to CL at high AoA for the 109.. I'm agnostic regarding actual increased delta CL for the 109 or more contribution to stall retardation as AoA/Airspeed reaches critical points? One, Both? and how does one prove it?

What are your thoughts on this?
 
Yes, even if they were 3 points kiss-landed on soviet (allied) side by slovakian renegades or german pilots due to navigation errors and Kursk magnetic anomaly, captured dry of fuel on airfields or bought directly to german manufacturers.

And its worth remembering that the RAF had access to FW190 and 109G fighters that because they were lost, made perfect landings an RAF Manston thinking that they were in France. Fully operational aircraft with no damage at all.
 
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Certainly not 19, but 19.8-20.6 that makes 20,2 s to me.
Moreover the plane reached 515 km/h at SL, so it wasn't that damaged, and AFAIK tested without it's guns and ammo, those being send to another NII-APIB test center in the meantime.

The Bf 109F-2 captured and tested in Soviet-Russia was indeed in poor condition, whatever you claim on the contrary; the test team noted the defects in the supercharger and that the tested aircraft completely worn out, having been overhauled several times:

Just by luck, on 22 February 1942 Ober-Lieutnant A. Niss, commander of the JG51 Squadron's 8th Detachment, got lost and was fired on from a machine gun near Tushino Airfield. His radiator and fuel tank were damaged and the German officer was forced to land within Soviet troop unit positions.
Captured by Red Army soldiers, the fighter was quickly restored by technical personnel from the 47th Aviation Division based in Tushino, but the first flight of the captured Messerschmitt ended in a crash landing. The right undercarriage leg and wing tip were broken. The machine had to undergo one more repair (this time by a TsAGI team) and then Me 109F No. 9209 was handed over to the Air Forces Scientific Research Institute for comprehensive testing. Engineer-Captain A. S. Rozanov, one of the institute's foremost experts on German aircraft, accepted the bird.
He encountered serious problems from the outset. The experienced engineer noticed that the aircraft had undergone major repair at least four times and was completely worn out. The unstable spring -weather and frequent Air Defense Command flight bans also retarded his efforts. On 5 April, Rozanov wrote the following to his direct supervisor A. N. Frolov: "While plotting the altitude curve, I faced a serious obstacle. Supercharger pressure slightly decreases up to the altitude limit of 2900 meters and then sharply falls off. It is possible that the supercharger coupling is worn out and it becomes "powerless" at altitude. I report to the command element regularly and, of course, they swear at me for dragging out the testing. I will have to "pump up" the altitude-airspeed performance curve using science..."


See: Bf-109F - Luftwaffe

The same holds true to the tested Bf 109E - I believe this one was sold to the Russians before the war,arriving in crates and they assembled it themselves - the engine seems to have some problem at low altitudes and not developing power properly (blatantly obvious from the extreme shape of the climb curve between ca. 0-2000 m), likely due to a poorly set up or malfunction first supercharger speed (the curve above that appears to be normal). This - lack of power output at low altitudes would explain why the Soviets measured such absymal turn times such as ~29 secs at 1000 m, whereas the German specs for the 109E was 18.92 secs for a sustained 360 degree turn at 0 m... and much more in line with the 18-19-20 secs measured on the F/G models.
 
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I admit that I was wondering about that. Whenever a German aircraft is tested it often is labled as being worn and/or damaged and/or the flaps are damaged and/or the testing country doesn't have the ability to fix obvious errors and/or the test pilots are scared.

The subject was discussed multiple times, and more than sufficient documentary evidence was posted as evidence. It can be firmly stated that most 109s tested (there weren't so many in anyway, ALL British tests for example stem from four Bf 109s ) were in pretty poor condition, operated by pilots

- a Bf 109E-3 Wnr 1304 emergency landed in France in 1939 (the French already noted some oil and supercharger problems). This was the only one the pilot got fairly familiar with the plane, and it shows in RAE's report, which is far more through and objective than all the rest.

- Pingel's F-2 that crash landed in Britain, being referred to in the British letter as of being 'doubtful of any use' for testing; the engine was a mess (obviously using the props to plow the British countryside didnt do much good to it), and possibly something else as later something else went wrong in the air and the aircraft dived into ground with no appearant reason, killing its (Polish IIRC) pilot.

- Black Six, a G-2/trop abandoned in Africa by the Germans due to combat damage from P-40s to the prop, and some systems like radiators malfunctioning. Taken apart, took in crates and shipped to Britain where it arrived in extremely poor conditions, and was put together again from parts cannibalized from another 109G.. surely a typical story for the frontline 109Gs in the LW ! :lol:

- the G-6/U2 WNr 412-something, a nightfighter that indeed landed in Britain in error in probably good shape, but the ship had gondola guns and was tested as such. Took about 4 months for the Brits to crash it (the Brit establishment testing it never ever flown a 109 before btw), Erich Brown logged a whole hour in this crate (also flying the 109 for the first and last time for his life).

I have to say, just plain facts, you can speculate and be in denial as much as you wish. All of these reports I believe are available on my website for checking... the condition of aircraft are clearly stated.

Of course this does not only relate to German aircraft in Allied hands, but vica versa at well. I am surely everyone here considers German testing results of the Spitfire IX (reached something like 620 km/h at altitude), La 5 FN (dunno about its condition, but given the specs measured, probably chewed and spit out by gozzilla) and Mustang III (supercharger faults) entirely representative of the type's performance in operational conditons.
 
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I don't understand well why should i (we) trust you that Bf-109 G turns tighter, moroever a lot tighter than the P-51D.

Well, for one, Soviet trials showed about 20 secs turn time for the 109G, and some 23-24 secs for the P-51A...

Basically I can see nothing on the physics side that would help it in turning. Basically it lacks on both accounts when it comes to turning, ie. either having massively greater excess thrust (it doesn't engine ain't powerful enough compared to the size of the airplane), and/or lower wingloading.
 
Kurfurst - at least you provide some specifics when the comment is made about a worn or damage aircraft. When one says the aircraft is on "poor" condition, that opens up a lot of room for speculation. What is "poor" about it? Is the airframe bent? Does the engine have internal problems? Did the engine suffer a prop stike or sudden stoppage? Are there damaged components? Was there holes in the structure? It seems Bf 109E-3 Wnr 1304 with it's oil and supercharger problems was capable of at least giving idea of general performance as it seems the aircraft was at least capable of being able to be flown to its maneuvering speed (Va). It is obvious that a captured aircraft that suffered any type of crash or hard landing MAY have some structural problems (asymmetry out of tolerance) that will inhibit its actual performance - but let's get specific. To say an aircraft is "worn out" is hogwash unless you could put some specifics behind the lack of performance. To me as an aircraft mechanic with 32 years experience, to say an aircraft is "worn" paints a very broad picture of either multiple discrepancies wrong with the aircraft or normal wear and tear that had negligible affect on the aircraft's performance.

And as previously stated - you also have test pilots who may be extremely proficient all around pilots but may not fully master this captured aircraft they are tasked to test. Lets face it, Gunter Rall is going to fly a -109 better than Brown any day
 
Hi,

For most of these aircraft I've mentioned, I've the reports on their conditions on my website. You can read the French and British report on the F-2 (also the Russian site I linked).

For example:

letters.jpg


You can read the other reports on my site, too. I was not there the 1940s, I can't tell you if there was a strange humming noise coming out of the reduction gear ;) - I can only read the reports written on the events, and I am sure they are already a concentrated, selected reflection on the reality..
 

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