Realistic max speeds WW2 fighters / Speeds of the late 109s

I can't speak for forigen aircraft but in the US, during WW2 and even today, when a production test pilot flies and aircraft for the first time, there's a flight test profile that's to be followed. If a tolerance airspeed isn't achieved, the aircraft is not accepted and mechanics have to figure out why it not making advertised airspeed, many times its an airframe condition.

BTW - Greg is quite right about the F-4. No faster than 1.3 with a centerline tank. Been there, done that.

Mr GregP
Nice Post
1) I wish german warbirds not flown at all. Too few and precious to be risked
2) The problem with test flights of german aircrafts in alleid captivity is a) their proper maintance b) availability of Mw50 c) the inability of the test pilots to fly them to their real limits. i dont mean that your comrades are poor pilots, i am sure they are exceptional pilots ,but are not wiiling to take the risks operational pilots took. (obviously)
3 ) Modern pilots of warbirds give their opinion honestly about an aircraft, but when that opinion is in opposition with operational pilots then i personally will believe operational pilots. Mr Vanir says that americans rebuilt a Dora and test flew it. They reported extremely noisy and hot cocpit. German pilots reported during the war that Jumo 213 was quiter than BMW 801 and i have never readen or heard any report of hot cocpits.
On the contrary the photos confirm that pilots wore the standart heavy leather suits in Dora. Whose opinion would you believe? The operational pilots with LW ground crew or the americans test pilots and their mechanics?
Kill to loss ratio can be misleading. Had F6F fought exlusively in ETO would have such a record? Without Eastern front would Bf109 scored the same number of kills? without the presence of B17s would P51 score the same kills?
Fw 190 was the best German fighter airframe , but was crippled by its engine after summer 43. The combo Bf 109/Db600series ,in my opinion , was on top or near the top for the entire war except 9 months ( unfortunately the most crusials)
Its good to have diferent opinions! Otherwise the forum would have no reason to exist!

Hi Jim,

You make some very good points. I can't agree with not flying German warbirds, but that's just me. I think planes should fly. Since I don't own a German warbird, my opinion doesn't count for much there.

You point number 2 is valid, they don't push the planes too hard because they are not in a war and these are 65 - 70 year old aircraft. Still, they push them all about equally hard, but not nearly as hard as a wartime pilot would. The planes are basically collector's items, not active military aircraft anymore. Also in point of fact, almost all warbirds these days avoid going into IFR airspace, so they basically fly at a relatively low altitude compared with wartime use. That means we probably never see the high-altitude performance side of WWII fighters because we avoid IFR flight (it is dull to fly a warbird in straight lines).0

The racing at Reno is a different story. They push hard there for speed around a closed course ... but the stock warbirds are not usually pushed too hard since they are STOCK warbirds and don't want to break or hurt them .... just go have a little fun with them.

I have seen enough American warbirds run and fly that I take a special interest in any foreign warbirds. I really enjoy seeing our Mitsubishi A3M5 Model 52 Zero fly. The engine sound is different and it is a beautiful airframe. I like the Spitifres, the local Fairey Firefly with Griffon (very loud compared with other warbirds), and we also get to see both replica and real Focke Wulfs fly, though the real Focke Wulf doesn't fly very much ... as you might expect. We have a Yak-3 that flys on an Allison, and it makes for a geat display. Sometimes, we see a Soviet AN-2 fly in. Interesting, to say the least. We also fly a MiG-15 bis and have a couple of flyable MiG-17, too. We have a PZL TS-11 Iskra, but nobody flies it. We have a flyable Folland Gnat but again, nobody flies it. Once in awhile we see the CAF He-111 (actually a CASA with Merlins). There are several L-29's and L-39's around and tehya re interesting just by their relative rarity.

We are just about to mate the wing to the fuselage on our Yokosuka D4Y Judy, and it will get a Sakae 21 engine that can start and taxi, but will not fly. Still, I look forward to seeing it move under its own power.

I wish we had a flyable Italian fighter. I'd LOVE to see a Macchi 202 or 205, a Fiat G.55, or a Reggiane Re.2005 fly. Unlikely. I'd also love to see an IAR-80 fly. Again, unlikely.

We also have a restored pulsejet from a V-1 (actually a US JB-2 Loon) that we run on occasion, and I am on the team that runs it. It is quite loud and we pushed my pickup down the taxiway at the Planes of Fame airshow in 2009 with the pulsejet. You can probably find it on YouTube.

The rest are pretty much American warbirds and that is understadable since we have mnore of those parts than, say, Messerschmitt parts.

Naturally, since I help build Allisons, I love the P-38, P-39, P-40, and P-63.

Mr GregP
You have a great collection! I wish could be a volontuer in such a mussem !
Take care especially the Anton ! Cannons are certainly removed. Are the armor plates still in place? What kind of fuel you use to replace the german C3? As far as i know german and alleid fuels were not co operating, In which speed does your pilots lands? The brakes are original?( i hope not!)
A stupid qustion. How you raise money for all these planes? Is there enough interest in Warbirds from the public?

Hi Jim,

I'll get some information about the Me 109 G-10 next weekend if Steve Hinton is there. They used to fly it, but it is in static display at this time due to museum policy.

We don't fly anything that we don't have at least two engines for ... and we only have the one Daimler Benz. They made that policy because the plane might be at an airshow and break. If it does, and if you can't fix it and fly it home, it gets VERY expensive to transport.

The Planes of Fame Museum was started many years ago and slowly evolved to what we are now. We make money holding events to display and show the history of the aircraft. One of our most important fund raisers is our annual airshow. It takes dedicated effort and at least 150 volunteers. 250 is better. it helps that Steve Hinton's business, Fighter Rebuilders, is co-located at the museum and his crew also help out when required.

We have locations at Chino, California and Valle, Arizona. Most of the flying aircraft are at Chino, but we rotate them to Valle every once in awhile. For instance, we have a flyable Skyraider at Valle that comes to visit Chino every once in awhile.

Hello GregP,

You aren't the same GregP from the 714th from the Combat Flight Simulator days, are you? I suspect not.

I have to disagree with you about combat records and kill ratios. Those factors are influenced greatly by the strategic situation and crew training and other issues well beyond the quality of the aircraft itself. Comparing the Me 109E and the FW 190D, there is no question in my mind which is the superior fighter. I suspect the 190D did not have a particularly high kill ratio. On the PTO side, the N1K2-J Shiden-KAI was certainly superior to the A6M2 Zero, but even in the hands of the the 343 Kokutai, it was getting knocked down at a rate of 3 to 1 against the "mediocre" Hellcat.

The Corsair and Hellcat were contemporaries with historical records favouring the Hellcat. I remember reading an article by David McCampbell commenting that the Corsair was faster and slightly superior.

Sometimes modern pilots will demonstrate that conventional wisdom isn't necessarily correct. I remember seeing a video with Steve Hinton commenting that the A6M Zero rolled faster than the Hellcat. I actually watched that video a bunch of times with a stop watch to see how fast his Zero (A6M5 I believe) was rolling. Yes, it was amazingly fast. Watching a video of a Ki-43 Hayabusa rolling was even more interesting. That plane was probably doing about 180 degrees per second or better (much better). Seeing these planes in action makes one think that perhaps the Japanese actually achieved some excellent roll performance but just not at high speeds. I have never seen these characteristics discussed in print.

Check this video out starting at about 1:40 for the rolling performance:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4N3YobtkB8

Looks like authentic Air to Air footage to me.

- Ivan.

No, I'm not that GregP.

The roll you mention above is not really a roll at all; it is a snap roll. After it snaps, it does a half-snap and a split-S.

The snap roll is basically a horizontal spin.

I think some combat speeds would be higher than some of you think. Take the tail chase. If both pilots are aware of each other then they are going to be going flat out and probably descending from bomber altitude. Or consider a turning contest where both aircraft spiral down from high altitude. But often, to get away, an aircraft just dove for the earth with another plane in chase. This is all combat and the victor of many of these aerial battles ended his account with the words, "And then I climbed back to altitude." So, in figuring the speed of combat you need to consider not only the airframe and engine but the altitude lost.

Very true about diving from altitude, but they rarely scored a victory while diving due to control issues at high speeds. Sometimes in the initial dive phase, yes. But they usually dived and kept each other in sight and resumed combat when they got lower. Also, sometimes, one, the other or both would dive into the ground while following or chasing the other down too low. The Me 109 did that relatively often compared with Allied fighters, and that is from combat reports.

There was no dogfighting at 450+ mph, but they COULD chase each other to resume fighting when things got slower.

Maximum speed is just that, the maximum speed the plane could go at that height in level flight with everything trimmed, adjusted for minimum drag. Even a slight bank will increase drag and slow the plane down a bit. ANY maneuver or deviation from straight and level flight will slow the plane. It is all about the energy. As the plane maneuvers energy is lost and speed is lost. Diving can add energy back. stopping the maneuvers and flying level ( or a slow turn) can let the engine restore energy by accelerating the plane back up to speed (even if not max.) or climbing to gain potential energy that can be traded for kinetic energy in the next dive.

You can get some idea of the energy needed by reading pilot notes and finding out what the MINIMIUM recommended speeds were for entering certain maneuvers, like a loop or even a roll. Entering the maneuver too slow meant the engine could not keep up and the the speed would fall enough for the plane to stall before the maneuver was complete.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIz-3Wg7x_A

kettbo said:

What max speeds would one really see a P-51D or Bf 109G-10 fly at 20k, 25k, 30k ft after a few typical combat operations?
Not limiting the scope of this conversation to these altitudes or even the P-51B/C/D or Gustav

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Based soley on this aspect of the question, just max speed an airplane with some combat time could still develope at those high altitudes. I think the P-47 may really take the lead here. Only top speeds! Up high the turbo is really cramming in the air for the engine. It's already a brick, with huge power to force its way through the air. I think a lack of care; waxing, polishing, etc, may harm the top speed more of a Mustang or Messerschmitt more than the Thunderbolt. From what I understand, North American sanded the forward 1/3rd of the wing at the factory to keep the laminar flow correct. True? If so, I think a combat P-51 with some "use wear" affecting the wing, may lose more speed than the P-47. How the Bf 109 would be affected I am unsure.

I have to admit I was dubious at first but came around to GregP's approach on all this over the series of his posts. Really well done Greg, nicely explained, brings across all the right impressions to my mind.

I was going to be more defining between subvariants but Greg is quite right about his approach.

The laminar flow wing wasn't really laiminar. Laminarity is only achieved in modern composit sail planes and they have cleaning rails that polish the wings in flight.

However the Mustangs laminar flow wing had other big advantages
1 Did not suffer much from compressibillity so high speed drag was less afterall.
2 Huge internal fuel volume.
3 Room for internal aileron balancing.
4 Strong wing structure.

It was found that even the thickness of the paint used to apply the national insignia disrupted the laminar air flow. The chances of it being effective in service were about zero. Of course the chances of it being effective even in prototype or even factory fresh finish weren't much better so the differences in speed between worn, used aircraft and factory fresh or test aircraft would have to be from other reasons. ANY type of wing is going to suffer from leading edge dents, peeling paint, dishing between ribs, loss of alignment and other types of wear and tear.

Also remember that laminar flow wings usually were "that laminar" after ground crews started walking on top of them, opening and closing armament bays and making repairs to wing skins.

GregP said:

Let's face it, most Allied test pilots were not planning an attack in the Messerschmitt they were test flying, they were evaluating it. Most German test pilots were not planning an attack in the Spitfire or Mustang they were evaluating, they were test flying it. The point was to see what the enemy was flying and do some evaluation before the example they had became non-operational due to lack of spare parts or poor piloting technique.

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Modern flight test tend to consist of very precise flight maneuvers in highly instrumented aircraft supported by powerful predictive and interpolative tools. I am not familiar with flight evaluations of 60 years ago. However my feeling is that flight test of enemy aircraft was generating critical, and life saving, information as to the performance capabilities and limitations of enemy aircraft to support the strategy of the combat pilot. It seems to me that, without the analysis tools of today, these cannot be effectively determined without pushing the limits to some degree, and certainly not with kid gloves. I read that Chuck Yeager, on trying to determine if the Mig-15 would go supersonic, pointed this invaluable aircraft straight down with full power. This is certainly not the type of flying done to protect the asset. It did not go supersonic, by the way. In addition, with Navy and Army pilots dying at the hands of the Zero, I cannot believe that the Akutan Zero, even though it was damaged and repaired, was not thoroughly rung out in performance test and dissimilar combat evaluations.

I disagree and feel that kill ratio and war record are the ABSOULTE BEST indicators of a fighter's potential, with war record being first. In this regard, the Me 109 is clearly on top of the heap. Just the top three German aces alone shot down almost 1,000 aircraft with their Me 109's. Yes, they were mostly obsolete Soviet types, but the record still stands as almost 1,000 planes shot down by the top three German aces. With Allied aces rotating out of action after a certain number of mission and ALlied kill tallies being usually less than 40, it takes the top 25 - 30 Allied aces or more to get to 1,000 victims.

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It may be important, but I believe other data is required. I find it difficult to equate fighters engaging hordes of heavy loaded, straight flying Kamikazes in 1945 to the ferocious battles in South Pacific in 1942-43 or in the skies over Germany in 1943-mid '44. In my opinion, one was clay pigeons compared to the other.

Tante Ju said:

I do not think maxim speed is very important. This achieved with many minutes of straight acceleration - 2-3 minutes for example. It is not practical knowledge.

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The value of speed to a fighter is defined by the amount of effort and money spent to increase the speed of fighters from WWI up until the aerodynamic heating limits of aluminum. This was far more effort spent than any other performance characteristics of an aircraft.

109G datasheet says aircraft is capable achieve 410 mph true speed, but this is only 280 mph IAS, at 7-8 km. So I do not think manouver was problem at altitude for 109, IAS speed are low there even for high true speeds. I understand control force is dependant on IAS, not TAS.

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However, since most combat goes lower as it progresses, it quickly becomes an issue.

value of speed to a fighter is defined by the amount of effort and money spent to increase the speed of fighters from WWI up until the aerodynamic heating limits of aluminum. This was far more effort spent than any other performance characteristics of an aircraft.

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Speed is important but so are other characteristics. Otherwise the 596mph Me-163 would have swept the sky clean of Allied aircraft.

Very nice discussion. I am enjoying it. I have read that the majority of kills were made by the attacker hitting the defender from behind when the defender did not see him coming. I suspect that is true. Lundstrom said that it is a myth that the IJN in Zekes liked to dogfight. Their typical combat formation was a loose vic. When they attacked they got into line astern with a height advantage and executed a rear quarter diving low deflection run one after the other and recovered, gained height and repeated. I believe that the ability to dogfight is overrated in WW2.

GregP, do you know if your A6M was flying in and out of Prescott, AZ a few weeks ago? I saw a Zeke landing and taking off there on a Monday. There was an F8F in company.

kettbo said:

I have seen reference to the Bf 109G-10s by Erla being the fastest of the Hundert Neuns, at least this is what I remember from last night. Where does this info come from? Build quality? Any comments appreciated with your listing.

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Where did you see that reference?

Anyways,it depends mainly on the engine. DB 605D vs DC vs DBM vs DCM, etc. Also, the cowl that was used (and a few other factors). G-10's used three basic types, Type 090, Type 100 (asymmetrical aka: dirty -- Me 109G-10/U4 W.Nr.610 937 has a very good example of the 'Dirty' cowl. pics are available on the net) Type 110 (symmetrical aka: clean). The latter type of cowl has a wide, shallow oil cooler intake, flatter bottom cowl with no 'cheek blisters', and a rectangular fairing on the port side fuselage under the windscreen. A more detailed account can be found by reading 'Les Messerschmitt Bf 109G-1 a K-4 - Moteurs et Amenagements', and also in Issue #13 of Luftwaffe Verband[Jan./1998]. All 3 types effect overall speed. Erla/Mtt-Reg/WNF used either or types of cowls. Erla did however did a slight modification on the MG151 ammo hatch, making a straight transition line on the bottom curve rather then the typical angled line used on Mtt-Reg/WNF/Diana/Gyor plants. This did nothing for speed however. So to sum up, under ideal conditions, absolute level straight line speed with the Horizonal stabs set to a good incident angle, the nose in a slight down configuration was almost the same as the K series, *720kph w/ DB 605DC MW-50 @ optimum alititude. All plants had slighty faster/slower G-10's.

*Source: personal notes of Mortl Nicolause (#1 WNF/Diana test pilot of new/repaired aircraft), Kralupy nad Vltavou airfield, Feb/Mar 1945.


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