Mr Irvine, Mr. Kauppinen,

I have also read the book(s) "Fighter" and it is a great reference, too, but
I also have re-printed Me-109E-3 flight manual in Serbo-Croatian(!) language
and I have read RAE evaluation on Internet.

Firstly, the figther's name for export was Me-109. The manual is the
re-print of the original manual for Yugoslav Kingdom (1918-1941) called
"Me-109 manual". I do not have it handy, but I remembered few things;

Max speed: 570 kph
Max allowed dive speed: 750 kph

Dive procedu

1) Turn the trim whell up so the plane is "tail-heavy", take off the
throttle, propeller pitch 12 (I -might- be mistaken for the last one-sorry,
it comes from the memory);
2) Depress stick "down";
3) If aircraft is diving on it is own, abort dive emmidiatelly
4) max allowed dive speed is 750 kph.

Taking the plane out from the dive:
1) DO NOT (bold letters!) pull on the stick!
2) since the aircraft is wheel-trimmed "tail-heavy" (i.e. up), leave the
aircraft to bring itself from the dive (black-on white manual statement!)

So, there was some worry... but for the tail, not wings!

From the RAE evaluation of the captured Bf-109;

quote
Safety in the Dive
During a dive at 400 mph all three controls were in turn displaced slightly
and released. No vibration, flutter or snaking developed. If the elevator is
trimmed for level flight at full throttle, a large push is needed to hold in
the dive, and there is a temptation to trim in. If, in fact, the airplane is
trimmed into the dive, recovery is difficult unless the trimmer is moved
back owing to the excessive heaviness of the elevator.
....
Elevator
This is an exceptionally good control at low air speeds, being fairly heavy
and not over-sensitive. Above 250 mph, however, it becomes too heavy, so
that maneuvrability is seriously restricted. When diving at 400 mph a pilot,
pulling very hard, cannot put on enough 'g' to black himself out; stick
force -'g' probably exsceeds 20 lb/g in the dive.
end quote

It is strange that RAE experts didn't have 109's flight manual and made such
errors in handling, especialy they have sold Hurricane I fighters to
Yugoslavia after Yugoslavia has obtained Me-109s!

Book "fighter" also describes the Bf-109 that it has the tighter circle. It
is not true, but it has the best instantenuos turn rate-Huricane is the
second, and Spitfire on the third place. But, due to the high wing loading
(no matter that the slats are installed), Bf-109 bleeds speed very quickly
in turns.

Since Mr. Irvine and I are reffering to the same source and same plane
version, it should be noted that these information are valid for the
Bf/Me-109E-3 ONLY.

--

Nele

NULLA ROSA SINE SPINA
Mark Irvine wrote in message ...

"Jukka O. Kauppinen" wrote in
message ...
decides the fight! Alas for the luftwaffe the Bf109 wings were not
designed
for guns etc so were not terrifically robust, the pilots were often
more
worried about the wings falling off than blacking out......

Incorrect.

Having guns or not doesn't have anything to do with the strenght of the
wings. 109s from A-E had wing weapons, again one of the K models was
designed for wing weapons. The wings were also one single structure,
which made it possible to make them very strong.

"- Are the stories true, that the 109 had weak wings and would loose
them easily?
He has never heard of a 109 loosing its wings from his experience or
others. The wings could withstand 12 g's and since most pilots could
only handle at most 9 g's there was never a problem. He was never
worried about loosing a wing in any form of combat."
- Franz Stigler, German fighter ace. 28 victories. Interview of Franz
Stigler.

snip

The reference that I was using was Len Deightons book "Fighter" which
examines the Battle of Britain. When discussing tactics he asserts that
the
Bf109 pilots used the tactic of diving away as the Bf109 engine maintained
power during the dive unlike that generation of Merlin. However the 109
pilots tended to pull out of their dives in a shallower curve, due to fears
over the wings. The spitfire pilots would continue the dive longer and
then
pull out harder, so overhauling them and pushing home their attack. This
is
of course a generalisation, and it is not a claim that the Bf109 was a bad
aircraft.

I do wonder how much of this stemmed from the narrow undercarraige, which
while it allowed wing removal while the aircraft sat on its own wheels,
also
forced a narrow undercarraige. Presumably if the thing toppled over the
main area of damage would be the wings. Something like 5% of Bf109s made
were reportedly lost in landing accidents. One would assume that a
contributing factor was the narrow undercarraige. Something that was
certainly looked at in the Fw190, which had one of the widest fighter
undercarraiges of the war!

In summary the Bf109 could probably take a lot of stress and it is not as
though they were falling out of the sky due to wings falling off. However
in all likelyhood the pilots did have a concern. It could be one of those
cases where perception is everything....


Mark