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

While being just armchair enthusiast, I wonder how much of this "wing
failure" myth is based on hollow claims - or facts. I don't know for
fact, but were 109 pilots themselves really worried of wing failure in
dives? I don't remember reading any such accounts. It could be the
greener pilots were worried, but were those who were more familiar with
the plane? And how mcuh changes there was between various subtypes? In
BoB 109 E-4 to E-7 were standard types. Was there some real problem with
them? I haven't at least heard of such. Early 109 Fs had weak tail
structure and several planes were lost, when tail ripped off. Later Fs,
Gs and Ks had no such problem. Several Finnish 109 G pilots had dived
regularly 750-900 km speeds in vertical dives when disengaging and they
haven't been worried about the plane.

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.

Actually,

The width of undercarriage in Me 109 E is 1,97 meters; 109 G 2,06 meters
and 109 K 2,1 meters. However - Spitifre's undercarriage width was 1,68
meters.

Nothing unusual with the undercarriage there.

The real problem was the center of gravity behind the undercarriage.
This made it possible to brake unusually hard in landings, but it also
required the pilot to keep the plane straight in takeoff and landing. If
this failed the plane could get into quickly worsening turn until the
other undercarriage failed or the plane drifted off the runway.

jok

I'm putting together an article about various aspects of the 109 with
pilot commentary. Here's some quotes about 109s diving:

- The Me 109 was dived to Mach 0.79 in instrumented tests. Slightly
modified, it was even dived to Mach 0.80, and the problems experimented
there weren't due to compressility, but due to aileron overbalancing.
Compare this to Supermarine Spitfire, which achieved dive speeds well
above those of any other WW2 fighter, getting to Mach 0.89 on one
occasion. P-51 and Fw 190 achieved about Mach 0.80. The P-47 had the
lowest permissible Mach number of these aircraft. Test pilot Eric Brown
observed it became uncontrollable at Mach 0.73, and "analysis showed
that a dive to M=0.74 would almost certainly be a 'graveyard dive'."
- Source: Radinger/Otto/Schick: "Messerschmitt Me 109", volumes 1 and 2,
Eric Brown: "Testing for Combat".

- 109 didn't "compress" but the elevators became heavy. When adjusting
trim the entire horizontal tail plane moved and reduced the force needed
to pull out.

Me 109 G:
"The maximum speed not to be exceeded was 750kmh. Once I was flying
above Helsinki as I received a report of Russkies in the South. There
was a big Cumulus cloud on my way there but I decided to fly right
through. I centered the controls and then something extraordinary
happened. I must have involuntarily entered into half-roll and dive. The
planes had individual handling characteristics; even though I held the
turning indicator in the middle, the plane kept going faster and faster,
I pulled the stick, yet the plane went into an ever steeper dive.
In the same time she started rotating, and I came out of the cloud with
less than one kilometer of altitude. I started pulling the stick,
nothing happened, I checked the speed, it was about 850kmh. I tried to
recover the plane but the stick was as if locked and nothing happened. I
broke into a sweat of agony: now I am going into the sea and cannot help
it. I pulled with both hands, groaning and by and by she started
recovering, she recovered more, I pulled and pulled, but the surface of
the sea approached, I thought I was going to crash. I kept pulling until
I saw that I had survived. The distance between me and the sea may have
been five meters. I pulled up and found myself on the coast of Estonia.
If I in that situation had used the vertical trim the wings would have
been broken off. A minimal trim movement has a strong effect on wings
when the speed limit has been exceded. I had 100kmh overspeed! It was
out of all limits.
The Messerschmitt's wings were fastened with two bolts. When I saw the
construction I had thought that they are strong enough but in this case
I was thinking, when are they going to break
- What about the phenomenon called "buffeting" or vibration, was there any?
No, I did not encounter it even in the 850kmh speed."
- Kyösti Karhila, Finnish fighter ace. 32 victories. Source: Interview
by Finnish Virtual Pilots Association.

Me 109 G:
"- The vertical dive was how to disengage.
Jussi Huotari: That was the remedy.
Antti Tani: That is how I survived when attacking two of them and losing
the first round. They had more speed because I was coming from a lower
altitude.
It was nothing special, the (Yak-9) planes were climbing and began to
turn back. I had planned to get to shoot at them as they have lost their
speed in the turn. But I was not in the right position. I turned at them
and pulled the nose up - and I lost my speed, I had to turn below them.
I had to push the stick to get behind them, and as they dived at me I
dived right down. I turned with ailerons a couple of times, and had full
power on.
Then I started recovery from the dive, of course in the direction of
home, then checked the dials, the reading was eight hundred plus kmh.
Then I started pulling the stick, pulled harder as hard as ever: never
in my life did I pull so hard. I pulled with right hand and tried to
trim the horizontal rudder with my left hand. But it did not budge, as
if it had been set in concrete. But by the by the nose began to rise,
but terribly slowly. As my angle was about 45 I heard over the radio as
Onni Paronen said, "hey lads, look, a Messerschmitt is going in the
sea!" I wanted to answer back but I could not afford to do anything put
pull with two hands. As soon as I had returned to level flight and had
been able to breath normally for a while, I in a way regained
consciousness. I pushed the transmitter key and said "not quite". It was
a close shave.
- It was so hard that you almost blacked out?
Antti Tani: I felt I was on the edge, pulling as hard as I ever could."
- Antti Tani, Finnish fighter ace. 21,5 victories. Source: Interview by
Finnish Virtual Pilots Association.
- Jouko "Jussi" Huotari, Finnish fighter ace. 17 victories. Source:
Interview by Finnish Virtual Pilots Association.

Me 109 G-6:
After landing Me 109 with damaged rudder trim tab, which shook the
rudder heavily in flight:
"Antti Tani: It had to be strong, both the rudder and the pedals, they
withstood the damn shaking without any further damage.
Jussi Huotari: The Messerschmitt was a very tough aircraft. You could do
vertical dives and the tailplane hang along..."
Antti Tani: But Mäittälä, what happened to him, he lost the tailplane?
Mäittälä dived like that, and being a strong man he was able to pull
harder than I did. And so the tailplane was ripped off
- The day before a similar dive and recovery had happened to the same
plane. Two steep dives in succession and a strong pilot pulling the
stick each time, so...
Antti Tani: It certainly was a risky job. It must be that I remember him
because I did a dive like that and remembered his tailplane had been
ripped off. I, too pulled as hard as I could, because I thought that I
am going to die if I don't."
- Antti Tani, Finnish fighter ace. 21,5 victories. Source: Interview by
Finnish Virtual Pilots Association.
- Jouko "Jussi" Huotari, Finnish fighter ace. 17 victories. Source:
Interview by Finnish Virtual Pilots Association.

Me 109 G-6:
"The story of Valte Estama's 109 G-6 getting shot down by a Yak-6 was
also an interesting one. Their flight of nine planes was doing
high-altitude CAP at 7,000 meters (23,000').
(snip) So it happened that the devil fired at him. One cannon round hit
his engine, spilling out oil that caught fire. Estama noticed that it
wasn't fuel that leaked or burned, just oil.
He pushed the nose of the plane and throttled up. His feet felt hot, but
the fire was extinguished and there was no more smoke. The speedometer
went over the top as the speed exceeded 950 km/h. The wings began to
shake and Estama feared the fighter would come apart. He pulled the
throttle back, but the stick was stiff and couldn't pull the plane out
of the dive. Letting the flaps out little by little gradually lifted the
nose. The plane leveled at 1,000 meters (3,300').
Clarification of the escape dive: "It didn't stay (vertical) otherwise,
it had to be kept with the stabilizer. I trimmed it so the plane was
certainly nose down. Once I felt it didn't burn anymore and there was no
black smoke in the mirror, then I began to straighten it up, and it
wouldn't obey. The stick was so stiff it was useless. So a nudge at a
time, (then straightening off with trims).
Then the wings came alive with the flutter effect, I was afraid it's
coming apart and shut the throttle. Only then I began to level out. To a
thousand meters. It was a long time - and the hard pull blacked me out."
- Edvald Estama, Finnish fighter pilot. Source: Recollections by Eino
and Edvald Estama by Finnish Virtual Pilots Association.

Me 109 G:
"-Many claim that the MT becomes stiff as hell in a dive, difficult to
bring up in high speed, the controls lock up?
Nnnooo, they don't lock up.
It was usually because you exceeded diving speed limits. Guys didn't
remember you shouldn't let it go over.
We had also Lauri Mäittälä, he took (unclear tape), he had to evade and
exceeded the speed, and the rudders broke off. He fell in a well in the
Isthmus. He was later collected from there, he's now there in Askola
cemetery.
The controls don't lock up, they become stiffer of course but don't
lock. And of course you couldn't straighten up (shows a 'straightening'
from a dive directly up) like an arrow."
- Väinö Pokela, Finnish fighter ace and Me 109 trainer. 5 victories.
Source: Interview of Väinö Pokela by Finnish Virtual Pilots Association.

Me 109 G:
"- How fast could you go with it? How fast did you dare to fly in a
dive, what was the limit?
It was ... 720 (kilometers/hour), if I remember right. You weren't
supposed to exceed it but we did it many times. And as the air was thin
up there, so we often had to go vertical when escorting a photographing
plane."
- Väinö Pokela, Finnish fighter ace and Me 109 trainer. 5 victories.
Source: Interview of Väinö Pokela by Finnish Virtual Pilots Association.

"- 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.

Me 109 F/G:
"- What's the fastest you ever had a 109 in a dive?
I've taken it to about 680 to 750 km/hr at which point you needed 2
hands to pulls it out of the dive."
- Franz Stigler, German fighter ace. 28 victories. Interview of Franz
Stigler.

"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 would back owing to the excessive heaviness of the
elevator."
- RAF Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) Farnborough handling
trials,Bf.109E Wn: 1304. M.B. Morgan and R. Smelt of the RAE, 1944.

"My flight chased 12 109s south of Vienna. They climbed and we followed,
unable to close on them. At 38,000 feet I fired a long burst at one of
them from at least a 1000 yards, and saw some strikes. It rolled over
and dived and I followed but soon reached compressibility with severe
buffeting of the tail and loss of elevator control. I slowed my plane
and regained control, but the 109 got away.
On two other occasions ME 109s got away from me because the P 51d could
not stay with them in a high-speed dive. At 525-550 mph the plane would
start to porpoise uncontrollably and had to be slowed to regain control.
The P 51 was redlined at 505 mph, meaning that this speed should not be
exceeded. But when chasing 109s or 190s in a dive from 25-26,000 it
often was exceeded, if you wanted to keep up with those enemy planes.
The P 51b, and c, could stay with those planes in a dive. The P 51d had
a thicker wing and a bubble canopy which changed the airflow and brought
on compressibility at lower speeds."
- Robert C.Curtis, American P-51 pilot.