will the 109 please

Will be interesting to see how well DCS handles the 109 FM

:)

quite an interesting opinion if you are used to the former and current flight sims

:)

quite an interesting opinion if you are used to the former and current flight sims

yes I know, and the modded is worst yet :doh:

Il2 BoS seems to have done good job with their F4 FM so far even it's still pretty early stage. But it feels like Messerschmitt already. I have high hopes for Europe 1944 too...

the last question answered by Skip seems like a no brainer to him...Somehow in our sims, modern day assessments are absent in the FM's. Relying more on older pilot notes and the possibly flawed test data on liberated enemy aircraft from the 40's :)

The only thing I am cautious about when comparing the 109K to the 51D is that they had unlimited access to a real airworthy P51-D, 2 in fact.

They dont have access to a real 109K that is airworthy

So I dont know where our benchmark of realism should be

Pman

The only thing I am cautious about when comparing the 109K to the 51D is that they had unlimited access to a real airworthy P51-D, 2 in fact.

 

They dont have access to a real 109K that is airworthy

 

So I dont know where our benchmark of realism should be

 

Pman

Even now we have disagreement among people with stick time in real P-51s about the DCS P-51.

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=1958549#post1958549

So I'm not sure how much a real 109K would settle.:book:

-----------------

I am also optimistic about DCS WW2. The 109 and Spitfire will be modeled according to the best data available.

On the other hand, those who have a hard time handling the Mustang seem to hope the Spitfire IX will make them better pilots. Indeed, in many flight sims the Spitfire is the go-to plane for noobs who know nothing about BFM and think energy management is about switching off appliances. I doubt it will work out the same way in DCS WW2, and the 109 and Spitfire will end up being much more comparable in a dogfight than they have been previously.

to be fair thats one guy who's mate has a few hours in a P51, with a setup that was configured incorrectly, play the sim for 10 minutes, A recipe for disaster.

To counter that you have 7 of the most experienced warbird pilots in the world including the worlds only P51 display team with correctly configured equipment spending alot longer on the sim saying its as close as you can get without being in a Mustang.

enough said really...

The 109 will provide some interesting spectator moments watching people land it thats for sure :) From the pilots I have spoken to each of the Spitfires and Stangs have thier own special needs and you need to have a smooth touch with them to get the most out of them.

Pman

That's another 109 controversy that gets blown out of proportion. Ever seen that video of Luftwaffe pilots doing takeoffs and landings in Russia? It's no wonder they had so many accidents.:joystick:

Here it is:

That's another 109 controversy that gets blown out of proportion. Ever seen that video of Luftwaffe pilots doing takeoffs and landings in Russia? It's no wonder they had so many accidents.:joystick:

Rob Erdos did a good pdf about his experiences with the 109E from Canada where he goes into the problems with the gear, bear in mind alot of it is to do with the small fusealage, small rudder and alot of torque from that engine.

It is a sound fact that the Me109 is a dangerous beast on the ground, there is a reason pilots have to do more hours to solo on this than any other warbird

I am talking data from German testing, including wind tunnel testing and flight tests, but of course, pilot notes from captured aircraft are used, but I think that they arent as important as the technical data, remember Yo-Yo is overseeing a lot of the FM work, he seems quite precise on what data he needs and expects.

Totally agree with you :)...DCS are meticulous and I think they will deliver the best 109 available, too bad its a K as my purely personal desire is for the F... But I know the why of the K :smartass:

There is probably more myths about 109 than rest of the warbirds together :)

Fact is it was harder than many other ww2 fighter at ground, because of it landing gear configuration, center of gravity etc.

Here's some good read about it and flying the Messerschmitt in general by experienced pilots:

109 myths and facts: http://www.virtualpilots.fi/feature/articles/109myths/

Flying the black six by Dave Southwood: http://109lair.hobbyvista.com/articles/airframes/black6/bk6_flight.htm

Flying the 109 by Mark Hanna and Eric Brown: http://www.eaf51.org/newweb/Documenti/Storia/Flying_%20109_ENG.pdf

The only thing I am cautious about when comparing the 109K to the 51D is that they had unlimited access to a real airworthy P51-D, 2 in fact.

 

They dont have access to a real 109K that is airworthy

 

So I dont know where our benchmark of realism should be

 

Pman

They don't have Fw 190 D9 or Me 262 too for example but that should not be too big problem according to what Yo-Yo said in development video.

Thank you DB 605.

"Me 109 was hard/dangerous plane to take off."

- The standard takeoff procedure for 109 was to use rudder to keep the plane straight. There was basically to ways to take off the plane. Either you throttled up fairly fast and gave full right rudder, easing it off as speed increased, or you throttled up slowly so there was minimal torque effect. In practise that was similar to anybody who had flown other types before and it took usually just one flight to know how to do it. The myth that there was something hard in taking off in 109 stems mostly from highly exaggerated claims - or the fact that for new pilots converting to 109 from various trainers had not flown such highly powerful aircraft before. With proper teaching - no problems. In Germany that was rare thing in the last years of war though. The Finnish Air Force chief instructor colonel Väinö Pokela told, that one of his key points in teaching new pilots to 109s was to instruct them very carefully - and told them to forget any horror stories they've been told. He said, that many pilots were already scared from the horror stories other pilots and non pilots had been telling, and after showing how easy 109 was to handle there was seldom any problems.

- Colonel Pokela also told that most 109 crashed he had seen resulted because the pilot had forgotten to lock the tailwheel before applying takeoff power. If that happened then the pilot couldn't keep the plane straight when accelerating. Take notice that you need to push rudder in all other planes as well - for example Spitfire requires similarly full right pedal while accelerating.

- Torque can indeed send a plane off the runway during a takeoff, especially if there's a crosswind to start it off. But 109 is no different from a P-40 or a Spitfire in this situation. The bad reputation most likely comes from pilots flying it for the first and perhaps only time, and that the veteran pilot would instinctively make the adjustments needed to keep it straight while rolling on the ground.

 

"109s were so difficult to take off and land that half the 109s lost in the war were lost to take off and landing accidents."

- 5 % of the 109's were lost in take off/landing accidents.

 

"11,000 of the 33,000 built were destroyed during takeoff and landing accidents - one third of its combat potential!" (direct quote)

"Me-109 had an astonishing 11,000 takeoff/landing accidents resulting in destruction of the a/c! That number represents roughly one-third of the approximately 33,000 such a/c built by Germany." (usual internet claim)

- Source: FLIGHT JOURNAL magazine

- The magazine has it wrong or has misintepretated the numbers. Luftwaffe lost about 1500 Me-109's in landing gear failures. Note that German loss reports often lump destroyed and damaged (10 to 60% damaged) together. It was also a standard practise to rebuild even heavily damaged airframes. While rebuilding/refurnishing these planes were also upgraded to the latest standards and latest equipment. This means that large proportion of these damaged/destroyed planes were not complete losses, but returned to squadron service.

 

"The specific problem with the Bf 109 was the very narrow / weak undercarriage track."

- Narrow landing gear was not that uncommon at the time - all biplanes also had narrow landing gear. Me 109's undercarriage was connected to the fuselage rather than the wings. This had several reasons. Most importantly the wings were easily and quickly changed if needed, without special preparations or tools. Wings were also one single structure, which made it possible to make them very strong. Because this the plane needed some care when operating. The claim that the narrow undercarriage was a problem is a myth, though. In comparison the undercarriage of Supermarine Spitfire was even narrower - it had its own share of problems from this. Imagine what it was to takeoff and land the Spitfire's carrier version to carriers for example? Especially later marks of Spitfire with enormous amount of installed power were quite a handful to operate. But that is conveniently usually ignored.

- 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.

- 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. Because this it was easier for a small sideswing to develop into a groundloop or the plane might drift off the runway, if the pilot was not awake. Of course, if the tailwheel was not locked, the tendency would be pronounced and more difficult to counter. As with any plane.

- Contrary to the popular myth, the landing gear could take the plane 'dropping' in from about 8-10 feet.

 

"The 109 was flown down to the runway at relatively high speed and "wheel" landed: it was to make sure the leading edge slats did not deploy. Because of the high speed at touchdown, there was more time for something to go wrong during the rollout, and it often did."

- Now that is some science fiction. For example the Finnish Me 109s always did stall landings, because the airfields were mostly very smal. The landings were almost similar to carrier landings - the plane approached field in shallow descending turn, aligning to the runway just seconds before touchdown. By "hanging" in the air at stall speed, with slats open, the plane touched down at minimum speed at three points and the pilot could apply full brakes immediately. 109 had very good brakes and the gear was so forward, that the was no worries about nosing over with full braking. Landing could be made with higher speeds, slats not open, or they could intentionally be "popped" out even in higher speed approach (take notice: pilot did not have direct control on the slats, but he could still force them out by creating right flight condition). "Stall landing" to three points with slats open was the favoured method in Finland though. And don't forget, there was even a carrier version of the Messerchmitt, and you just don't land to carrier at high speeds. Of course these planes didn't actually operate from carrier, they they were built and operated by normal squadrons.

- As a side note, Finnish pilots who visited Germany on war time and saw some of the German training or how the German combat pilots took off and landed their planes, they were quite horrified. German training in '44 seemed very rough and no 3 points landings was taught to the pilots, who approached with high speeds and came down on two wheels. At that time Germans put as many pilots through the training as possible, and didn't bother to teach the finer things about piloting to the green pilots. The runways were paved and long, so the finesse of "good" landings could be ignored.

There is probably more myths about 109 than rest of the warbirds together :)

Fact is it was harder than many other ww2 fighter at ground, because of it landing gear configuration, center of gravity etc.

 

Here's some good read about it and flying the Messerschmitt in general by experienced pilots:

 

109 myths and facts: http://www.virtualpilots.fi/feature/articles/109myths/

 

Flying the black six by Dave Southwood: http://109lair.hobbyvista.com/articles/airframes/black6/bk6_flight.htm

 

Flying the 109 by Mark Hanna and Eric Brown: http://www.eaf51.org/newweb/Documenti/Storia/Flying_%20109_ENG.pdf

thanks, I will enjoy the read

Thank you DB 605.

a lot of the good stuff, thanks...there is a video out there of a one legged kinda hard landing. Seems the 109 legs were not terribly fragile from watching that. All the sims I've flown, the 109 is very nose heavy while braking. Just seems off to me, to be so tippy I wonder if it is accurate.

"Keep the tail down initially, keep it straight by feel rather than any positive technique... tail coming up now... once the rudders effective. Unconcious corrections to the rudder are happening all the time. It's incredcibly entertaining to watch the '109 take off or land. The rudder literally flashes around!" - Mark Hanna

I REALLY look forward to this experience :)

I'm a noob but I don't have a problem with taking off or landing the Mustang. But, then, that's all I do know how to do! :-D I've been practising against cargo planes but even then, I get shot down. Maybe it's self inflicted?

On a serious note, I had an engine failure the other day (enabled) and tried a restart. Much to my surprise, every time I hit the starter, I could feel the torque twist the plane. Absolutely awesome!

Flying the Messerschmitt Bf-109E - by Rob Erdos, Vintage Wings of Canada

Flying the Messerschmitt Bf-109E - by Rob Erdos, Vintage Wings of Canada

In case this has been missed by some this is a fantastic insight into the E-1.

Relevent to this discussion is the undercarriage of the 109, why it was done like this and the pro's and con's thereof.

Its a really entertaining article with some interesting comments all round. Well worth a read.

http://www.vintagewings.ca/VintageNews/Stories/tabid/116/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/124/language/fr-FR/Bouncing-Clouds--Flying-the-Messerschmitt-Bf-109.aspx

Rob Erdos did a good pdf about his experiences with the 109E from Canada where he goes into the problems with the gear, bear in mind alot of it is to do with the small fusealage, small rudder and alot of torque from that engine.

 

It is a sound fact that the Me109 is a dangerous beast on the ground, there is a reason pilots have to do more hours to solo on this than any other warbird

Flying the Messerschmitt Bf-109E - by Rob Erdos, Vintage Wings of Canada

 

In case this has been missed by some this is a fantastic insight into the E-1.

 

Relevent to this discussion is the undercarriage of the 109, why it was done like this and the pro's and con's thereof.

 

Its a really entertaining article with some interesting comments all round. Well worth a read.

 

http://www.vintagewings.ca/VintageNews/Stories/tabid/116/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/124/language/fr-FR/Bouncing-Clouds--Flying-the-Messerschmitt-Bf-109.aspx

Yeah thats the one I was speaking about

Good Read

Yeah thats the one I was speaking about

 

Good Read

Sorry pman, never saw that as I just skimmed the post.

Never the less a informative article.

I always knew the 109 was more temperamental on the ground , take off and landings as well but never really understood why.

I thought it was a result of a shorter distance between the wheels, wrongly so.

Rob clarifies this point succinctly in his write up.

They dont have access to a real 109K that is airworthy

There is (was?) however an airworthy G-10 which is pretty much the same thing as the K (disclaimer: yeah "its actually a Buchon" - whatever) plus a lots experience flying a G-2, which is not that far.

Yeah thats the one I was speaking about

 

Good Read

That should come in handy for Yo Yo if he reads the article, it was very informative for me