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Aviation History
1940
1940 - 3013.PDF
OCTOBER 24, 1940 Enemy Aircraft—IV NAZI FIGHTER 347 In this photograph of the German single-seat fighter can be seen the three-bladed airscrew,the two wing guns, the sideways-retracting undercarriage and the mass-balanced ailerons. The flaps are down, as the machine has just lande'd and is taxying in. THE Messerschmitt Me 109 has borne the full burdenof air fighting for the Luftwaffe, or perhaps it wouldbe more correct to say the combination of German pilot and Me 109, for the horse is nothing without the rider.But the combination has failed against the fighter pilots of the Royal Air Force, with their efficient and trustworthyHurricanes and Spitfires, and some of the reason can be found in the Me 109 as a fighting aeroplane. The remainderof the reason needs no elaboration here, for the pilots of the Royal Air Force have proved themselves again andagain, and so have the design offices and workshops of the factories which have made the equipment which they fly. Formerly the Me 109 shared with the Heinkel He 112the distinction of being Germany's fighter, but the Heinkel was dropped to allow all fighter production to be concen-trated on one type, a scheme which has the obvious advan- tage of increasing the size of order and so speedingproduction. (It also had the advantage of allowing the Heinkel firm to concentrate on bombers.) So the Me 109became Germany's only fighter, and it does not seem that the choice has been a particularly ,happy one. In the early part of the war statements were made thatthe Me 109 was liable to flutter, but just how far these can be substantiated is not clear. It has also been stated The switch on theknob of the throttle lever which the pilotuses to alter air- screw pitch. Whilepitch is changing the the pitch indicatorhands go round. The pitch required is setwith reference to the rev counter. The Messerschmitt Me 109 : A German Design Which Just Missed Being a Success that the Me 109 was designedto fly on a smaller engine of only about 750 h.p., and thatsome of its undesirable char- acteristics came from thegreater speed which it de- veloped when a Mercedes-Benz DB601A of 1,150 h.p. take-off rating was installed,but in wartime many state- ments are made about theenemy's equipment. It has been rather thefashion among many writers to dismiss the enemy aircraftwith scorn, particularly on the question of instrument equipment. Frequently this judgment has not been borneout by detailed inspection, but in the case of the Me 109 the cockpit is not so well provided with what the pilotmay want as most other types are. It does look as though the Luftwaffe thought about its fighters as the air-raidshelters were thought about in this country. They wouldn't really be needed—not very much at any rate—so a second-ciass job was made to do. The Luftwaffe probably expected to bomb its way to aquick victory (as it did in France and Poland and, though not so quickly, in Spain), with the fighters playing asecondary part. But it has not been so easy, nor will it be, and though it is unlikely that Germany will rest con-tent with the Me 109 as her only single-seat fighter, a3 Messerschmitt fuselage construction has a longitudinal jointon top and bottom of the metal shell. Alternate plates have their edges flanged up into Z section " frames " and arejoggled to give smooth joints. Riveting is flush and the stringers pass through the " frames " without attachment tothem. Top and bottom stringers are of double width to allow the plates to butt on them and so avoid lap joints.
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