Thread: World’s Top ‘Kill Scoring’ Fighter : Me – 109 : (Read Introduction)

At a recent air show in California, pilot Skip Holm was asked to take the Me 109 up in a mock dogfight with 2 P-51s. In the mock dogfight the 2 P-51's could not get a sight on the Me 109 because it was too maneuverable. Of course Skip was a better pilot which also made a difference.

One of the secrets of the Me109 is its wing. A unique design like no other. The Me109 used Fowler flaps and leading edge (LE) slats with a NACA 2R1 14.2 airfoil at the root so that a max lift coefficient of 2.9 could be achieved. The LE slats were used for landing and during combat maneuvers.

The P-51 and the Spitfire used a simple flap and no slats for which the max lift coefficient is 1.6 (almost one half). The Me 109 also used a forgiving airfoil. The P-51 used a NACA/NAA 45-100 laminar flow airfoil which had not been well tested and could not achieve laminar flow because of the riveted skin. With its sharp LE, the P-51 had a sharp and bad stall. As such, the Me 109 could use a smaller wing. The Me 109 had a long tail moment arm and the rudder was 50%C. As such, it could be yawed from right to left by 30 to 40 degrees to spray bullets. The P-51 could not be yawed and had to be pointed at a target. The P-51 also had a bad stall-spin characteristics from which it would often not recover. It would loose 10,000 ft of altitude in a power on stall.

With the same power in the Me109 and an empty weight of 1,700 lbs less, the climb rate of the Me109 was substantially higher that of the P-51. Its take off distance was half. The heavy gun on the Me109 shot through the engine and other guns were mounted inboard on the fuselage and shot through the prop. The P-51 and the Spitfire guns were mounted on the wing outboard of the prop. The roll inertia of the Me109 was lower allowing it to roll much much faster. Because of the fantastic handling characteristics of the Me109, the P-51 was no match for the Me 109.

The performance of the Me 109 and the Spitfire is almost the same. However, the Spitfire had an average 25-20%C plain aileron with little aerodynamic balance which, despite differential control, gave it a very heavy stick force in roll compared to the light stick force of the Me 109. With a 50% span and narrow chord, Frise, aileron, the Me109 stick forces were very low in roll. It could do a complete roll in less than 3 seconds. This was much quicker than any Allied fighter. The Me109 was more evasive than the Spitfire or the P-51 which were slow in roll and much less agile. Furthermore, the Merlin used in the Spitfire was naturally carbureted and could not operate in a negative g maneuver.