Climb rate of P-40M vs. Me-109 G-2

[Juke]

I was amazed when reading the files of FAF fighters and realized that Curtiss P-40M Kittyhawk III had 11 min 30 secs to get to 6 000 meters and 5 minutes with a Me 109.

Spitfire IX was in par with 109. Mk I was not much better than a Warhawk.

La-5fn took 5 minutes to get to 16 400 feet.

See for yourself:

http://www.musketeers.org/Aircraft.htm

See also this topic:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... sc&start=0

Could someone explain that extraordinary outstanding climb rate of the Bf-109 ?

[gnome]

Hey Juke

How's it going? I'm a visitor from Flypast (our forum's down).

The answer to your question relates to basic design philosophy, check the website referenced below, it's pretty accurate ...

http://www.chuckhawks.com/me-109.htm

conceptually, the Bf 109 was basically the smallest airframe that Willy Messerschmitt could devise attached to the most powerful engine

.

In my words ... the 109 was lightweight. Compared with its contemporaries it didn't have much, if any, all out speed advantage (aerodynamics the limitation there), turn rate was limited by (pilots being freaked out by perceived) high wing-loading, and armament was always a bug-bear - the more cannons etc. added to wing or cowling, the more the sleek aerodynamics were compromised. But it was light, so acceleration and climb rate were outstanding.

cheers, gnome

[STURMVOGEL 262]

Hey hey Juke , G' day again from Phil downunder .

This is the second time I have been off line for a few week's, and when I got back on flypast is down again , Sh*t Happen's .

Yep the 109 was fast climbing with a big donk up front and not much behind it .

Funny you bringing up 109's, as I have been reading Messerschmitt Bf 109 AT WAR by Armand Van Ishoven for the tenth time again.

The only major fault with them would have to be the rickerty undercarridge, there was talk early on in it's life of fixing this problem, but it never happened after all .

So all 33,000+ had the shaky undercart's(Spit's not much safer).
Just how many were lost because of this I wonder ? .

And reading combat report's over the year's it seem's it's lite weight and build made it a bit more fragile to combat damage, wing's breaking off often.

Cheer's Juke , Tally Ho! Phil in Oz .

[Juke]

109 gear had an other oddity see the angles of the wheels here:

[airnutz]

Hey Juke..nice shot of the Finn 109. I've been curious about 109 tire wear.
Did the mechanics..at some point of service, "flip the tires around" in
order to extend the life of the tires? Perhaps a question the Buchon
guys could readily answer?

Juke, got any photos of the Finn 109 Air Racers? or other Finn 109's?

http://img48.exs.cx/img48/6472/Utti_109_racers.jpg

color rendition
http://wp.scn.ru/camms/en/ww2/f/33/88/0/1

[airnutz]

I edited the color rendition link..they had updated the complete site since
Oct when I was last the. A great site! Wonder for hours...Wings Palette..

http://wp.scn.ru/camms/en/news

[Juke]

Hello !

Here is another from 1971 runup of MT-507 !





Some of the pics in your link are borrowed from here:

http://www.sci.fi/~ambush/faf/fighters.html

[Juke]

Juke, got any photos of the Finn 109 Air Racers? or other Finn 109's?

http://img48.exs.cx/img48/6472/Utti_109_racers.jpg

No those are rare really. The one in your photo is MT-508.

Here are two 109s. See low visibility insignias.

http://img54.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img54&im ... 09s9ks.png

[Juke]

Re edited:

here is the P-40M Kittyhawk that I got interested in the first place:

http://img131.exs.cx/my.php?loc=img131& ... 40m4vk.png

[airnutz]

Juke, thanks for photo of captured P-40M KH-51 and the 109's. I
appreciate the Faf/fighters page..but something is wrong with it. Not
all of the page shows and part of the page runs off screen. Maybe the
site has a problem..or it's my old computer? I'll try to sort it out.
I really wish there were more images of the 109 "Racers".

But, thank-you very much for your reply.