Pop Quiz...

[Tumble]

if the Heinkel aircraft were designated He-xx, the Arrado a/c were designated AR-xx, Dornier Do-xx.... why were the EARLY Messerschmitts designated bf-xx???


Answer later if no-one gets it..

[Skii]

I shall remain quiet

[Stoo]

Designed by Willie Messerschmitt in 1934, the Bf 109 was first flown in September 1935, in July 1938, the firm that initiated the design (Bayerische Flugzeugwerke AG), was redesignated Messerschmitt AG, so later Messerschmitt designs often carried the prefix "Me" instead of "Bf".

Google is your friend

[Tumble]

OK then... Skii will probably know this one too.. The Heinkel He-177.. the German heavy bomber that was in development until the end of the war... what was the Nazi's biggest mistake with this aeroplane that delayed its production due to difficult design problems?

[Allen]

It wasn't able to perform a diving bomb attack with a full load at high speeds?

And the engines caught fire a lot?

[luke313]

Hmm, rough guess... they only tested it to takeoff without bombs or any extra load, and once they did it couldn't takeoff??

[Skii]

It wasn't able to perform a diving bomb attack with a full load at high speeds?

And the engines caught fire a lot?

Pretty much

The ' Greiff ' was required not only to be able to travel long distance as a strategic bomber, but also required amazingly to dive-bomb , now in order to
enable a heavy 4 engined bomber to dive bomb you have to have some serious airframe strengthening - this added hugely to its weight.

So as a solution- the designers opted to pair the engines together on each wing to reduce drag, and as a consequence of running 2 engines at such close proximity to each other they often overheated and caught fire.

Thus it was nicknamed the 'Flaming coffin' or something to that extent.

[Tumble]

The reason Ernst Udet (dive bombing fanatic) wanted it to dive was because of it's engines. It was a 4 engine bomber, but the motors were twinned together and only drove 2 airscrews. So although it had essentially 4 engines, it was a 2 power unit aircraft. Udet saw this and demanded that it be able to dive-bomb, because the Ju-88 could, and that had two motors as well. As has already been pointed out tho - this thing being the size of a normal 4 engine bomber, it was huge, weighing in at around 70 tonnes unladen and a VERY complicated system of dive brakes had to be created, which put its production back by years. Plus yes, the motors were very prone to catching alight too....




Onto the next question (can you tell I've been reading about the Luftwaffe yet? )

Which aircraft was disregarded in favour of the bf-109 during the German rearmament 1936-39?

[Knoxville]

was it the he-112?

[Tumble]

*BING* Cookie for Knoxeh... twas indeed the He-112... a fighter with a very similar wing profile to the Spitfire... was deemed too expensive to mass produce over the Messerschmitt desgin which had much easier wing profiles.

[Stoo]

ah, are we talking about what it replaced, or the other competitors for the contract which the Me.109 eventually won?

[Tumble]

naa... there were 2 main rivals that were ready for mass-production... the 109 and the he-112... the 109 was chosen cos it could be made quicker

[Stoo]

ahh, thought so

I found quite a few pages with some nice info on the 109 actually, *so* many different versions

[Dakaras]

Ok what did the ME109 have fitted to its engine during the Battle of Britain that the Spitfire Mk1 and Hurricane MK1 did not??

[luke313]

Supercharger?

[Tumble]

Fool injection

EDIT: I did mean fuel btw....