A fun fact that probably won't keep you awake at night: the guy who did major work on the Spitfire's undercarriage, Owen Finlay Maclaren, went on to design a folding baby stroller in the 1960s!
On poor airfields in Russia, many pilots preferred the poor me109 landing gear because it collapsed upon bad landings whereas the sturdy FW190 gear flipped you over and broke your neck.
@@SportyMabamba I think the Luftwaffe's crystal ball was a bit cloudy regarding designing fighter aircraft for the actual airfields and conditions they operated on, hence the pilot preference especially ones of lesser skill for avoiding broken necks is perfectly understandable. Likewise, I would imagine Reginald Mitchell did not ever envisage his design would be taking off and landing from carrier decks. In wars, protagonists tend to fight how they can not how they ought to which means using what you have even if it is sub optimal
@@Ireton you could give them a bit of a break, they were designing planes before most of the logistics of using those planes were worked out. the allies could afford the metal to put grating down, or outright pave the runways, germany not so much. most of its counterparts were designed later like the mustang, spitfire, or w/e the russians had
One reason why germans had so much problems with the me-109 landing gear was that they landed on the main carriage with high speed while finns had very little problems with the me-109 landing gear doing three point landing at lower speed. Yes, the landing gear of me-109 was problematic but the much bigger problem was the poor training of german pilots at later half of ww2.
Luftwaffe were normally trained for 3 point landing. They were really scolded for not doing that. But you are correct. Training was important. But people tend to forget that the Spitfire was just as bad, if not worse then the 109.
@@kamata93 And they navalized the Spitfire in large numbers (certainly larger than the Bf-109T I'd bet.) Imagine all the problems of the Spit/109, but now on a landing strip that's bouncing, rolling, and moving. Oh and much shorter.
@@kylebrady969 Why all the naval spits were shoved overboard for Wildcats before Hellcats were even available... read somewhere that the Spitfire had a 25% chance of wrecking itself when landing on a carrier(half of these wrecks were due to fuselage tailhook stresses). So, in less than 2 full sorties 50% of the Spitfires were destroyed by carrier landings, and in less than a week of sorties, the whole enchilada were written off and dumped in the sea. Something like 800 Seafires were made and in less than 2 years of operations 780 of them were destroyed in landings... OUCH! Talk about bad... That is beyond pitiful.
two points landing were forbiden in Luftwaffe training rules , only 3 points for fighters ; and for the spit it have a tendancy to nose over but in counter part it run straight without rudder (only torque correction) or brake input when it is on flight line attitude , the wheels of the 109 are so far front of the CoG that also in flight line attitude it have tendancy to ground loops , on paved runaway only goods pilots can handle a bf109 ; as a large scale builder of model airplanes i can say that when it was stricly scale the bf 109 is the worst plane to deal with on ground , the p47 is the most friendly warbird as the real one !!!!
@@kamata93 correct! Since the BF/Me 109 went in service the the Germans pilots was trained to do 3 point landing but nevertheless a lot of pilots lost their lives on this airplane as it was equally dangerous to take off!
Hmm... Now the wing will have to take a high g turn anyways, right? So if we assume that the landing load is twice the max g turn (20 g vs 10 g, which sounds roughly reasonable), then your center of lift could have double the offset from the root of the wing than the landing gear and both would create equal wing bending. This is of course a very rough and dirty way to calculate it and it is 1 am and I should probably sleep... might think about it more tomorrow. A big advantage of mounting the LDG to the fuselage is that you can remove the wings without needing to prop up the fuselage, so you can easily move it around without the wings which is a big plus during manufacturing.
@@spoeny - I don't think it's all that directly proportional to compare the stress against rolling on the ground between that of a spread aerodynamic stress. Besides I haven't read anything that suggests the 109 was worse off aerodynamic for it. Rather the trade off between say the 190 in that regard was that the 190 better tolerated battle damage.
I think you missed one big thing about the changes in performance and the changes in pilot training. The first Bf 109s had less than 700hp max power, while that almost tripled with late versions of the plane. This means that the produced engine torque also significantly increased, making the gear problem even bigger. Meanwhile the quality of pilot training deteriorated further and further during the war with the ever growing need for new pilots. Couple these things together and you have a big reason for why the gear is generally seen as a critical flaw nowadays.
Great video. Most historians will tell you that another main factor in the the narrow gear design was to allow the aircraft to be roll-on/roll-off capable on train wagons. The Junkers Ju-52 fuselage width was also designed around this specification. With the wings of the Ju removed, the fuselage would fit on a standard flatbed train wagon. And by removing the inner portion of the trailing edge of the wings, they could also be transported on a train wagon in the vertical position and not exceed the maximum DIN height for train transport. A similar specification was designed into the BF-109 landing gear maximum width, which allowed it to be transported on a train wagon with the wings removed. I liked the Pirelli tires!
Bismarck, could you discuss the never-built Me-109H series. 1: Long wings meant for high altitude. 2: Reworked landing gear with a wider stance. 3: I may be wrong, but I think the DB603 was intended for it. Might be the DB605T, but I recall this plane as a little weird.
The Me 109H was the the high altitude fighter using as much as possible components from the Me 109G-5 with stretched wings and tailplane and the production series was powered by the DB 605 with GM-1 boost. Built in small quantities it did various sorties to England and at least one converted as a long-range reconnaissance and flew over the coast of Normandy apparently flying up to 15,000 mt. Although quite effective the 109H program was scrapped because of wing flutters problems. Regarding the DB 603, no matter how they tried, simply couldn't be installed because it it was too large for such a narrow frame and would have have required extensive modifications...
@@MarvinT0606 very true and at least one Fiat G56 flew, a variant to accommodate the bigger DB 605 engine. The Germans that flew the G 55 had nothing but praise for this airplane but had a problem that shared with all the Italian airplanes: it suffered from very slow and difficult production process that one of the reasons for which the G.55 program was eventually abandoned by the Luftwaffe. Early production of G.55 required about 15,000 man-hours; while there were estimates to reduce the effort to about 9,000 man-hours. In comparison the well-practiced German factories were able to assemble a Bf 109 in only 5,000 man-hours!
@@paoloviti6156 At one point they got it down to 4000 hours but quality suffered and some were dangerous to fly even though they were new with zero hours airframes.
When I was a child 25 years ago I watched lots of history documentaries about the war. Many of those spoke briefly about the bf109 and it's contribution to the war effort and this matter regarding the narrow width of the gear was brought up several times. I have wondered why this is the case since I was a child, and you have helped solve this. Thank you for illuminating this very nebulous part of history for me which I have been wondering about for so long.
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Watch the video of the Panther compared to the Sherman. The Panther left the Sherman in the dust, going uphill, over obstacles, through deep snow. It is impressive, but not definitive.
If you learned to fly on a Bücker 131 as a Primary, the 109s would seem easy. And having a Narrow Gear on Muddy Terrain definetly has some Upsides because it doesn't have the Leverage to violently pull the Nose around, and Servicability of Wings that can be removed like on a Glider is absolutely amazing. A 190 needs Cranes to Lift the Fuselage from the Wings, on the 109 6 Guys can simply remove 3 Bolts and some Lines to Lift of the Wings and fit new Ones. So even if you bend it, no big Deal, new Wings can be fitted in a Jiffy.
Wonderful video, I agree entirely, while not ideal, it wasn't a fatal flaw and probably not that much worse than a typical U.S. fighter. I liked seeing the reference to A.F.N.A.
Sonnenrad - yeah, Spit had the same kind of problem with landing gear been retracted outwards(although not as pronounced as Me-109), so better look at the accident rate of contemporary aircraft that had inward retracting landing gear, otherwise you not going to see a contrast.
Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles - Oh, Greg I’m frankly did not expect this post from you... There are many Luftwaffe pilot interview that switched to FW-190 because it had a better landing gear, and was a sturdier airframe albeit at expense of lesser performance then 109, they just did not want to ground loop and nose over death. 109’s 6 digress toe out camber is a killer, especially on less then perfect runway with mud and path holes, 109 landing gear just asking for trouble, add small rudder to counter ever increasing Me-109’s engine torque, and you got a winner(I mean killer, especially for a less experienced Luftwaffe pilot toward the end of the war). I would not definitively conclude that 109’s landing gear problem was a totally none event aka -> red herring.
16:10: Ah, here we see two Bf-109's in the wild, during mating season. Messerschmidt couplings can be quite violent - here the male has aggressively broken the female's vertical stabilizer.
And removal in the Field without any Equipment other than Hand Tools and some Men in less than 30 Minutes. Having to Lift a 190 off it's Wing is more if a Job. And on a Muddy Runway the Narrow Gear won't Ground Loop as easily, where a 190, once stuck in a Rut has several Meters of Leverage to pull you around. If you learned to fly on an original Bücker 131, the 109 was an easy Plane to operate. The 109 was built by Guys who applied similar Philosophies to Warplanes as to Gliders.
@Sonnenrad The center of gravity was fairly far behind the main gear, which gave the aircraft a longer lever arm if it started to swing in a ground loop, and it was possible for the swing to overcome the force the brakes could exert to stop it. Ultimately, it comes down to training and experience.
I am a real pilot and taildragger aircraft with small rudder and vertical stabilizers will need to have their tails kept on the ground until enough airflow over their small control surfaces produces enough authority to over come the P-factor
Transit wouldn't be the only reason. Take a look at a shop in a local flying club near you and imagine having a 109 and 190 in a shop without the wings for some reason. Then you need to make room for another aircraft, because those 2 are less important or waiting for spare parts. 109 would just roll out and for 190 you need some kind of a moving platform. You're also in a hurry.
I read Heinz Knoke's book I Flew For The Fuhrer and he mentions about himself going for his first solo flight in the Me-109 which was also his first flight in the 109. He was watching the pilot who was doing his first solo just before Knoke's did his and as the aircraft came in to land it crashed killing the pilot. Having seen his fellow pilot die he was immediately told to take his flight. You can just imagine how nerve wracking that must have been. It does make you wonder why trainer aircraft were not introduced sooner.
The BCATP ran a series of pilot training that omitted the primary trainer (typically the De Havilland Tiger Moth) and went straight to the Harvard advanced trainer. The training cycle wasn't sufficiently shortened to warrant the major change in procedure. Pilot and aircraft losses weren't significantly affected.
Trainer aircraft have been around pretty much since the beginning of military aviation. However when you need as much production as possible for war on the scale of WW2, it makes no sense to to have even a single production line dedicated to trainer aircraft, when you could use that line to make more fighters
This is the type of issue when you get when designing a vehicle for professionals vs conscript or Expert vs Novice. The Gear would be less on an issue for experienced pilots, but would challenge new flyers. Planes that were designed around conscript flyers rather than career pros tend towards fewer Bad habits, even if it meant slightly lower performance.
So you also have a weight benefit to putting the gear stress on the fuselage and not the wing spars. Once in the air you want the best power to weight ratio right? Its not a car, its a fighter plane. Also a low hour pilot wasn't that valuable. It only mattered if you killed your experience/skilled pilots.
The problem with the 109 gear is that the wheels have a lot of "toe out". Willie Messerschmit wanted a clean looking plane with no wheel fairings on the top of the wing, so he made the wheels fit into the wing parallel to the wing chord line. When the gear is extended, the wheels are toe'd out, which is a highly directionally unstable situation (even if it had a nose wheel). With no toe out, the wheels would have needed a small fairing (hump) on the upper wing skin since the wheels would be at an angle to the chord line. Test pilots told Willie to fix the problem, but Willie's ego would not let him put a "hump" in the wing skin (even if it was aerodynamically insignificant). The Spitfire had a narrower gear track than the 109, so the 109's narrow gear was not the issue. Nearly all planes of the era were "taildraggers" and pilots were familiar with their handling characteristics, which were considered "normal". Landing fast or slow makes no difference, and a faster "wheel" landing is actually more helpful in maintaining aerodynamic control, particularly in a 109 which is a bit skimpy in the fin/rudder department anyway. Toe out (wheels angle out) is unstable and any yaw is amplified by the toe out, which gets exponentially worse as the yaw (difference between the where the wheels/nose are pointed and the path the aircraft is going) increases. This was an easy thing to fix. Willie's ego was not. I skimmed through the video and didn't notice this fault being mentioned. I'll watch the whole video later, as it is still interesting to watch. I hope it does get mentioned in the video since it's the reason for the 109's poor ground handling (small fin/rudder doesn't help matters).
correct me if i'm wrong, but if the toe out would be corrected and the axis on which the wheel arm svivels to be retracted is tilted a few degrees no hump should be needed. Yes it is less needed thinking involved to just change the toe and put a hump on the wing, but i think it to be a much more elegant solution to change the angle of the axis.
No the G had Bumps in the top surface of the wing to accommodate some (but not all) of the camber being taken out of the wheels. That and the upper deck 13mm breach covers earned the G the title of the Bump.
@@leifvejby8023 Correct. He's not a taildragger pilot or he'd know that toe-IN is bad; mild toe-OUT is actually good. And then he confused toe- in and out with camber, probably because someone else did and he just memorized what they said.
Another problem with the 109 gear is the extreme negative chamber of the wheels. Negative camber is less stable in straight line motion which, of course, is the path that aircraft take when taking off and landing. I’m not aware of any other aircraft that had such an excessive negative camber. Clearly the designers wanted to get as much spread on the wheels as possible with fuselage mounted gear and took extreme liberty with the camber to get there. No WWII military aircraft or post WWII civilian tailwheel aircraft that I’ve ever seen have negative camber like this. I’ve flown a lot of different tailwheel aircraft...in fact, I own one....and in my opinion the 109 gear looks just wrong. It has to be an absolute bear on pavement. Grass would be more forgiving to some extent. Research aside, I’ll bet there were TONS of ground loops. Keep in mind that many if not most ground loop accidents end up with a scraped wingtip which could be repaired easy enough and not show up as a major accident or total loss. Also, the 109 looks to have a relatively small rudder which, when combined with the gear setup, would cause the plane to be even more prone to ground loops in a cross wind. Great video, by the way. Very well produced and quite interesting.
Right about the camber. One overlooked effect of this is camber thrust. The right wheel is exerting a leftward force as it rolls and the left wheel is exerting a rightward force. If both wheels are equally loaded and are running on similar surfaces, the forces balance and the plane runs straight. However, if the plane starts to veer to, say, the left, load transfers to the right wheel and its leftward lateral force becomes greater than the rightward force from the left wheel. The resultant is a net leftward force at the front, tending to exaggerate the yaw moment. This explains the frequent ground loops and wingtip touchdowns.
I've been studying aircraft and aviation history since I was about 3 years old, and 23 years later I'm still learning new stuff. Keep up the great work!
Very good video. Like most people, all I consider is the flaw I am concentrating on at the time. "Why didn't they see that and fix it?" This explains clearly why the 109's landing gear was what it was. It wasn't a flaw or an oversight. It was a design choice.
Thanks for the video. Didn't mention one critical point which is the importance of locking the tailwheel before takeoff and landing. After taxiing the machine about with an unlocked tailwheel, if you forgot to lock the tailwheel then you stood a tremendous chance of ground-looping the machine on take-off and likewise upon landing. That tailwheel lock was there for a very important reason.
The (FM-2 “Wilder”) Wildcat was a great asset to the Fleet Air Arm, bringing it to nearly the level of the fighter opposition. It was also an aircraft specifically designed for modern carrier operations, thereby setting new standards for British designers in the field. The Wildcat was a potent fighter, with splendid maneuverability, good performance, heavy firepower, and excellent range and endurance. On top of this, it was a superb deck-landing aircraft. - Captain Eric 'Winkle' Brown: Duels in the Sky
missed out on the retracting gear on the FF1, F2F, F3F, Curtis, etc- the US Navy may have been late to the monoplane show.. but they were early adapters of retracting landing gear.
Context - for the standards of the time. The US Navy got away from narrow landing gear as quick as it could. The otherwise excellent Avenger torpedo/bomber suffered from the narrow stance, but was able to land a bit slower I believe since it was such a stable flyer. Context - the Avenger was also a 1930's design.
@@gort8203 The last "Martlet" was the "V" the British name for the FM-1 Wildcat. By the time that model was replaced by the upgraded FM-2, the British had switched to using the US names for aircraft, and thus the FM-2 aircraft became "Wildcat VI"
Great channel thanks for covering the early problems with landing gear . I had the privilege of building two MK1a spitfire wings . The 1a suffered taxi nose over problems so later Mk were altered with a simple aluminum wedge situated on landing gear pintol fitting . This would put the main gear wheels more forwards negating this Nose over . Hence the mechanics would sit on the tail while taxing out. No pintol fittings exist anymore for the MK1 so pintol fitting from a later MK were used , however the holes are now at different angle these were reamed up and slightly oversized bolts used on the build .
Its funny how "they did it like that because they had always done it like that" is a very reasonable argument... one should always be careful with hindsight
Awesome video man the 109 to me is one of the most badass mean looking yet elegant and most successful fighters every made I’ll take the sketchy ground handling
Glad you responded, nobody responds on this site. BF-109 is a cool bird, just needed a little bit of tweeking to be the best. The FW-190 was truly the sntizle, its a flying tank with prop blades that smack the air on the cheeks. LOL!
I'm reaching back a few decades but I owned a Luscombe 8E. It had narrow high gear similar to the 109. I'll never forget my instructor telling me after my tailwheel checkout, that if I made it back to my home base, to mail him my logbook to sign. He wouldn't sign me off otherwise. I made it home ok and never mailed him my logbook. I later got a local instructor to sign it. I owned a couple of more taildraggers after the Luscombe. I never groundlooped or even came close but there were some nervous moments until I got some time under my belt.
Super job putting this often criticized tech into the context of the times. After reading Eric Hartmann's autobiography, I get the sense that this was a problem for inexperienced pilots. Engineers made the decision to place importance on aircraft performance (weight/thin wings) on the assumption that well-trained pilots could handle landing the aircraft. Certainly a flaw in the design but understandable based on lineage, timing and performance expectations.
I would contest the claim that having a narrow gear attached near the wing root is necessarily simpler from a design perspective. The hydraulics for the main gear in this configuration would have to be squeezed in right where the engine firewall and oil cooler would likely be. Moving the pivot point farther out along the span allows for a less cluttered forward fuselage.
When did he say that He said that its simpler to make the wings foldable with central landing gear, or when did he say that the design would be easier?
Good job with this video. I've often wondered about this type of undercarriage and why the BF 109 got such a bad wrap while the Spitfire, with essentially the same format, was hardly criticised.
Roland Felice - Spitfire did not have 6 degrees toe out camber as Me-109 did, that exasperated the problem of Me-109, while Spit did not have this problems. Both aircraft was problematic on take off and landing. Quite a few RAF pilots mentioning this problem as well when comparing Spit to Hawker Hurricanes
There seemed to be very few real flaws with the design characteristics of the BF109... I think I’d rather have the gear flaw than less armour like the Zero or poor dogfighting issues like the XP 39 Airacobra above 15000 feet.
Speaking of poor dogfighting the 109 could not turn. Everything it came up against could out turn it. And better visibility, particularity to the rear. Oh and more range.
Thank you for referring to the US as “United States” and not “American”. I’m so over hearing experts saying the words interchangeably. The US is only part of America, I am saying that as a person from the US. A very interesting discussion. Thanks.
That description of the Bf 109’s landing gear by Generalleutnant Funck strikes me as being entertainingly engineer-esque. His insistence on the term “rackety” delighted me, in particular.
@@johnbockelie3899 They are similar but not identical i think, the angle of the spitfires shocks is straight while the 109 is quite angled. And when retracting the spitfires angle back a bit (back in the direction of flight) while the 109s are straight. Not sure anymore where i read it, but the comment of some germans seeing the spitfire the first time who knew the 109 said something like "we are building a fighter, they build a sportsplane"
Narrow landing gear is problematic for taildraggers (conventional landing gear) because it makes it more difficult to stop a ground loop once one begins. Taildraggers have this problem due to their center of gravity being behind the main gear. However, the problem is easier to deal with if you take off and land directly into the wind (Ie no crosswind component). Aircraft designed in the 30s and earlier are the more likely to have narrow gear because so much of the early flying was done from air"fields" rather than air"strips" (runways). If you are operating out of a big flat field, you can always takeoff and land directly into the wind. This makes groundlooping less likely though not impossible. Carrier flight operations are also conducted directly into the wind. As runways became more common, newer designs were more likely to have wider landing gear. This didn't last long, tricycle gear aircraft soon became the predominant form of landing gear.
Awesome video man! Really loving this channel. Could you make a video about something relatively obscure, such as aviation during the Falklands War? I would watch that for sure.
Royal Hungarian Air Force might disagree with the statement that the Messer had a weak gear. In February 1944 a Hungarian Bf-109G-6 landed behind Soviet lines on a field covered in half meter deep snow to rescue a downed wingman. (The brave pilot was Lt. Miklós Kenyeres, and Lt. György Debrődy was the one he rescued.) The landing was successful, and after ditching the canopy and the parachute they both squeezed themselves into the cockpit and even managed to take off over the head of the Soviet infantry closing in to capture them. Then they landed at the airfield at Uman. During the final approach and flaring Debrődy had to sit on the fuselage so Kenyeres can straighten himself out and see what's ahead. Admittedly though, this was a super extraordinary piloting feat and nobody ever managed (or was a fool enough to try to manage) it again. Although there was an American pilot who rescued his wingman the same way with a P-51 Mustang.
High usage of sod field airports on captured ground in miserable weather with high performance first generation aircraft. The Germans used a lot of horses for transportation, too, and I am sure they used some to tow leveling and maintenance equipment, which gave mediocre results. The problem is that modern researchers have not landed a taildragger on a sod runway in miserable condition, and having to do so because of combat requirements. I landed a taildragger on sod fields many times and it is always a risk dependent on the condition of the airfield. One pothole and it is accident time. And I never was worn out from flying too much that day, never shot at, and my aircraft was maintained to standard, flown to standard, and not worn out from combat. Nothing wrong with German pilots and their Bf109 was adequate under normal conditions. Enjoyed the video, thanks for posting.
If I'm remembering the photographs I've seen correctly, the landing gear arrangement was also used during manufacturing, to allow the Bf-109 fuselage to be moved through the factory without requiring a support frame once the landing gear was attached, thereby reducing some of the production complexity.
Excellent video. Having grown up as an airplane enthusiast in the post-war U.S., I prefer the "Me" designator. That's what the American aviators and official literature at the time called it. Interesting to learn that the Germans used both "Me" and "Bf."
I read an interesting comment from a WWII pilot who flew the 109. It was generally understood that during the takeoff roll the pilot had to carefully open the throttle because too much sudden power could cause the plane to veer off to the left, overcoming full application of rudder to the right. Their solution was to takeoff with application of continuous FULL right rudder, and to steer the plane with the throttle. More throttle for left turn, less throttle for right. This gave full control since the rudder was incapable of overpowering the turning tendencies from the engine. (Keep in mind that precise control wasn't needed - the 109s often were taking off from huge grass fields, not from narrow runways).
Given the relative newness of cantilever wing designs at that time, and the overriding concern that they be strong enough to take flight loads, I can understand the reluctance to add to the wing stresses by mounting the landing gear in the wings.
The wing supports the total weight of the aircraft. Weight carried in the wings actually results in less stress on the wings than weight carried in the fuselage due to less bending moment. This is why transport airplanes have a maximum zero fuel weight listed as well as a structural gross weight. You can only carry so much weight in the fuselage because the weight there tries to bend the wings upwards. This limits the amount of payload you can carry even if your fuel tanks are near empty. You can fill the wings with fuel up to maximum gross weight without concern for the zero fuel weight. Carrying the landing gear in the fuselage of a fighter puts more flight load on the wings than carrying it in the wing does.
If I remember correctly, one of the main design objectives of the supermarine spiteful, the proposed successor to the spitfire, was to have a wider inward folding undercarriage to improve ground handling characteristics.
Probably, the design issues were load path and finding room for the early style of cylinders and actuators. Inboard struts take the forces directly to the strongest part of the aircraft structure and after a bit of experience the mechanisms could be engineered to fit in a thin wing.
And the fact that the Luftwaffe pilots flew several combat missions each day, day after day. As a result, they were tired, burned out etc. That must have had a big effect on their performance and handling the plane, causing them to make 'easy errors'.
Thanks for a great video. And the part with the 108. My father had one and we flew it a lot. Almost every weekend. He allowed me to take the controls when we was at safe altitude. I was 13-14 years old :) Yes, the guy who bought it from my father made a "almost" ground loop, only damaging the propeller. It was OY-AIH,- I think it's back in Germany now as D-IBFW.
German boy born in 1922 Grow up during great depression, life hard man with silly mustache shouts like a cool dude Join his newly formed air force spend years training and accumulate hundreds of flight hours war finally comes around you have the newest German fighter, the BF-109 You're going to become the modern Manfred Von Richtofen! *Bf109 landing gear: "No"*
It is important to consider the design requirements, Dr Messerschmitt put a lot of focus on the easy of production techniques, the 109 airframe is a lot easier to produce than a Spitfire, and consistent with time to produce the Hurricane using older manufacturing methods. For production the 109 was an outstanding design. Also to paraphrase Udet undercarriage design was not Messerschmitt’s a strong point. The Spitfire focused on aerodynamics, let’s not forget, they nearly cancelled it, because of production difficulties. However, considering the Spitfire 1a and 109e, the Spitfire, was heavier, not all down to the armour, whilst still has fast and with a lower wing loading such at that point of development it did not suffer significant propeller torque, of the later Mk IX and XIV models. However, the 109e was already suffering from greater propeller torque problems, which were not helped by the design. Dr Messerschmitt problem was the 109 replacement designs proved inferior, so they had to solider on with the 109 bolting on more powerful engines to over come the aerodynamic problems of the original lightweight airframe, compounding the undercarriage difficulties. To be far to both let’s not forget they were landing on grass fields so the Hurricane and 190 undercarriage designs are better suited.
Allied Pilots who tested the 109 often took off the grass meridians between run ways so that the tail wheel would dig in more counteracting the ground loop. Air fields have the advantage in that you can take off and land into the wind but they are hardly all weather. Nor were airfields or the 109 suitable for mass take offs.
Chris, you are so good at researching, producing and presenting videos it's almost unbelievable to me. Keep the great work. I very much like you videos and will donate.if I can. Your videos help keep me sane in this lockdown in Thailand.
Needs must when the Devil drives. Quite an appropriate axiom in this particular case. The Fw190 would have been a far better choice for development into a navalised version.
The Germans were developing new aircraft for their carrier. These new designs were not completed which I understand was why the completion of their carrier was delayed. No point in completing it if they had no viable aircraft for it.
@@chefchaudard3580 One very slight caveat to that - no potholes so long as you've managed to keep the enemy dive bombers away! Main benefit of narrow track gear is in simplifying the aircraft structure and wieght saving where engine power really isn't optimal, a problem that lessened as the wartime development progressed and engine power increased. Bear in mind the Bf109 was developed when available engine power was in the 600-700hp range, though looking forward to more powerful engines being developed at the time.
I've been a pilot for almost 50 years and have lots of taildragger time and quite agree with you. To most modern trike pilots there is a definite learning curve to get used to the quirky handling of a taildragger with closely spaced gear. And this would definitely make landing in poor conditions with exhausted pilots a problem, but everyone who flies taildraggers know "you can't relax on the rudder pedals until it's tied down" and pilots of that era had little or no choice. With a close spaced gear such as a Me109 or a Luscombe it DOES make ground loops more of problem but even with wide gear like on a FW190 or my Bellanca you still have to be literally "on your toes"! I've flown Taylorcrafts for most of those 50 years and while challenging to a novice it's docile enough in the right hands. Conversely, if you stomp on one brake you'll be able to turn on a dime with a nine cents change ;-) I also flew lots of trikes such as jets in the USAF and they're almost a "no brainer" for ground handling. If you'd like to see my collection of antique planes check out my facebook page at Airplayn. BTW Llike Wildcats and early Spits, my Bellanca took 36 cracks of the handle to retract the gear with a bicycle chain drive and it's common to see the plane bobbling up and down on departure as the pilot bends over to crank up the gear ;-)
@militaryaviationhistory Would situating the gear closer to the fuselage increase role rate and overall flight characteristics, by positioning weight closer to the axis of roll? If so was the preformance difference noticeable or minute? Thks
Roll not Role. I would think it was minimal, because most of the weight is in the tyres and therefore retracted, is closer to the centreline fuselage. So actually planes like the Hurricane, Fw190, Polikarpov I-16 would probably have higher roll rates. The I-16 certainly did.
Congratulations for the excellent video. Quite a lot of comments. So, I will leave mine. I think that the 109 gear problem has two components: part technical, part historical. The technical part was the projetist desire to keep the airframe the smaller and lighter that could still mount a powerful engine. These features were favoured by keeping the gear near the axis of the plane. This would be lighter. However, a narrow track and a bad geometry were consequences of this initial, basic, choice. From this point of view, the gear was modified along the aircraft development to aleviate these problems, as more power is available to handle a very small increase in weight, related to these specific changes. In the other hand, a powerful, light aircraft is always more difficult to control. As someone already indicated, the 109 power tripled over the years. Again, changes were made in the tail and the tail wheel to reduce the problems createc by the more powerful engines. But put together the last versions, really powerful, hastily trained pilots with a few circuits and bumps even in the two seaters and precarious ground conditions in heavily attacked airfields, and accident rates would escalate. This is the historical component, the late war impression of a flawed design. Dangerous for the beginner? Right. Ok. Design choice. A wonderful fighter in the hands of well trained pilots? Certainly. Again, consequences of the original design choices. Concluding, I think your video and the comments it produced are shinning a good light on the old 109 gear question. Nice to see young people thinking on these war machines and on the brave men who fought in or against them. Their should be remembered. Kind regards from Brazil.
I do have to wonder whether it would have been possible to modify the 109 by adding wing root inserts to the fuselage, essentially adding a plug to the wing where it attaches to the fuselage, keeping the relationship between the outer wings and the landing gear the same, but moving them away from the fuselage. That would have widened the main gear track while leaving the wing design mostly unaltered; there would have been some aerodynamic effects due to the wing root inserts increasing the wingspan, but the additional design for moving the wing attachment outward would have been much less than a complete wing redesign.
The table you show at 18:56 is pure gold. It shows that Flak consistently brought down more US aircraft of all types than the sophisticated fighters that have achieved legendary status among history and aviation enthusiasts.
The best comparisons would be (across various aircraft) landing gear failures per takeoff-landing cycle and/or per hours flown by the plane. Granulate that by landing conditions (paved, field, mud, snow, etc.) and there would be some decent data. - I doubt this granularity of data is available from that far back. And even it it is, it is more crunching than I would want to do. - All that said, great video. Thank you for your work and time, and for sharing this with us all.
Yep, a Plane that needs a Crane to Lift the Fuselage off the Wings to repair Damage is better than a Plane where 6 Guys with Hand Tools can simply Remove the Wings in a Couple of Minutes, without any Stands even, and replace them within a couple of Hours. The Fw190 was unsuited to War, a Race Horse with no mind paid to Servicability of the Airframe, whereas the 109 was built as simple as a Glider.
Really great video Bismarck. As usual! Real lovers of historical aircraft spend years agonizing over such topics, while flying golfers just smile, climb into their Cessna Skyhawks with the idea that the world is their oyster. They'd look at a BF-108 and say "Shuck's 'n Friday, , I didn't even know a 4-seater 109 was ever made!" *Bismarck, if you've a mind to it, I'd sure like to get your take on the Bell P-39 Airacobra. A real Buck Rogers airplane at the outset. Yet, in similar fashion as the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, it came into its own only when used in the correct theaters of war.
Grumman ridiculously overbuilt their carrier planes. Carrier landings in general as a rule were quite hazardous. The US and the Brits operated Wildcats until the end of the war on smaller escort carriers.
Most balanced report on the 109 gear I've seen. That this plane came out very early, compared to it's contemporaries, is an excellent point. I think another point with that is training. I don't know about the Spitfire, but when the Mustang was introduced, my understanding from recorded history of some of the pilots that flew them, there were quite a lot accidents, initially, because the plane was faster and most difficult to handle than other American planes of the time. The Spitfire, Mustang, and 109 were all fast tail wheel aircraft. It's a steep jump to go from a slow primary trainer to any of the three. US pilots had the T-6, which the British also used and that was arguably the best advanced trainer of the war. I don't think the Germans had a fast trainer until the Ar 96, and I believe it was still a big leap between it and the 109. So lower training capability before getting into the 109 may have aggravated the 109's gear problem. The comments on stability are exactly correct. Any tail wheel pilot will tell you that if you let the center of gravity get outside the wheel track on landing, the plane is going to swing around. It's physics. Pilot skill keeps it pointed the right way, and that's easier with a big tail, a slow landing speed, and a wide gear track. It does look like an additional problem is the camber is wrong on the 109, which would seem like a pretty annoying thing in a cross wind landing, where it's required to touch down with one wheel before the other.
Willie Messerschmitt wrote a section on the Benefits for gear attachment in the 109. He did acknowledge that the track was narrow. It was quite simple, he was designing an aircraft which would often take hits and always need servicing at speed, often in a hurry, often without workshop help. Consequently he attached the gear to the fuselage so that the wings could be removed with just 4 bolts and the rest of the aircraft more easily accessible. He includes photos of a group of these fighters being serviced. (Possibly in the desert) You can easily see how service crews could get at the bits they were going for and how a wing from one plane could be quickly swapped in from an other if it was beyond simple repair. He suggested 4 bolts when the designers of a post-war civil aircraft were arguing about how many scores of bolts (he says) were needed to hold on the wings. I think they said something about the number of landings this plane was to perform.
Talked with a English air show pilot in a bar the night after an airchow in Roskilde in Denmark. he was flying a Me 109 at the air-chow (Spanish with a Merlin motor) also flying Spitfire, Hurricane + several other WV2 planes and he told that the 109 was a devil on start and landing because it have toe out on the main tires when the tail is down but shifted to toe in when the tail lifted and this total shifted the handling and made it much more difficult to handle under start and landing then a Spitfire who also not was an easy bird to handle on the ground and cost several pilots lives on that account. Big engines with enormous torque don’t make it easy-er to handle special on later models with the more powerful motors, to much gas to fast is able to lift a wheel from the ground even when the plane is standing still, both on a Spitfire and the 109.
Would have been interesting to chase down more statistics from the RAF regarding the Spitfire undercarriage problems, as I feel they were actually a lot more similar to the problems with the Bf109. From a structural standpoint, both aircraft (Bf108/109 & Spitfire) technically had the undercarriage mounted to the fuselage, leaving the wings, as you state, being an 'add on item'.
One overlooked major design change was that, from the 109F onwards, a thin Clark Y section was used for the fin/rudder assempbly, to help overcome the swing due to torque. The theory was that it would help keep the aircraft rolling straight oncethe airflow started to affect the tail. Obviously it didn't work at low speeds (start of take off roll and deceleration during landing) but, none the less, it's a design factor that is so often overlooked
BF-109 was the 1st and only gas powered model airplanes I had as a kid. The prop cut my dad's finger on start up and I crashed it shortly afterwards the same day. The plane was the kind that were flown around in a circle by control lines. It was a nice plane.
I read a story somewhere- I can’t find reference to it, maybe in Erich Hartmann’s biography or in the book “Horrido” of a squadron of 109’s that had been operating on grass fields on the Russian front that flew in to a German airport with concrete runways, and most of them ground looped or crashed.
Very good concise video, I learnt a lot about the 109....but it is easy to criticise on reflection, after all it was built on the practise of the day - the Spitfire too had narrow landing gear, compared with the Hawker Hurricane. I’ll be searching out other videos, thanks.
I think part of the narrow gear goes to pilot skill, "Happy Feet" Being a tail drager pilot I learned early to use the rudder pedals to keep the tail under control to prevent Ground Loops. I think in those days the pilots were experienced in tail dragers. and could handle the narrow gear. Thanks
I failed to note below, I do much enjoy your work. You really have to give numbers or your just blowing smoke or you have to really do of good work finding effective 'voices' from the past to make up for the numbers. You are very good at both. With the additional inclusion of realizing a war is not a battle between machines, its a battle between nations.
Thanks for this interesting video. Great information to help the guides of our museum in telling the public about our reconstructed Bf 109G-5 that we have on display.
I saw it happen with my own eyes (and have the video too). At the '81 Reno Air Races one of those postwar Spanish built 109s had just landed after a mock dogfight with a Canadian Spitfire. Without warning the port gear abruptly folded on him. He climbed out and literally slammed the canopy shut. I later heard he gave it to a museum.
My understanding, prior to watching Biz’s explanation, was the ease of removing/replacing the wings for maintenance and assembly at the factory. Survey says….. Gen Steinhoff was sportin’ some pretty fly shades there.
Willy's early designs were very lightweight gliders. His success with the 108 and 109 was due to his discipline in keeping his airframes very light. Attaching his 109 gear to the firewall was extremely weight efficient. A no brainer for a glider designer.
The Me 109K4 received an retractable extended yoke that substantially changed the 3 point sitting attitude from 13 degrees to 11. This greatly reduced the ground looping issue since one wing was stalling ahead of the other, this was a major cause. See Rudiger Kosins book “the German fighter”. An extended non retractable tail yoke started to turn up in Me 109G10 and Me 109G14 but was completely interchangeable on any G model and one can see a mix on G6, G10 and G14. The Corsair also had its landing and takeoff problem solved with an extended tail yoke. Furthermore a locking tail wheel was also introduced. The narrow track of the 109 and spitfire also meant that should one wheel rut in a hole it wouldn’t swing like a wide tracked aircraft such as the 190 or spitfire. In crash landings the 190 could actually tip over its nose and crush the pilot whereas the undercarriage on the 109 would simply collapse and not harm the pilot.
The Spitfire actually has a narrower gear track than the 109. Spitfire ground handling is marginally better than 109 (but still shocking) because the wheels are not cambered and the gear legs are closer to the centre of gravity, though this arrangement does make it prone to nose over and smash the propeller when brakes are applied during landings.
I was reading a totally unrelated account of the war from a German perspective. One of the things mentioned is that late in the war, the allies had bombed most of the airfields and many wings had to use unimproved grass fields. This included the ME-262, which was notorious for accidents while taking off and landing. Generally only experienced fighter pilots were assigned to fly them. Some small "sports" planes today suffer from accidents contributed by a narrow wheel base.
An old pilot I knew was an American flew the Spitfire under reverse lend lease. He said he liked the narrow gear arrangement because he usually operated from fields and other rough conditions, and it was easier to find a safe lane through the rough conditions when your aircraft's stance was half the width of others. I don't know if this was actually a consideration for the designers but it was appreciated by the pilots. Though since operating from classic "airfields" was still common in the mid-thirties I expect it was.
Later versions of Bf 109 continued to grow in weight. I am certain this also taxed the strength and stability of the landing gear even if they also were strengthened in response. Also affecting accident rate was airfield conditions. Aircraft operating from Germany and France generally had good airfields, but the more improvised ones in the Soviet Union probably added significantly to accidental losses.
True. Even the Soviets knew this. Even established bases had crap runways and Soviet/Russian military and civil aircraft are, to this day, designed for rough field operations
The later 109s actually had new main gear wheels because they became too heavy for the original wheels to handle. The new wheels forced them to put a 'bump' on top of the wing to clear the tires, which is handy for identifying late model 109Gs in photos.
Me: I will go to bed early today
Also me: *proceeds to watch a 24-minute video about the landing gear of the Me 109*
Better than watch a annoying cat or somebody inside a bathtub full of Nutella.
Haha
Oh gawd, I'm you on the American continent 😭
Simon I know your pain.
But I'm a masochist for this stuff...
A fun fact that probably won't keep you awake at night: the guy who did major work on the Spitfire's undercarriage, Owen Finlay Maclaren, went on to design a folding baby stroller in the 1960s!
On poor airfields in Russia, many pilots preferred the poor me109 landing gear because it collapsed upon bad landings whereas the sturdy FW190 gear flipped you over and broke your neck.
Frangible landing gear for emergency use on soft fields... someone run out and patent that concept!
@@SportyMabamba I think the Luftwaffe's crystal ball was a bit cloudy regarding designing fighter aircraft for the actual airfields and conditions they operated on, hence the pilot preference especially ones of lesser skill for avoiding broken necks is perfectly understandable. Likewise, I would imagine Reginald Mitchell did not ever envisage his design would be taking off and landing from carrier decks. In wars, protagonists tend to fight how they can not how they ought to which means using what you have even if it is sub optimal
@@Ireton you could give them a bit of a break, they were designing planes before most of the logistics of using those planes were worked out. the allies could afford the metal to put grating down, or outright pave the runways, germany not so much. most of its counterparts were designed later like the mustang, spitfire, or w/e the russians had
Grassy runways were preferred since they wore out wheels much slower than "hard" runways. Yes, the Eastern Front has strange perks.
Meanwhile wehraboos: tHe Fw ¹9° iS tHe SaFeSt WaRbIrD oF wWiI
* Brutal 1700 hp powered full metal Yak 9s and 2000hp La9 sounds *
One reason why germans had so much problems with the me-109 landing gear was that they landed on the main carriage with high speed while finns had very little problems with the me-109 landing gear doing three point landing at lower speed. Yes, the landing gear of me-109 was problematic but the much bigger problem was the poor training of german pilots at later half of ww2.
Luftwaffe were normally trained for 3 point landing. They were really scolded for not doing that. But you are correct. Training was important. But people tend to forget that the Spitfire was just as bad, if not worse then the 109.
@@kamata93 And they navalized the Spitfire in large numbers (certainly larger than the Bf-109T I'd bet.) Imagine all the problems of the Spit/109, but now on a landing strip that's bouncing, rolling, and moving. Oh and much shorter.
@@kylebrady969 Why all the naval spits were shoved overboard for Wildcats before Hellcats were even available... read somewhere that the Spitfire had a 25% chance of wrecking itself when landing on a carrier(half of these wrecks were due to fuselage tailhook stresses). So, in less than 2 full sorties 50% of the Spitfires were destroyed by carrier landings, and in less than a week of sorties, the whole enchilada were written off and dumped in the sea. Something like 800 Seafires were made and in less than 2 years of operations 780 of them were destroyed in landings... OUCH! Talk about bad... That is beyond pitiful.
two points landing were forbiden in Luftwaffe training rules , only 3 points for fighters ; and for the spit it have a tendancy to nose over but in counter part it run straight without rudder (only torque correction) or brake input when it is on flight line attitude , the wheels of the 109 are so far front of the CoG that also in flight line attitude it have tendancy to ground loops , on paved runaway only goods pilots can handle a bf109 ; as a large scale builder of model airplanes i can say that when it was stricly scale the bf 109 is the worst plane to deal with on ground , the p47 is the most friendly warbird as the real one !!!!
@@kamata93 correct! Since the BF/Me 109 went in service the the Germans pilots was trained to do 3 point landing but nevertheless a lot of pilots lost their lives on this airplane as it was equally dangerous to take off!
My guess would be both the 109 & Spitfire were trying to minimise the landing loads effect upon the wings.
That and CG, roll-rate, and armament considerations.
Dont forget you can easily remove the wings of the 109 while still being able to roll the plane on it’s gear
Hmm... Now the wing will have to take a high g turn anyways, right? So if we assume that the landing load is twice the max g turn (20 g vs 10 g, which sounds roughly reasonable), then your center of lift could have double the offset from the root of the wing than the landing gear and both would create equal wing bending. This is of course a very rough and dirty way to calculate it and it is 1 am and I should probably sleep... might think about it more tomorrow.
A big advantage of mounting the LDG to the fuselage is that you can remove the wings without needing to prop up the fuselage, so you can easily move it around without the wings which is a big plus during manufacturing.
spoeni and storage/transportation. It was a huge advantage.
@@spoeny - I don't think it's all that directly proportional to compare the stress against rolling on the ground between that of a spread aerodynamic stress. Besides I haven't read anything that suggests the 109 was worse off aerodynamic for it. Rather the trade off between say the 190 in that regard was that the 190 better tolerated battle damage.
I think you missed one big thing about the changes in performance and the changes in pilot training. The first Bf 109s had less than 700hp max power, while that almost tripled with late versions of the plane. This means that the produced engine torque also significantly increased, making the gear problem even bigger. Meanwhile the quality of pilot training deteriorated further and further during the war with the ever growing need for new pilots. Couple these things together and you have a big reason for why the gear is generally seen as a critical flaw nowadays.
Great video.
Most historians will tell you that another main factor in the the narrow gear design was to allow the aircraft to be roll-on/roll-off capable on train wagons. The Junkers Ju-52 fuselage width was also designed around this specification. With the wings of the Ju removed, the fuselage would fit on a standard flatbed train wagon. And by removing the inner portion of the trailing edge of the wings, they could also be transported on a train wagon in the vertical position and not exceed the maximum DIN height for train transport. A similar specification was designed into the BF-109 landing gear maximum width, which allowed it to be transported on a train wagon with the wings removed.
I liked the Pirelli tires!
Bismarck, could you discuss the never-built Me-109H series.
1: Long wings meant for high altitude.
2: Reworked landing gear with a wider stance.
3: I may be wrong, but I think the DB603 was intended for it. Might be the DB605T, but I recall this plane as a little weird.
The Me 109H was the the high altitude fighter using as much as possible components from the Me 109G-5 with stretched wings and tailplane and the production series was powered by the DB 605 with GM-1 boost. Built in small quantities it did various sorties to England and at least one converted as a long-range reconnaissance and flew over the coast of Normandy apparently flying up to 15,000 mt. Although quite effective the 109H program was scrapped because of wing flutters problems. Regarding the DB 603, no matter how they tried, simply couldn't be installed because it it was too large for such a narrow frame and would have have required extensive modifications...
@@paoloviti6156 the Luftwaffe really should have license-built the G.55 Centauro because the airframe could be modified to mount the DB 603
WDYM “never built”? They conducted reconnaissance sorties with them.
@@MarvinT0606 very true and at least one Fiat G56 flew, a variant to accommodate the bigger DB 605 engine. The Germans that flew the G 55 had nothing but praise for this airplane but had a problem that shared with all the Italian airplanes: it suffered from very slow and difficult production process that one of the reasons for which the G.55 program was eventually abandoned by the Luftwaffe. Early production of G.55 required about 15,000 man-hours; while there were estimates to reduce the effort to about 9,000 man-hours. In comparison the well-practiced German factories were able to assemble a Bf 109 in only 5,000 man-hours!
@@paoloviti6156 At one point they got it down to 4000 hours but quality suffered and some were dangerous to fly even though they were new with zero hours airframes.
When I was a child 25 years ago I watched lots of history documentaries about the war. Many of those spoke briefly about the bf109 and it's contribution to the war effort and this matter regarding the narrow width of the gear was brought up several times. I have wondered why this is the case since I was a child, and you have helped solve this. Thank you for illuminating this very nebulous part of history for me which I have been wondering about for so long.
Improving your fighter: Willy Messerschmit - remove bits to make it lighter. Kurt Tank - add bits to make it stronger.
Damn right!
What would the Bf 109 look like if you time machined Kurt Tank back from 1945 to 1938 and told him to help Willy design a better fighter? 🤔
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"The Bf 109's Landing Gear is the Panther's final drive of the air" Change my mid.
Panthers final drive wasn't great nor terrible
3.6 to be exact
So yeah it is
Watch the video of the Panther compared to the Sherman. The Panther left the Sherman in the dust, going uphill, over obstacles, through deep snow. It is impressive, but not definitive.
If you learned to fly on a Bücker 131 as a Primary, the 109s would seem easy. And having a Narrow Gear on Muddy Terrain definetly has some Upsides because it doesn't have the Leverage to violently pull the Nose around, and Servicability of Wings that can be removed like on a Glider is absolutely amazing.
A 190 needs Cranes to Lift the Fuselage from the Wings, on the 109 6 Guys can simply remove 3 Bolts and some Lines to Lift of the Wings and fit new Ones. So even if you bend it, no big Deal, new Wings can be fitted in a Jiffy.
@@bradyelich2745 I believe op is talking about it's infamous unreliability rather than its performance in optimal circumstances.
@@MyFabian94
Agree, and nice pfp too ;)
Wonderful video, I agree entirely, while not ideal, it wasn't a fatal flaw and probably not that much worse than a typical U.S. fighter. I liked seeing the reference to A.F.N.A.
Sonnenrad - yeah, Spit had the same kind of problem with landing gear been retracted outwards(although not as pronounced as Me-109), so better look at the accident rate of contemporary aircraft that had inward retracting landing gear, otherwise you not going to see a contrast.
Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles - Oh, Greg I’m frankly did not expect this post from you... There are many Luftwaffe pilot interview that switched to FW-190 because it had a better landing gear, and was a sturdier airframe albeit at expense of lesser performance then 109, they just did not want to ground loop and nose over death. 109’s 6 digress toe out camber is a killer, especially on less then perfect runway with mud and path holes, 109 landing gear just asking for trouble, add small rudder to counter ever increasing Me-109’s engine torque, and you got a winner(I mean killer, especially for a less experienced Luftwaffe pilot toward the end of the war). I would not definitively conclude that 109’s landing gear problem was a totally none event aka -> red herring.
@Sonnenrad I've seen war time footage of Spits in mass take offs.
Try that with 109s and you would get a mass pile up.
Wow not much worse than a typical US Fighter? I guess your beloved P 47 was not the norm.
16:10: Ah, here we see two Bf-109's in the wild, during mating season. Messerschmidt couplings can be quite violent - here the male has aggressively broken the female's vertical stabilizer.
Handy for transit with wings removed. Not great beyond that IMO.
Spitfire was even worse...
And removal in the Field without any Equipment other than Hand Tools and some Men in less than 30 Minutes.
Having to Lift a 190 off it's Wing is more if a Job.
And on a Muddy Runway the Narrow Gear won't Ground Loop as easily, where a 190, once stuck in a Rut has several Meters of Leverage to pull you around.
If you learned to fly on an original Bücker 131, the 109 was an easy Plane to operate.
The 109 was built by Guys who applied similar Philosophies to Warplanes as to Gliders.
@Sonnenrad The center of gravity was fairly far behind the main gear, which gave the aircraft a longer lever arm if it started to swing in a ground loop, and it was possible for the swing to overcome the force the brakes could exert to stop it. Ultimately, it comes down to training and experience.
I am a real pilot and taildragger aircraft with small rudder and vertical stabilizers will need to have their tails kept on the ground until enough airflow over their small control surfaces produces enough authority to over come the P-factor
Transit wouldn't be the only reason. Take a look at a shop in a local flying club near you and imagine having a 109 and 190 in a shop without the wings for some reason. Then you need to make room for another aircraft, because those 2 are less important or waiting for spare parts. 109 would just roll out and for 190 you need some kind of a moving platform. You're also in a hurry.
I read Heinz Knoke's book I Flew For The Fuhrer and he mentions about himself going for his first solo flight in the Me-109 which was also his first flight in the 109.
He was watching the pilot who was doing his first solo just before Knoke's did his and as the aircraft came in to land it crashed killing the pilot. Having seen his fellow pilot die he was immediately told to take his flight. You can just imagine how nerve wracking that must have been.
It does make you wonder why trainer aircraft were not introduced sooner.
The BCATP ran a series of pilot training that omitted the primary trainer (typically the De Havilland Tiger Moth) and went straight to the Harvard advanced trainer. The training cycle wasn't sufficiently shortened to warrant the major change in procedure. Pilot and aircraft losses weren't significantly affected.
BF
Trainer aircraft have been around pretty much since the beginning of military aviation. However when you need as much production as possible for war on the scale of WW2, it makes no sense to to have even a single production line dedicated to trainer aircraft, when you could use that line to make more fighters
No room in the 109 for a dual cockpit would be my guess.
This is the type of issue when you get when designing a vehicle for professionals vs conscript or Expert vs Novice. The Gear would be less on an issue for experienced pilots, but would challenge new flyers. Planes that were designed around conscript flyers rather than career pros tend towards fewer Bad habits, even if it meant slightly lower performance.
So you also have a weight benefit to putting the gear stress on the fuselage and not the wing spars. Once in the air you want the best power to weight ratio right? Its not a car, its a fighter plane. Also a low hour pilot wasn't that valuable. It only mattered if you killed your experience/skilled pilots.
The problem with the 109 gear is that the wheels have a lot of "toe out". Willie Messerschmit wanted a clean looking plane with no wheel fairings on the top of the wing, so he made the wheels fit into the wing parallel to the wing chord line. When the gear is extended, the wheels are toe'd out, which is a highly directionally unstable situation (even if it had a nose wheel). With no toe out, the wheels would have needed a small fairing (hump) on the upper wing skin since the wheels would be at an angle to the chord line. Test pilots told Willie to fix the problem, but Willie's ego would not let him put a "hump" in the wing skin (even if it was aerodynamically insignificant). The Spitfire had a narrower gear track than the 109, so the 109's narrow gear was not the issue. Nearly all planes of the era were "taildraggers" and pilots were familiar with their handling characteristics, which were considered "normal". Landing fast or slow makes no difference, and a faster "wheel" landing is actually more helpful in maintaining aerodynamic control, particularly in a 109 which is a bit skimpy in the fin/rudder department anyway. Toe out (wheels angle out) is unstable and any yaw is amplified by the toe out, which gets exponentially worse as the yaw (difference between the where the wheels/nose are pointed and the path the aircraft is going) increases. This was an easy thing to fix. Willie's ego was not. I skimmed through the video and didn't notice this fault being mentioned. I'll watch the whole video later, as it is still interesting to watch. I hope it does get mentioned in the video since it's the reason for the 109's poor ground handling (small fin/rudder doesn't help matters).
That was something I always wondered about, looking at films of them taxying. The wheels 'just didn't look right'. Thanks for the insight.
correct me if i'm wrong, but if the toe out would be corrected and the axis on which the wheel arm svivels to be retracted is tilted a few degrees no hump should be needed.
Yes it is less needed thinking involved to just change the toe and put a hump on the wing, but i think it to be a much more elegant solution to change the angle of the axis.
Not toe out but negative camber
No the G had Bumps in the top surface of the wing to accommodate some (but not all) of the camber being taken out of the wheels. That and the upper deck 13mm breach covers earned the G the title of the Bump.
@@leifvejby8023 Correct. He's not a taildragger pilot or he'd know that toe-IN is bad; mild toe-OUT is actually good. And then he confused toe- in and out with camber, probably because someone else did and he just memorized what they said.
I appreciate your emphasis on actually READING a book or two to wrapping your head around a subject. Thanks!
Another problem with the 109 gear is the extreme negative chamber of the wheels. Negative camber is less stable in straight line motion which, of course, is the path that aircraft take when taking off and landing. I’m not aware of any other aircraft that had such an excessive negative camber. Clearly the designers wanted to get as much spread on the wheels as possible with fuselage mounted gear and took extreme liberty with the camber to get there. No WWII military aircraft or post WWII civilian tailwheel aircraft that I’ve ever seen have negative camber like this.
I’ve flown a lot of different tailwheel aircraft...in fact, I own one....and in my opinion the 109 gear looks just wrong. It has to be an absolute bear on pavement. Grass would be more forgiving to some extent. Research aside, I’ll bet there were TONS of ground loops. Keep in mind that many if not most ground loop accidents end up with a scraped wingtip which could be repaired easy enough and not show up as a major accident or total loss.
Also, the 109 looks to have a relatively small rudder which, when combined with the gear setup, would cause the plane to be even more prone to ground loops in a cross wind.
Great video, by the way. Very well produced and quite interesting.
Right about the camber. One overlooked effect of this is camber thrust. The right wheel is exerting a leftward force as it rolls and the left wheel is exerting a rightward force. If both wheels are equally loaded and are running on similar surfaces, the forces balance and the plane runs straight. However, if the plane starts to veer to, say, the left, load transfers to the right wheel and its leftward lateral force becomes greater than the rightward force from the left wheel. The resultant is a net leftward force at the front, tending to exaggerate the yaw moment. This explains the frequent ground loops and wingtip touchdowns.
@ jedgarsquink - most excellent explanation!
I believe as many 109s were lost in actual combat as were lost in taxi, take off and landing accidents.
I've been studying aircraft and aviation history since I was about 3 years old, and 23 years later I'm still learning new stuff. Keep up the great work!
Me too. Except it's been 67 years. So don't worry; you won't run out of stuff.
This feels like a larger and much older version of the G36 heat myth.
Very good video. Like most people, all I consider is the flaw I am concentrating on at the time. "Why didn't they see that and fix it?" This explains clearly why the 109's landing gear was what it was. It wasn't a flaw or an oversight. It was a design choice.
Hast das Thema ordentlich umgegraben. Gute Arbeit!
Ja. Er hat sich die 200k Abos jetzt verdient
Thanks for the video. Didn't mention one critical point which is the importance of locking the tailwheel before takeoff and landing. After taxiing the machine about with an unlocked tailwheel, if you forgot to lock the tailwheel then you stood a tremendous chance of ground-looping the machine on take-off and likewise upon landing. That tailwheel lock was there for a very important reason.
The (FM-2 “Wilder”) Wildcat was a great asset to the Fleet Air Arm, bringing it to nearly the level of the fighter opposition. It was also an aircraft specifically designed for modern carrier operations, thereby setting new standards for British designers in the field. The Wildcat was a potent fighter, with splendid maneuverability, good performance, heavy firepower, and excellent range and endurance. On top of this, it was a superb deck-landing aircraft.
- Captain Eric 'Winkle' Brown: Duels in the Sky
I thought it was the Martlet?
missed out on the retracting gear on the FF1, F2F, F3F, Curtis, etc- the US Navy may have been late to the monoplane show.. but they were early adapters of retracting landing gear.
@@gort8203 it was the Martlet in British use. In U.S. use it was the Wildcat. But hey, what's in a name?😀
Context - for the standards of the time. The US Navy got away from narrow landing gear as quick as it could. The otherwise excellent Avenger torpedo/bomber suffered from the narrow stance, but was able to land a bit slower I believe since it was such a stable flyer. Context - the Avenger was also a 1930's design.
@@gort8203 The last "Martlet" was the "V" the British name for the FM-1 Wildcat. By the time that model was replaced by the upgraded FM-2, the British had switched to using the US names for aircraft, and thus the FM-2 aircraft became "Wildcat VI"
Great channel thanks for covering the early problems with landing gear . I had the privilege of building two MK1a spitfire wings . The 1a suffered taxi nose over problems so later Mk were altered with a simple aluminum wedge situated on landing gear pintol fitting . This would put the main gear wheels more forwards negating this Nose over . Hence the mechanics would sit on the tail while taxing out. No pintol fittings exist anymore for the MK1 so pintol fitting from a later MK were used , however the holes are now at different angle these were reamed up and slightly oversized bolts used on the build .
Its funny how "they did it like that because they had always done it like that" is a very reasonable argument... one should always be careful with hindsight
Awesome video man the 109 to me is one of the most badass mean looking yet elegant and most successful fighters every made I’ll take the sketchy ground handling
It is apt to borrow a word from Matt Easton of Schola Gladiatoria: "Context"😉
A6Mx Zero
Glad you responded, nobody responds on this site. BF-109 is a cool bird, just needed a little bit of tweeking to be the best. The FW-190 was truly the sntizle, its a flying tank with prop blades that smack the air on the cheeks. LOL!
I could tell that the undercarriage was sketchy when i made 1/72nd models of them when i was 12! (difficult to (land) squarely)
I'm reaching back a few decades but I owned a Luscombe 8E. It had narrow high gear similar to the 109. I'll never forget my instructor telling me after my tailwheel checkout, that if I made it back to my home base, to mail him my logbook to sign. He wouldn't sign me off otherwise. I made it home ok and never mailed him my logbook. I later got a local instructor to sign it. I owned a couple of more taildraggers after the Luscombe. I never groundlooped or even came close but there were some nervous moments until I got some time under my belt.
Me: * expects Bismarck to have a name like Hans Fritzgerald Müller *
Bismarck: Hi I’m Chris
Super job putting this often criticized tech into the context of the times. After reading Eric Hartmann's autobiography, I get the sense that this was a problem for inexperienced pilots. Engineers made the decision to place importance on aircraft performance (weight/thin wings) on the assumption that well-trained pilots could handle landing the aircraft. Certainly a flaw in the design but understandable based on lineage, timing and performance expectations.
I would contest the claim that having a narrow gear attached near the wing root is necessarily simpler from a design perspective. The hydraulics for the main gear in this configuration would have to be squeezed in right where the engine firewall and oil cooler would likely be. Moving the pivot point farther out along the span allows for a less cluttered forward fuselage.
When did he say that
He said that its simpler to make the wings foldable with central landing gear, or when did he say that the design would be easier?
Good job with this video. I've often wondered about this type of undercarriage and why the BF 109 got such a bad wrap while the Spitfire, with essentially the same format, was hardly criticised.
That's because the 'winners' write history... The Germans were what they were, but they also built a lot of really good to great equipment.
WHJeffB - That is not true, many Luftwaffe veterans claimed that ground handling of Me-109 was deadly, many switched to FW-190 because of that.
Roland Felice - Spitfire did not have 6 degrees toe out camber as Me-109 did, that exasperated the problem of Me-109, while Spit did not have this problems. Both aircraft was problematic on take off and landing. Quite a few RAF pilots mentioning this problem as well when comparing Spit to Hawker Hurricanes
There seemed to be very few real flaws with the design characteristics of the BF109... I think I’d rather have the gear flaw than less armour like the Zero or poor dogfighting issues like the XP 39 Airacobra above 15000 feet.
Speaking of poor dogfighting the 109 could not turn. Everything it came up against could out turn it. And better visibility, particularity to the rear. Oh and more range.
@@johnneill990That’s why you don’t go solo. You go with a squadron and the first one to get a kill will booms and zoom to help the others.
Thank you for referring to the US as “United States” and not “American”. I’m so over hearing experts saying the words interchangeably. The US is only part of America, I am saying that as a person from the US. A very interesting discussion. Thanks.
I always thought this but never made it a discussion lol
That description of the Bf 109’s landing gear by Generalleutnant Funck strikes me as being entertainingly engineer-esque. His insistence on the term “rackety” delighted me, in particular.
I wonder if that was meant to be 'rickety' but has been lost in translation?
It was a British plot , they knew. the Nazi's would copy the spit fire 's landing gear knowing it was hard to land on. Dooming the Me.109.
@@johnbockelie3899 ;-) Problem is that the 109 is older than the spitfire. Not much but around a year or so if you take their first flights.
@@nirfz I kind of thought it was strange that both planes had. Identical landing gear.
@@johnbockelie3899 They are similar but not identical i think, the angle of the spitfires shocks is straight while the 109 is quite angled. And when retracting the spitfires angle back a bit (back in the direction of flight) while the 109s are straight. Not sure anymore where i read it, but the comment of some germans seeing the spitfire the first time who knew the 109 said something like "we are building a fighter, they build a sportsplane"
Narrow landing gear is problematic for taildraggers (conventional landing gear) because it makes it more difficult to stop a ground loop once one begins. Taildraggers have this problem due to their center of gravity being behind the main gear. However, the problem is easier to deal with if you take off and land directly into the wind (Ie no crosswind component). Aircraft designed in the 30s and earlier are the more likely to have narrow gear because so much of the early flying was done from air"fields" rather than air"strips" (runways). If you are operating out of a big flat field, you can always takeoff and land directly into the wind. This makes groundlooping less likely though not impossible. Carrier flight operations are also conducted directly into the wind.
As runways became more common, newer designs were more likely to have wider landing gear. This didn't last long, tricycle gear aircraft soon became the predominant form of landing gear.
Awesome video man! Really loving this channel. Could you make a video about something relatively obscure, such as aviation during the Falklands War? I would watch that for sure.
Royal Hungarian Air Force might disagree with the statement that the Messer had a weak gear. In February 1944 a Hungarian Bf-109G-6 landed behind Soviet lines on a field covered in half meter deep snow to rescue a downed wingman. (The brave pilot was Lt. Miklós Kenyeres, and Lt. György Debrődy was the one he rescued.) The landing was successful, and after ditching the canopy and the parachute they both squeezed themselves into the cockpit and even managed to take off over the head of the Soviet infantry closing in to capture them. Then they landed at the airfield at Uman. During the final approach and flaring Debrődy had to sit on the fuselage so Kenyeres can straighten himself out and see what's ahead. Admittedly though, this was a super extraordinary piloting feat and nobody ever managed (or was a fool enough to try to manage) it again. Although there was an American pilot who rescued his wingman the same way with a P-51 Mustang.
"let's just roll with it"
Ouch, lol
High usage of sod field airports on captured ground in miserable weather with high performance first generation aircraft. The Germans used a lot of horses for transportation, too, and I am sure they used some to tow leveling and maintenance equipment, which gave mediocre results. The problem is that modern researchers have not landed a taildragger on a sod runway in miserable condition, and having to do so because of combat requirements. I landed a taildragger on sod fields many times and it is always a risk dependent on the condition of the airfield. One pothole and it is accident time. And I never was worn out from flying too much that day, never shot at, and my aircraft was maintained to standard, flown to standard, and not worn out from combat. Nothing wrong with German pilots and their Bf109 was adequate under normal conditions. Enjoyed the video, thanks for posting.
One of reasons was ability to move fuselage while wings were detached.
Edit: Paused video,made my comment, 3s later you said the same thing. lol
If I'm remembering the photographs I've seen correctly, the landing gear arrangement was also used during manufacturing, to allow the Bf-109 fuselage to be moved through the factory without requiring a support frame once the landing gear was attached, thereby reducing some of the production complexity.
Excellent video. Having grown up as an airplane enthusiast in the post-war U.S., I prefer the "Me" designator. That's what the American aviators and official literature at the time called it. Interesting to learn that the Germans used both "Me" and "Bf."
22:46 pirelli tyres O.O
bf109s racing each other on the ground in monaco XD
I read an interesting comment from a WWII pilot who flew the 109. It was generally understood that during the takeoff roll the pilot had to carefully open the throttle because too much sudden power could cause the plane to veer off to the left, overcoming full application of rudder to the right. Their solution was to takeoff with application of continuous FULL right rudder, and to steer the plane with the throttle. More throttle for left turn, less throttle for right. This gave full control since the rudder was incapable of overpowering the turning tendencies from the engine. (Keep in mind that precise control wasn't needed - the 109s often were taking off from huge grass fields, not from narrow runways).
Given the relative newness of cantilever wing designs at that time, and the overriding concern that they be strong enough to take flight loads, I can understand the reluctance to add to the wing stresses by mounting the landing gear in the wings.
Yes, a fairly highly stressed wing as it was?
The wing supports the total weight of the aircraft. Weight carried in the wings actually results in less stress on the wings than weight carried in the fuselage due to less bending moment. This is why transport airplanes have a maximum zero fuel weight listed as well as a structural gross weight. You can only carry so much weight in the fuselage because the weight there tries to bend the wings upwards. This limits the amount of payload you can carry even if your fuel tanks are near empty. You can fill the wings with fuel up to maximum gross weight without concern for the zero fuel weight. Carrying the landing gear in the fuselage of a fighter puts more flight load on the wings than carrying it in the wing does.
If I remember correctly, one of the main design objectives of the supermarine spiteful, the proposed successor to the spitfire, was to have a wider inward folding undercarriage to improve ground handling characteristics.
Probably, the design issues were load path and finding room for the early style of cylinders and actuators. Inboard struts take the forces directly to the strongest part of the aircraft structure and after a bit of experience the mechanisms could be engineered to fit in a thin wing.
I really liked the example of compactness with that Wildcat pic.
Gear! Not gears! "Gears" are sprocketed, meshing wheels. "Gear" is equipment, and is already plural, like rain gear or camping gear.
Thank you. I just assumed they were idiots.
So many aviation “experts” on YTube also come out with “aircrafts” too
@@AnthonyTolhurst-dw1nc Yep! Another pet peeve!
Undercarriages :^D
Chris, your English grammer is better than most native English (or American) speakers. Well done!
How many of these had "damaged" gear from combat, or just plain simple combat damage resulting in a bad landing ?? also valid questions.
And the fact that the Luftwaffe pilots flew several combat missions each day, day after day. As a result, they were tired, burned out etc. That must have had a big effect on their performance and handling the plane, causing them to make 'easy errors'.
I think landing a 109 with a flat tire = CRASH. Not so much with a P 47.
Thanks for a great video.
And the part with the 108. My father had one and we flew it a lot. Almost every weekend. He allowed me to take the controls when we was at safe altitude. I was 13-14 years old :) Yes, the guy who bought it from my father made a "almost" ground loop, only damaging the propeller.
It was OY-AIH,- I think it's back in Germany now as D-IBFW.
German boy born in 1922
Grow up during great depression, life hard
man with silly mustache shouts like a cool dude
Join his newly formed air force
spend years training and accumulate hundreds of flight hours
war finally comes around you have the newest German fighter, the BF-109
You're going to become the modern Manfred Von Richtofen!
*Bf109 landing gear: "No"*
Very informative video complemented by some equally informative comments (Increased power, toe in vs. toe out, camber). A gem!
It is important to consider the design requirements, Dr Messerschmitt put a lot of focus on the easy of production techniques, the 109 airframe is a lot easier to produce than a Spitfire, and consistent with time to produce the Hurricane using older manufacturing methods. For production the 109 was an outstanding design.
Also to paraphrase Udet undercarriage design was not Messerschmitt’s a strong point. The Spitfire focused on aerodynamics, let’s not forget, they nearly cancelled it, because of production difficulties. However, considering the Spitfire 1a and 109e, the Spitfire, was heavier, not all down to the armour, whilst still has fast and with a lower wing loading such at that point of development it did not suffer significant propeller torque, of the later Mk IX and XIV models. However, the 109e was already suffering from greater propeller torque problems, which were not helped by the design. Dr Messerschmitt problem was the 109 replacement designs proved inferior, so they had to solider on with the 109 bolting on more powerful engines to over come the aerodynamic problems of the original lightweight airframe, compounding the undercarriage difficulties. To be far to both let’s not forget they were landing on grass fields so the Hurricane and 190 undercarriage designs are better suited.
Allied Pilots who tested the 109 often took off the grass meridians between run ways so that the tail wheel would dig in more counteracting the ground loop.
Air fields have the advantage in that you can take off and land into the wind but they are hardly all weather. Nor were airfields or the 109 suitable for mass take offs.
Chris, you are so good at researching, producing and presenting videos it's almost unbelievable to me. Keep the great work. I very much like you videos and will donate.if I can. Your videos help keep me sane in this lockdown in Thailand.
Can someone explain who in hell thought this was good for the carrier Germany wanted
Same kind of guys who thought seafire is a good idea
Needs must when the Devil drives. Quite an appropriate axiom in this particular case. The Fw190 would have been a far better choice for development into a navalised version.
The Germans were developing new aircraft for their carrier. These new designs were not completed which I understand was why the completion of their carrier was delayed. No point in completing it if they had no viable aircraft for it.
Narrow gears is not an issue on aircraft carriers: no crosswinds, no potholes.
@@chefchaudard3580 One very slight caveat to that - no potholes so long as you've managed to keep the enemy dive bombers away! Main benefit of narrow track gear is in simplifying the aircraft structure and wieght saving where engine power really isn't optimal, a problem that lessened as the wartime development progressed and engine power increased. Bear in mind the Bf109 was developed when available engine power was in the 600-700hp range, though looking forward to more powerful engines being developed at the time.
I've been a pilot for almost 50 years and have lots of taildragger time and quite agree with you. To most modern trike pilots there is a definite learning curve to get used to the quirky handling of a taildragger with closely spaced gear. And this would definitely make landing in poor conditions with exhausted pilots a problem, but everyone who flies taildraggers know "you can't relax on the rudder pedals until it's tied down" and pilots of that era had little or no choice. With a close spaced gear such as a Me109 or a Luscombe it DOES make ground loops more of problem but even with wide gear like on a FW190 or my Bellanca you still have to be literally "on your toes"! I've flown Taylorcrafts for most of those 50 years and while challenging to a novice it's docile enough in the right hands. Conversely, if you stomp on one brake you'll be able to turn on a dime with a nine cents change ;-) I also flew lots of trikes such as jets in the USAF and they're almost a "no brainer" for ground handling. If you'd like to see my collection of antique planes check out my facebook page at Airplayn. BTW Llike Wildcats and early Spits, my Bellanca took 36 cracks of the handle to retract the gear with a bicycle chain drive and it's common to see the plane bobbling up and down on departure as the pilot bends over to crank up the gear ;-)
Tim, how do you think any narrow gear tail dragger would handle if 6 degrees of toe out camber is added on each wheel?
@militaryaviationhistory Would situating the gear closer to the fuselage increase role rate and overall flight characteristics, by positioning weight closer to the axis of roll? If so was the preformance difference noticeable or minute? Thks
Roll not Role.
I would think it was minimal, because most of the weight is in the tyres and therefore retracted, is closer to the centreline fuselage. So actually planes like the Hurricane, Fw190, Polikarpov I-16 would probably have higher roll rates. The I-16 certainly did.
@@PORRRIDGE_GUN Polikarpov not Polikarpoc
@@phantasyboy1031 I corrected that, but it has reverted to previous version again
The Bf-109 may have even placed the heavier components (wheels and brakes) further from the longitudinal axis.
Congratulations for the excellent video. Quite a lot of comments. So, I will leave mine. I think that the 109 gear problem has two components: part technical, part historical. The technical part was the projetist desire to keep the airframe the smaller and lighter that could still mount a powerful engine. These features were favoured by keeping the gear near the axis of the plane. This would be lighter. However, a narrow track and a bad geometry were consequences of this initial, basic, choice. From this point of view, the gear was modified along the aircraft development to aleviate these problems, as more power is available to handle a very small increase in weight, related to these specific changes. In the other hand, a powerful, light aircraft is always more difficult to control. As someone already indicated, the 109 power tripled over the years. Again, changes were made in the tail and the tail wheel to reduce the problems createc by the more powerful engines. But put together the last versions, really powerful, hastily trained pilots with a few circuits and bumps even in the two seaters and precarious ground conditions in heavily attacked airfields, and accident rates would escalate. This is the historical component, the late war impression of a flawed design. Dangerous for the beginner? Right. Ok. Design choice. A wonderful fighter in the hands of well trained pilots? Certainly. Again, consequences of the original design choices. Concluding, I think your video and the comments it produced are shinning a good light on the old 109 gear question. Nice to see young people thinking on these war machines and on the brave men who fought in or against them. Their should be remembered. Kind regards from Brazil.
I do have to wonder whether it would have been possible to modify the 109 by adding wing root inserts to the fuselage, essentially adding a plug to the wing where it attaches to the fuselage, keeping the relationship between the outer wings and the landing gear the same, but moving them away from the fuselage. That would have widened the main gear track while leaving the wing design mostly unaltered; there would have been some aerodynamic effects due to the wing root inserts increasing the wingspan, but the additional design for moving the wing attachment outward would have been much less than a complete wing redesign.
Gotta love how Germans can't pronounce "TH" but substtute "D" or "F
" not a complaint just humourous
The table you show at 18:56 is pure gold. It shows that Flak consistently brought down more US aircraft of all types than the sophisticated fighters that have achieved legendary status among history and aviation enthusiasts.
The 109 was a VERY successful design.
109 is beautiful. I just prefer it over spitfire.
The best comparisons would be (across various aircraft) landing gear failures per takeoff-landing cycle and/or per hours flown by the plane. Granulate that by landing conditions (paved, field, mud, snow, etc.) and there would be some decent data. - I doubt this granularity of data is available from that far back. And even it it is, it is more crunching than I would want to do.
-
All that said, great video. Thank you for your work and time, and for sharing this with us all.
Just another reason why FW-190 is better.
And they also tried to turn this one into a naval fighter and not that
Um no
Did you watch the video?
Yep, a Plane that needs a Crane to Lift the Fuselage off the Wings to repair Damage is better than a Plane where 6 Guys with Hand Tools can simply Remove the Wings in a Couple of Minutes, without any Stands even, and replace them within a couple of Hours.
The Fw190 was unsuited to War, a Race Horse with no mind paid to Servicability of the Airframe, whereas the 109 was built as simple as a Glider.
@Patrick Brennan Sorry but no, too high a landing speed al almost 200Km/h, the 190 would have needed a whole new wing
P-26 Peashooter is my favorite aircraft
I have built models from 1/72 -1/35 i don't know why but i just love that plane 😎
Yep. It looks awesome. It's a combination of it being short and stubby and the flamboyant colours and shapes of the fairings and tail.
Was there a flaw where on takeoff they would pull to one side
Jakob Czarnecki I remember reading that somewhere
Welcome to the glorious world of single engine aircraft ;)
Military Aviation History where if a pilot didnt know they would often crash
@@jakobczarnecki5131 all pilots knew though, it was a torque from the propeller. But not everyone could handle it, especially with such a thin gear.
@Jimmy De'Souza maybe I should change my name to latin. Anyways, I'm Dmitriy, nice to meet you
Really great video Bismarck. As usual! Real lovers of historical aircraft spend years agonizing over such topics, while flying golfers just smile, climb into their Cessna Skyhawks with the idea that the world is their oyster. They'd look at a BF-108 and say "Shuck's 'n Friday, , I didn't even know a 4-seater 109 was ever made!"
*Bismarck, if you've a mind to it, I'd sure like to get your take on the Bell P-39 Airacobra. A real Buck Rogers airplane at the outset. Yet, in similar fashion as the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, it came into its own only when used in the correct theaters of war.
In the American wildcat...small also, cranking up with a hand wheel into the Hull... But no problems?
Smaller actually.
Grumman ridiculously overbuilt their carrier planes. Carrier landings in general as a rule were quite hazardous. The US and the Brits operated Wildcats until the end of the war on smaller escort carriers.
Thanks for explaining this subject. Now it makes much more sense.
Most balanced report on the 109 gear I've seen. That this plane came out very early, compared to it's contemporaries, is an excellent point. I think another point with that is training. I don't know about the Spitfire, but when the Mustang was introduced, my understanding from recorded history of some of the pilots that flew them, there were quite a lot accidents, initially, because the plane was faster and most difficult to handle than other American planes of the time. The Spitfire, Mustang, and 109 were all fast tail wheel aircraft. It's a steep jump to go from a slow primary trainer to any of the three. US pilots had the T-6, which the British also used and that was arguably the best advanced trainer of the war. I don't think the Germans had a fast trainer until the Ar 96, and I believe it was still a big leap between it and the 109. So lower training capability before getting into the 109 may have aggravated the 109's gear problem.
The comments on stability are exactly correct. Any tail wheel pilot will tell you that if you let the center of gravity get outside the wheel track on landing, the plane is going to swing around. It's physics. Pilot skill keeps it pointed the right way, and that's easier with a big tail, a slow landing speed, and a wide gear track. It does look like an additional problem is the camber is wrong on the 109, which would seem like a pretty annoying thing in a cross wind landing, where it's required to touch down with one wheel before the other.
Willie Messerschmitt wrote a section on the Benefits for gear attachment in the 109. He did acknowledge that the track was narrow.
It was quite simple, he was designing an aircraft which would often take hits and always need servicing at speed, often in a hurry, often without workshop help. Consequently he attached the gear to the fuselage so that the wings could be removed with just 4 bolts and the rest of the aircraft more easily accessible. He includes photos of a group of these fighters being serviced. (Possibly in the desert)
You can easily see how service crews could get at the bits they were going for and how a wing from one plane could be quickly swapped in from an other if it was beyond simple repair.
He suggested 4 bolts when the designers of a post-war civil aircraft were arguing about how many scores of bolts (he says) were needed to hold on the wings. I think they said something about the number of landings this plane was to perform.
Talked with a English air show pilot in a bar the night after an airchow in Roskilde in Denmark. he was flying a Me 109 at the air-chow (Spanish with a Merlin motor) also flying Spitfire, Hurricane + several other WV2 planes and he told that the 109 was a devil on start and landing because it have toe out on the main tires when the tail is down but shifted to toe in when the tail lifted and this total shifted the handling and made it much more difficult to handle under start and landing then a Spitfire who also not was an easy bird to handle on the ground and cost several pilots lives on that account. Big engines with enormous torque don’t make it easy-er to handle special on later models with the more powerful motors, to much gas to fast is able to lift a wheel from the ground even when the plane is standing still, both on a Spitfire and the 109.
Would have been interesting to chase down more statistics from the RAF regarding the Spitfire undercarriage problems, as I feel they were actually a lot more similar to the problems with the Bf109. From a structural standpoint, both aircraft (Bf108/109 & Spitfire) technically had the undercarriage mounted to the fuselage, leaving the wings, as you state, being an 'add on item'.
Not true. The Spitfire's landing gear was mounted entirely in the wings.
One overlooked major design change was that, from the 109F onwards, a thin Clark Y section was used for the fin/rudder assempbly, to help overcome the swing due to torque. The theory was that it would help keep the aircraft rolling straight oncethe airflow started to affect the tail. Obviously it didn't work at low speeds (start of take off roll and deceleration during landing) but, none the less, it's a design factor that is so often overlooked
You and Mark Felton are the best people on UA-cam.
Along with the History Guy, the UA-cam holy trinity.
BF-109 was the 1st and only gas powered model airplanes I had as a kid. The prop cut my dad's finger on start up and I crashed it shortly afterwards the same day. The plane was the kind that were flown around in a circle by control lines. It was a nice plane.
Great insight into problems that weren't nearly as bad as some had made it to be, keep up the the excellent work :)
I read a story somewhere- I can’t find reference to it, maybe in Erich Hartmann’s biography or in the book “Horrido” of a squadron of 109’s that had been operating on grass fields on the Russian front that flew in to a German airport with concrete runways, and most of them ground looped or crashed.
Very good concise video, I learnt a lot about the 109....but it is easy to criticise on reflection, after all it was built on the practise of the day - the Spitfire too had narrow landing gear, compared with the Hawker Hurricane. I’ll be searching out other videos, thanks.
I think part of the narrow gear goes to pilot skill, "Happy Feet"
Being a tail drager pilot I learned early to use the rudder pedals to keep the tail under control to prevent Ground Loops.
I think in those days the pilots were experienced in tail dragers. and could handle the narrow gear.
Thanks
I do love learning so much stuff with you. Gracias Bismark.
Well done on the explantion of all the factors that weigh in on design and function of an aircraft.
I failed to note below, I do much enjoy your work. You really have to give numbers or your just blowing smoke or you have to really do of good work finding effective 'voices' from the past to make up for the numbers. You are very good at both. With the additional inclusion of realizing a war is not a battle between machines, its a battle between nations.
Thanks for this interesting video. Great information to help the guides of our museum in telling the public about our reconstructed Bf 109G-5 that we have on display.
Very good video!
The Bf-109 had the same flaw like the Spit. But again the Bf-109 is dragged forward because of it. Quite interesting for me why.
Thank you for doing your episodes in English. My German is not as fast to understand the finer points of the language.
I have to admire the ingenuity of the guys that mounted a 109 to a truck so they could tow it away.
I saw it happen with my own eyes (and have the video too). At the '81 Reno Air Races one of those postwar Spanish built 109s had just landed after a mock dogfight with a Canadian Spitfire. Without warning the port gear abruptly folded on him. He climbed out and literally slammed the canopy shut. I later heard he gave it to a museum.
My understanding, prior to watching Biz’s explanation, was the ease of removing/replacing the wings for maintenance and assembly at the factory. Survey says…..
Gen Steinhoff was sportin’ some pretty fly shades there.
Willy's early designs were very lightweight gliders. His success with the 108 and 109 was due to his discipline in keeping his airframes very light. Attaching his 109 gear to the firewall was extremely weight efficient. A no brainer for a glider designer.
The Me 109K4 received an retractable extended yoke that substantially changed the 3 point sitting attitude from 13 degrees to 11. This greatly reduced the ground looping issue since one wing was stalling ahead of the other, this was a major cause. See Rudiger Kosins book “the German fighter”. An extended non retractable tail yoke started to turn up in Me 109G10 and Me 109G14 but was completely interchangeable on any G model and one can see a mix on G6, G10 and G14. The Corsair also had its landing and takeoff problem solved with an extended tail yoke. Furthermore a locking tail wheel was also introduced. The narrow track of the 109 and spitfire also meant that should one wheel rut in a hole it wouldn’t swing like a wide tracked aircraft such as the 190 or spitfire. In crash landings the 190 could actually tip over its nose and crush the pilot whereas the undercarriage on the 109 would simply collapse and not harm the pilot.
The Spitfire actually has a narrower gear track than the 109. Spitfire ground handling is marginally better than 109 (but still shocking) because the wheels are not cambered and the gear legs are closer to the centre of gravity, though this arrangement does make it prone to nose over and smash the propeller when brakes are applied during landings.
I was reading a totally unrelated account of the war from a German perspective. One of the things mentioned is that late in the war, the allies had bombed most of the airfields and many wings had to use unimproved grass fields. This included the ME-262, which was notorious for accidents while taking off and landing. Generally only experienced fighter pilots were assigned to fly them. Some small "sports" planes today suffer from accidents contributed by a narrow wheel base.
Attractive design ... BF108! 24:00 ish.... BF109s breeding (grin). Excellent video.
An old pilot I knew was an American flew the Spitfire under reverse lend lease. He said he liked the narrow gear arrangement because he usually operated from fields and other rough conditions, and it was easier to find a safe lane through the rough conditions when your aircraft's stance was half the width of others. I don't know if this was actually a consideration for the designers but it was appreciated by the pilots. Though since operating from classic "airfields" was still common in the mid-thirties I expect it was.
Later versions of Bf 109 continued to grow in weight. I am certain this also taxed the strength and stability of the landing gear even if they also were strengthened in response. Also affecting accident rate was airfield conditions. Aircraft operating from Germany and France generally had good airfields, but the more improvised ones in the Soviet Union probably added significantly to accidental losses.
True. Even the Soviets knew this. Even established bases had crap runways and Soviet/Russian military and civil aircraft are, to this day, designed for rough field operations
The later 109s actually had new main gear wheels because they became too heavy for the original wheels to handle. The new wheels forced them to put a 'bump' on top of the wing to clear the tires, which is handy for identifying late model 109Gs in photos.