I stand corrected. Please allow me to correct my earlier statement:

FORTUNATELY, those who ACTUALLY flew and fought in the Spitfires back in 1940 never had the benefit of Crumps' PROVEN IRONCLAD insights that may have swayed their collective opinion to the contrary.

Better?

rotfl

:lol:...........Snapper you'da man.

Crumpp

In your reply you seem to have forgotten to address the main outstanding question which I repeat here.

Then you need to explain why if in theory the pilot is unable to precisely control them, did all the pilots I have read about, of all nations, praise the Spits handling abilities.

It is a fundamental difference and I would appreciate it if you could explain this conundrum.

I await your reply

PS its important to remember that the German pilots also thought highly of the handling of the Spitfire and Hurricane

Its been quoted before but this is Molders view of an early version:-
"It was very interesting to carry out the flight trials at Rechlin with the Spitfire and the Hurricane. Both types are very simple to fly compared to our aircraft, and childishly easy to take-off and land. The Hurricane is good-natured and turns well, but its performance is decidedly inferior to that of the Me 109. It has strong stick forces and is "lazy" on the ailerons.

The Spitfire is one class better. It handles well, is light on the controls, faultless in the turn and has a performance approaching that of the Bf 109. As a fighting aircraft, however, it is miserable. A sudden push forward on the stick will cause the Motor to cut; and because the propeller has only two pitch settings (take-off and cruise), in a rapidly changing air combat situation the motor is either overspeeding or else is not being used to the full."

As I said earlier I await your explanation as to why Molders as well as the RAF and other pilots had it so wrong

Once again I agree with you. The rules differ in war vs peace as the risk element differs so much. I also agree the point is reached where the rules of nature cannot be broken. Its a question as to how close to that point do the rules apply.

Frankly I don't give a damn about what your piece of paper may or may not say.

I worked in IT as a Programme Manager on some good sized projects such as making the group systems Euro compliant, installing and testing new networks in all the prisons in the UK and Satellite Latency projects for the Home office. I represented all UK Insurance brokers in discussions over IT standards for European and USA networks etc

I have never had any training in IT, I never went to University and I never sat any A levels. I joined the RN at 16 did my time as an Airframes and Engines Articifer and didn't start in IT at the age of 35.
However I was the one who got the projects that had gone wrong, or were at serious risk. I promise you that the PM's I took over from had lots of pieces of paper from some of the best Universities in the UK including Oxford, Cambridge and they were IT pieces of paper.

What I looked for was how people applied what they knew, how they replied to questions and issues, how practical problems were addressed. People who would not reply to questions didn't last long.

Easy to fly in what situation? Just take off, land and fly around is one thing, fly it on the edge or combat is another. Some non desirable or vicious caracteristcs only became clear when the aircraft is flown to its limits.

The 109 for example had very desirable caracteristic for a fighter when flown to the edge. The slats granted very forgiving stall caracteristics that allowed the pilots confidence to fly the aircraft to its limits. The same time slats could cause the less experienced pilots to miss their target.

Every modern fighter hve wing leading flaps or slats and none hve elliptical wings. But that they don't understand.

As they pretend not to understand the diff btw sustained turns, and turns with excess of energy even when we are lucky to get excellent account here on this forum. Those guys are boring.

Clearly I don't know no one does, only Molders really knows, but I am willing to bet that he did more than circuits and bumps in them. Its equally wrong to assume that he didn't wring the aircraft out.

Not to be rude as I think there is a lot of interesting debate and conversation going on here but could a few of you, (you know who you are) please make another thread to have these pages and pages of conversation in.

Call it something like.... "the great debate - 109 vs Spit" Im sure you get my drift. ;)