As i understood it the seat wasnt even adjusted to its lowest settings when he sat in the cockpit and to make it look even worse/cramped he closed the canopy, wich he didnt when he tested the spit.

Commenting on the cannon breach is another thing thats not really necessary, the pilot keeps his feets on the rudder pedals at all times. I mean, if the cannon breach wasnt there what is he suppose to do with that space anyways?. The flightstick is there either way so its not like he can cross his legs and take a nap in the spit because there is no cannon there.

Interesting thoughts by you guys...

If your shoulders touch both sides of the cockpit as his do, its a tight spot so to speak. If your cranium touches the top of the canopy, its tighter still. Now trying to check 6 when youre pulling 5-6 Gs...its going to seem tiny.

Having been in a multitude of cockpits, I'd take his commentary at face value that the 109 is tiny inside and every inch I could get to move around would be valuable in combat.

In regard to pulling Gs, having your legs straight out vs dangling below you helps, but its not siginificant. For example, the F-16 seat is reclined at about 30 degrees. Even that doesnt contribute significantly to increasing your G tolerance...it takes something on the order of 60 degrees to get a noticeable increase in G tolerance. Something to be said for comfort though...

Umm wtf - I thought he was very direct and honest with both his opinions and that he talked directly about issues that could be seen with the camera. I am 6,3 - I could never fit in the 109 :P

I'm sure I saw a documentary years ago explaining the size difference between the 2 cockpits. I thought it might of been Spitfire! Two seconds to kill but having seen it again it doesn't look like it. I'm sure it's in my video collection somewhere!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/battleo...in/11405.shtml

If memory serves, the Spitfire had a slightly larger cockpit but the 109 had a better engine layout and was easier for ground crew to work on.

Interestingly from Two Seconds to Kill

Bader mentions the Spit wing "folding up",

I had also read about this when over stressing the aircraft due to the pilots having to be careful with the Spits in hard manoeuvres as they were able to go past the safe limits due to the control authority being very light on the stick less than 10lbs where as the Bf109 was more than 20lbs.

I hope someone will put those figures right for me but I'm going from memory.

Dodge, wasn't that the part where Bader and Stanford-Tuck were talking about a German ace who had managed to tear off a wing or 2 and the story had got around the German squadrons causing their pilots to pull out of divers early?

Yeah, I guess that most of us thought of it like that.
But Sternjaeger claims that he has met the pilot in person, so of course he can interpret what we see and what the man says much better than the rest of us.
Goes without saying really.

Hi Moggy

No this is regarding Spit pilots having to take care due to the lighter stick forces, it was easy for them to overstress the aircraft and pull the wings off it.

Don't want to get too off topic :)


Spit II pilots notes

My understanding is that it was the Bf-108, which was one of the ancestors of the Bf-109 was the source of most of the doubt about 109 wing strength.

I believe it was one of my folks aircraft books that related the story of an acrobatics pilot who did a very impressive routine in the 108 for some major air event, and when he'd landed, it was discovered that the leading edges had separated by a couple inches at the wing roots.

I'll have to dig it out next time I'm down there. I'm pretty sure it was that Smithsonian Coffetable book of aircraft, with all full color foldouts of aircraft that I poured over through most of my youth.

Those were very interesting articles. The feeling I had from the existing Hurris in IL2 is quite a bit diff from the one he formed from his real bird.

But all in all , you have to give to the man , he has some balls to fly those old birds..