Landing the BF-109

[robtek]

The reason was that this way the wings could be easily removed and changed in the field.
Also the fuselage could be easily moved without the wings.
Btw, the spitfire gear is much narrower.

[Romanator21]

The design of the Bf-109 was pure genius in that, besides being a great plane, first flying in 1935, and carrying Germany through the war until 1945, it was easy to maintain and cheap to build.

The landing gear arrangement was chose for simplicity - The gears are attached to the firewall, which also supports the unique "A" shaped engine bearing, and which also supports the wing spars. Essentially, the focus of the plane is a single firewall plate, everything else being cantilevered off of that. A Spitfire for instance, looks "messier" in this regard.

The wings were designed to be able to be removed in the field in a few minutes without extra equipment to support the plane. After the E, Bf-109s stopped carrying wing guns, and this un-complicated the wings further. The engine plumbing was well organized, and the cowling had quick-release latches and could be completely removed in a a few minutes as well.

The 109 was almost no compound curves and very few components, so production is fast, cheap, and easy. The controls are well thought out on later variants, with throttle, flap control, trim control, landing gear control all on the left side so the pilot doesn't have to take his right hand off the stick - ever. In the Spitfire, the pilot has to switch hands to do work.

Btw, the spitfire gear is much narrower.

Very true, but the Bf-109 had the wheels canted in a weird way that gave them the tendency to swing unless both were planted firmly on the ground. Landing on one wheel (which is normal in a crosswind) would cause it to go out from under you, and result in a ground-loop.

Why were the wheels mounted this way? I'm not sure. But, I assume it was to save space.

[Romanator21]

[WTE_Galway]

Video of the EADS 109 gear collapse and ground loop a few years back ...

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles...la-berlin.html

[Splitter]

I want to thank everyone for their help and for the video posted and sent to me via e-mail. I am cured lol.

I'll tell my new method for landing this beast, maybe it will help others:

I set up by making sure the tail wheel is locked, prop pitch to full and mixture to full (not adjustable in the 109 though). I get lined up as best as possible using the gun sight view. Lining up and being pretty close to the line of the runway is critical so I do it early.

What I keep in my mind when setting up to land is coming in steeply, this give me a good view over the engine cowling. I do not really set up each landing and pay much attention to altitude...this prepares me for landing damaged aircraft in a hurry.

Short approach. Long, slow, low approaches not only take too much time, there is too much room for error. The longer you are flying low and slow, the more chance you have of making a mistake and having to go around.

My "target" is about 300 meters short of the runway. I put that point in the center of the retical.

I lower the gear at 300 kph and once it is down I start lowering the flaps in increments to "full". If I need to bleed off speed to get to 300 kph, I just cross control (rudder all the way to one side, ailerons banked in the opposite direction).

Approach speed is about 210 kph, not slower. Usually the throttle is set to about 40%. Lowering the gear and flaps bleeds off the airspeed and any throttle adjustments to get to 210 kph are minor.

At about 50 meters altitude, right when I am over the imaginary point I was centered on, I pull up and point the nose at the runway threshold. This bleeds off even more speed and flattens out the approach. This is really the last chance to make any last second MINOR alignment adjustments.

Just short of the threshold, I pull the nose up even with the horizon. Speed at this point is about 190 kph. At the same time, I ease the throttle back to about 25%.

Now I am flying with the aircraft parallel to the ground, but altitude is dropping gradually. I am maybe 10 meters high at the threshold.

At the threshold, I pull the nose up JUST slightly so that it is above the horizon and I am in a slightly nose up attitude.

At that point, I just hold what I have until the plane settles onto the runway. I do not reduce throttle until the wheels are down and even then I ease it back to idle. Touch down speed is approximately 170kph give or take. Speed is not the issue here....just be aware of the rate of descent, the plane will touch down when it gets to the ground .

Once on the ground, I flip up the flaps (just a good habit I think). I keep an eye on the edge of the runway by looking 45 degrees out of the side of the cockpit. If I am still relatively straight, I leave the tail wheel locked. If I need to change course a bit, I unlock the tail wheel and make very suubtle adjustments.

Once the tail wheel is down, I pull all the way back on the stick (flaps are up by this point) and begin applying brakes. If the nose starts to drop, I ease off the brakes. Now I am looking for the taxi way . Remember to unlock the tail wheel at low speed in order to make the turn to the taxi way.

I hope that helps any other newbs land the 109. It's only taken me about 100 landings and the help of this board to figure it out....

Splitter

[KnightFandragon]

Lol if I was a luftwaffe pilot id be shot for costing them to many planes.....I usually land at 200kph and that likes to break the 109 alot.....it goes bouncy, bouncy, bouncy....SMACK with usually a resulting fireball. prety much every other plane ive flown lands pretty well at the 200kph speed but the 109 haha. 109s landing gear need some reinforcement for sure

[BadAim]

I'll give you my method for landing most planes in IL2. (I fly the 109 a lot) First I'm usually going full throttle being chased by (real or imaginary) bandits when I spot the airfield much too late and much too fast. First thing I do is haul back on the throttle, next is apply full rudder in whatever direction will get me to the runway fastest, I then use whatever amount of aileron is necessary to keep me from spinning right into the dirt. If the bandits are real, they have hopelessly overshot me by now, and I pray that they are being roughly handled by the airfields AAA. At about 300KPH I drop flaps and gear willy-nilly in any order and hope I'm roughly lined up with the runway by now. Now the speed is really coming off, so I ease up on the rudder and start correcting all of the mistakes I've made so far (and that's a lot) First I start frantically adjusting the throttle and attitude to get me at approximately 170KPH and pointed at the end of the runway that I want to land on. The rest is easy. I continue to fly at the end of the runway until I run out of balls then cut throttle (if I have any on at this point) and pull the nose up to just above the horizon and wait for whatever happens. If My landing gear survives I immediately raise my flaps and start pumping the brakes and looking for a place to get off the runway, because if one of my knucklehead squad-mates isn't right behind me trying to ram me, the aforementioned bandits (assuming they're real and not blown to Hell by the AAA) are just about ready to pounce on me.

And that is how a 12 year veteran flight simmer really lands!

[Splitter]

Originally Posted by BadAim

I'll give you my method for landing most planes in IL2. (I fly the 109 a lot) First I'm usually going full throttle being chased by (real or imaginary) bandits when I spot the airfield much too late and much too fast. First thing I do is haul back on the throttle, next is apply full rudder in whatever direction will get me to the runway fastest, I then use whatever amount of aileron is necessary to keep me from spinning right into the dirt. If the bandits are real, they have hopelessly overshot me by now, and I pray that they are being roughly handled by the airfields AAA. At about 300KPH I drop flaps and gear willy-nilly in any order and hope I'm roughly lined up with the runway by now. Now the speed is really coming off, so I ease up on the rudder and start correcting all of the mistakes I've made so far (and that's a lot) First I start frantically adjusting the throttle and attitude to get me at approximately 170KPH and pointed at the end of the runway that I want to land on. The rest is easy. I continue to fly at the end of the runway until I run out of balls then cut throttle (if I have any on at this point) and pull the nose up to just above the horizon and wait for whatever happens. If My landing gear survives I immediately raise my flaps and start pumping the brakes and looking for a place to get off the runway, because if one of my knucklehead squad-mates isn't right behind me trying to ram me, the aforementioned bandits (assuming they're real and not blown to Hell by the AAA) are just about ready to pounce on me.

And that is how a 12 year veteran flight simmer really lands!

"I wanna party with you, Cowboy" lol

Splitter

[Romanator21]

It's good that you mentioned the steepness of the approach - it has to be just right. After a long and successful mission on War Clouds server, I made an approach which was otherwise good, but too shallow. The result was that I clipped a water tower that was out of sight under my nose. I carved a nice crater at the threshold, and decorated the runway neatly with my debris.

So much for skirting around the outside of the map boundaries to sink a ship unnoticed, and later taking out an A-20, eh?

[baronWastelan]

I tried to land according to the method the LW pilots landed on the small dirt fields, from what I've read (curving approach, touch down at 130 K)...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sMBpErzd3I&hd=1