First fight in a 109

[Jaws2002]

Originally Posted by JG5_emil

The LW knew their strengths and weaknesses and I doubt many real pilots would fly that way, many of the ones that did probably ended up at the bottom of the channel. The pilots that used the strengths of the aircraft surely survived much longer.

Nope. The majority of LW pilots did waht they were told to do. Did you forget the "fly close to the bombers" orders Goering gave them? It was bad for the fighters, but at the time that's what they were told and that's what they did.
Wars are not fought individually by the pilots. They fight as part of a machine that works towards a strategic goal. The life of one, or a few fighter pilots is not more important than the final strategic goal.
The idea of the whole fighter force of the luftwafe flying however and wherever they like is bloody stupid. Very, very few of them had the freedon to fly how they wanted. Those are the ones that got to the top, by fighing how they were told.
If your unit has to cover a ground offensive, you flew at the altitude they told you. Not everyone was flying at 6000meters and engaged only when it suited them. You could be assigned to fly between ground level and 2000meters. It was not up to you. The success of the ground offensive dictated the air tactics.


Look. Here's a very good documentary that explains very well how military organizations work during wars:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31AXA...eature=related

You are basically a smal part of teh big picture.



I wish you all the fun and enjoy your flying. Just don't pretend this is absolutely the historical way to fly.
It's a game in the end, thanks God, and we all can get our fix however we like.

[JG5_emil]

You're putting words in my mouth that I haven't said.

Are you seriously going to tell me that the good pilots didn't know where their strengths lay and wouldn't want to try and use them in order to stay alive?

Yes there were given patrol altitude and tasked with escort duties as well as fighter sweeps and other missions. Sounds like you are the one who is forgetting that all of the fighter pilots hated being tasked with close escort? And why was that? because they knew they were being forced to fight in a situation where they couldn't use their strengths of speed and superior climb rate. There were slow and vulnerable. Once engaged do you think they didn't try to get the upper hand as soon as humanly possible? The 109 had several advantages over the Spit 1a and Hurricane and the pilots who survived would have tried to use them the best they could. I am yet to read about a 109 pilot who regularly flew round in circles 50ft of the deck at 250 kph and lived as you see in a dogfight server.

What I wrote was in response to the original posters request about tactics used by blue (CLOD pilots not real world pilots). Low and slow you are much more likely to die. Higher (than the enemy) and/or faster than your enemy you have more chance to win the fight and live. Higher doesn't mean 4000m higher, that would be ridiculous, I am speaking in terms of energy that can be converted in order to keep their advantage and ultimately win the fight or disengage at will and ultimately live to fight another day.

In short having a lower or equal energy state than your opponent is never a good thing and should be avoided.

[jimbop]

Thanks guys, the debate has been interesting to watch. I think I agree with both of you!

Maintaining high energy should be a top priority, especially in the 109, but it is useful to know escape methods just in case things go wrong. As they frequently do for me...

[justme262]

Interesting debate.
I think it's even sweeter to beat a red opponent on his turf. On the deck. It just rubs it in really doesn't it
I think if you flew perfect discipline in the bf109 red would almost never shoot you down. Now that's not very sporting is it?!
I can think of more than one occasion when an over confident red has over shot my 109 while I was break turning with combat flaps... I even put the gear down once cause I was sure I was gonna die! But I whooped for joy moments later when he over shot and I turn back onto him and lit him up with 20mm. I even remember that that guy was trash talk'n me in the chat window before all this happened. heheh
It was my finest hour.

Maybe I'm too impetuous for jg5_emil to fly with me but I'm haven fun.

[JG5_emil]

Fun is what it is all about and that's all that matters. Our fun is different to your fun that's all. We take great pleasure in flying as a team and working together to win. We don't go in for certain kinds of fighting because that's not what we're about. We exclusively flew coops in IL2 so discipline was very important, if you lose a couple of aircraft in the beginning of the engagement things tend to go rapidly down hill.

[jimbop]

Well since the OP I've become much more familiar with the 109. My conclusion is that if you are careful to fly the 109 the way it is meant to be used you are close to untouchable with the current models. Slow, gentle turns to avoid bleeding energy and extending away feature heavily. Want to turn and burn? Fly a G.50 or fly red. Just don't even bother turning with red - even a half decent pilot will have you.

I was in a furball with three reds earlier and by carefully timing my dives into the fray I was able to boom and zoom effectively over about 20 minutes. Good,solid hits on them but I'm still getting used to the 109 gunnery which seems to behave differently to the red. 303s in terms of velocity and therefore lead shooting. Or maybe I'm just rubbish! (Which leads me to another question: why is the Hurri so fragile when I am being shot at and so strong when I am shooting at it?)

The only danger is that the current top level speed of the Hurri and 109 seem quite close if the Hurri is well trimmed. If you find yourself co-E with one down low then you are in strife. He might not catch you but you might not get away fast enough.

Most red pilots who are engaged in a furball will turn back when you extend away, often sharply which further reduces their energy. That is the signal to climb again in a slow turn, rinse and repeat the dive. And that cannon!

I only got into trouble twice today: once when I sacrificed my advantage to draw a spit away from our bomber (I was neatly shot down) and once when I made a mistake with the prop pitch on extension (wrong direction ahem...) and a Hurri gained on me rapidly. I was already on the deck so I tried the solution described above and braked hard into a turn. The red pilot saw it but was too late to stop an overshoot so rammed me instead.

Great fun but I must admit to still being red unless the server is uneven! And I wish the 109 had rudder trim.

[Varrattu]

Originally Posted by JG5_emil

You definitely cannot control the leading edge slats manually, no idea if that was possible in RL...I kinda doubt it.

Please have a look:

http://109lair.hobbyvista.com/techre...lats/slats.htm

Happy landings

Varrattu

[von Brühl]

Isn't there another thread with a video of one of the RL pilots on this forum showing us his control of automatic leading edge slats? They can be controlled manually, there's just no need to.

[robtek]

The Bf109 slats can't be controlled manually, except on the ground by actually touching them.

[Varrattu]

The BF109E used a so called swing arm parallelogram mechanism to agitate the slats. The slats were driven out by means of low air-pressure if the AOA gets higher ( slow flight ) and retract by means of air-pressure when accelerating...

As far as I know, the current value for above mentioned AOA in iL2-CLOD is ~15°. That is nearly the angle when your BF109E stands on the ground.

Happy hunting

Varrattu