Leading Edge Slats on the Me-109

[taildraggernut]

Originally Posted by Crumpp

That is pretty much stall behavior in an LE slat equipped high aspect ratio wing, macro!



Yes, it depends on the pilots human reaction to the behavior of the aircraft at the stall point.

But the second quote does not suggest the Spits or Hurries were actually in the stall, rather it suggests the Spit/hurri pilots should have pulled harder like in the first part of the same quote...

it was found that our aircraft turned inside the Me.109 without difficulty when flown by determined pilots who were not afraid to pull their aircraft round hard in a tight turn

that second quote is continuously used out of context, to translate it in simple terms it just means that 'a surprisingly large number of cases' which reads as less than a majority of the time and perhaps even very few times and only when the pursued Spits/Hurries were being flown by less determined pilots then the 109 managed to keep on their tail......why else would they be 'surprised' about it.

So what? the 109 didn't have vicious stall characteristics, it seems apparent that in a 109 you just shouldn't be messing around in that regime of flight due to a being completely disadvantaged in relative turn performance against Spits and Hurries, as Crumpp has confirmed an aircraft with LE slats is unable to maintain performance in tight turns due to high drag.