First fight in a 109

[bongodriver]

Originally Posted by JG52Uther

I'm sure I saw a real WW2 vet say once that you could pull some pretty spectacular turns, and the slats scared the carp out of inexperienced pilots the first time they came out, as they made quite a bang!

automatic slats have a tendency to pop out suddenly under load, this happens in the Tiger Moth (must be locked closed for areobatics) I heard an annecdote of a Tiger moths slats popping out so hard they ripped out from their mountings, it seems believeable considering the Tigers slats were solid pieces of aluminium mounted to the spindly wooden constuction of the wings.

[Sven]

More information about the slats on the BF109:

http://www.virtualpilots.fi/feature/...09myths/#slats

[kestrel79]

Videos like that blow my mind. Cockpit is sooo small. Those guys had some balls. One of these times at EAA I'm going to have to try and sit in one of these things...

[Hellbender]

I flew the recent 3 weeks on BLUE side and I must say that I never got shoot down by a Hurricane or Spitfire since I always kept an eye on E-management and with the E-advantage, the 109 is unstoppable. Only super accurate Wellington or Blenheim AI gunners downed me or when I accidentally rammed them ( happens sometimes to me) and I had to bail out. However, in that time I rarely made voyages down below the cloud level.

Also, what I am missing is, that whiel FLying red and I fly 90% of times RED, there is mroe teamwork going on for the RAF. 109s can be quickly started and you are ready to go, but mostly one catches 109s lonely or sometimes in pairs somwhere over England which is nothing against 4-6 Reds flying together. Once one 109 was rushing into a formation of 9 Spits and Hurris just to find itself hit by 8 different planes .

Just yesterday I recorded the following footage of a 109 low dogfighting over Manston and then trying to run away:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrYrgs-Nnic

One think to be tired out is whether how effective the usage of the flaps in dogfights is. I heard soem peopel saying with that it is possible to stay in a turn with a Hurricane for a long time. Haven´t tried it yet.