The 'Great Debate' - Spitfire vs BF109

[winny]

There's a famous account by Brian lane of a turning dogfight with a 109 during the BoB. For me it sums up the Spit vs 109 debate.

Lane found himself on the tail of a 109, which was obviously being flown by an expert, he found it hard, but possible, to stay with the 109 whilst it's pilot 'threw it all over he sky'. The chase progressed and the German pilot started circling to try and get on Lanes tail, and was gaining. Lane then describes 'riding the buffet' and in turn gaining on the 109. He then describes seeing the slats deploy on the 109 and the ailerons starting to snatch. The German pilot knew his situation was getting worse and rolled out and dived away. Lane couldn't catch him.

The reason it sums it up for me is that when 2 pilot's dogfight there's a certain ammount of weighing up of the opponent that goes on, they knew when they were up against someone good, and they knew when they were up against someone bad.

The dogfight starts with the German throwing moves that would have probably shaken off average pilots, that didn't work so he tries to get on the Spit's 6. That makes sense. It's well known that a lot of Spitfire pilot's would back off at the first sign of the buffet, when in fact you could fly through it.

At the point the German realised he was being caught he used the mechanical advantage he had and dived away.

Skill and experience didn't work so at that point he used the plane.

109 and Spit were so close, both had faults, both had pilots that knew how to work round them.