SoW:BoB DB601 Pitch / MG-FFl

[lane]

Steinhilper also wrote about manually changing the propeller pitch. "Of special importance was teaching them how to change the pitch of the propeller to get maximum pull from the engine at high altitude." See attachment (if it works). There is a note at the end of Chapter 16: "This technique of varying the throttle setting and pitch led to a constant rising and falling of engine speed. One of the observations of people in Britain was that you could tell which aircraft were German and which were British because the German engine noise seemed always to be rising and falling - unlike the British engines which seemed to remain constant. This may explain the phenomenon." I've read about that quite a few times over the years.

[Blackdog_kt]

Excellent piece of information, i'd never have thought of what they were doing.

If i'm reading it correctly, they were essentially storing energy in the supercharger momentarily and then used it to increase their climb rate in bursts. Planes don't cruise on maximum RPM all the time since the propeller has more "pull" if it's angled to have a bigger "bite" of air, but this also results in increased air resistance/drag and lower RPMs.

So, they were setting high RPMs and momentarily sacrificed some "pull" to speed up the engine and the supercharger, then used the power stored in the supercharger to drive the prop at lower RPMs with higher pull. It's amazing what kind of little tricks seasoned veterans could pull. I guess that each little thing by itself didn't do much, but adding it all up together must have given a tangible performance advantage.

[rakinroll]

Thanks for these docs Franky.

[zapatista]

interesting information, since this would mean the whole period of BoB the germans should have the earlier 109 models that require the "3 handed" approach

there is usually some knowledgeable folks (and a few OC ones to ) hanging around the main forums who would have some more definitive information on this "production series" issue and the variants provided to each group (from reliable historical sources) during that specific BoB time period.

if the posted information is correct, it would be important for this aircraft variant to be the main (? only) 109 version provided for the german side during BoB

[Matt255]

T: Technical aircraft features
* Manual and auto prop pitch Bf109 variants will be featured

Source:
http://www.freewebs.com/heinkill/stormofwarnews.htm

Not sure if this is still up to date.

Anyway, i think some late E-4's had an automatic-pitch (those that still flew when the F reached the front), but no E-3. However, so far i haven't seen a E-4 (or later variant then the E-3) in any of the screenshots yet.

I fly with manual prop-pitch in IL-2. I highly recommend trying that out. It needs some time getting used to, but after a while, it's basically like shifting gears in a car. You do it automatically without thinking about it.

[JG53Frankyboy]

actually its not possible to destinguish an E-4 from an E-3 just looking at it!
the only difference was that the E-4 had MG-FF/M that were able to fire mineshells.
btw, if Maddox decides to make an E-3 as THE 109 in SoW:BoB it would be a mistake because the two main variants during this time were the E-1 (non 20mm canons) and the E-4! almost all so far produced E-3 were rearmed to be E-4s

[Matt255]

Afaik, all E-4 planes had the new canopy. I know that some E-3 have been retrofitted with that canopy (and FF/M etc.), but not the other way around (E-4 with old style canopys). And the 109's on the screenshots are definately E-3's (old canopy + 20mm cannons, that rules E-1 and E-4 out).

And Oleg stated already, that there will not be a E-1 variant.