And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Sunday, March 15, 2020
These things were said to be notoriously hard to land
for you unfortunates who do not drive airplanes: imagine sitting on a modified car hauler with long skinny sticks that lower the axles, this raisies one end of the trailer.that is dropped out of a C-130 backwards. you steer with a big sail operated with foot pedals. as you slow down the back of the trailer drops, and the trailer blanks out the airflow over the controls. so as you slow, you rapidly lose the ability to steer.
Willy Messerschmitt insisted on the landing gear mechanism being mounted on the fuselage so that the wings could be kept thinner. This gave the Me-109 a very narrow landing track, making it very prone to ground looping. I seem to recall reading somewhere that of the total 109 losses, nearly 30% were from ground accidents.
The main advantage was you could ship the plane with the wings removed, and still move it around by hand. Made rail transport easy. The gear still fit into the wings, but the wings didn't have to be beefy enough to handle the stress of landing, which kept some weight off the aircraft.
That pilot has a problem. The heavy canopy swings overhead to the side, and I suspect the weight might be sufficient to tip the wreck onto it's back, trapping the pilot. Might even kill him by crushing or fire. Flipping on the back after crashing was a really bad situation for a 109 pilot. IIRC, that had the highest fatality rate for crashes of that airframe.
Most of the high kill numbers were by pilots in the 109. Very few of the pros chose the fw190 as their mount.
IIRC, the highest scoring ace lost 16 of his own 109's in the course of the war. Running out of fuel, anti-aircraft fire, rear seat gunners of the IL-2 bomber, and flying through debris from close kills, were some of the reasons I recall. Might have lost one or two on his own airfields.
BTW, his score? 352, which included four US Mustangs in one engagement over the Ploesti Oil Fields. He didn't just shoot down Russians! I think his total of Mustangs might have been 8, defending Ploesti.
I'd say he stuck that landing.
ReplyDeleteGround Loops are common place.
ReplyDeleteWith tail-draggers, that is...
Deletefor you unfortunates who do not drive airplanes: imagine sitting on a modified car hauler with long skinny sticks that lower the axles, this raisies one end of the trailer.that is dropped out of a C-130 backwards. you steer with a big sail operated with foot pedals. as you slow down the back of the trailer drops, and the trailer blanks out the airflow over the controls. so as you slow, you rapidly lose the ability to steer.
Deletenow throw in a crosswind
The Brits helped a bunch of them land.
ReplyDelete--generic
Willy Messerschmitt insisted on the landing gear mechanism being mounted on the fuselage so that the wings could be kept thinner. This gave the Me-109 a very narrow landing track, making it very prone to ground looping. I seem to recall reading somewhere that of the total 109 losses, nearly 30% were from ground accidents.
ReplyDeleteThe main advantage was you could ship the plane with the wings removed, and still move it around by hand. Made rail transport easy. The gear still fit into the wings, but the wings didn't have to be beefy enough to handle the stress of landing, which kept some weight off the aircraft.
DeleteThat pilot has a problem. The heavy canopy swings overhead to the side, and I suspect the weight might be sufficient to tip the wreck onto it's back, trapping the pilot. Might even kill him by crushing or fire. Flipping on the back after crashing was a really bad situation for a 109 pilot. IIRC, that had the highest fatality rate for crashes of that airframe.
Most of the high kill numbers were by pilots in the 109. Very few of the pros chose the fw190 as their mount.
Four more and he's an ace......
ReplyDeleteIIRC, the highest scoring ace lost 16 of his own 109's in the course of the war. Running out of fuel, anti-aircraft fire, rear seat gunners of the IL-2 bomber, and flying through debris from close kills, were some of the reasons I recall. Might have lost one or two on his own airfields.
DeleteBTW, his score? 352, which included four US Mustangs in one engagement over the Ploesti Oil Fields. He didn't just shoot down Russians! I think his total of Mustangs might have been 8, defending Ploesti.
"These things were said to be notoriously hard to land"
ReplyDeleteWell...Yes, when your glide path is approaching 90 degrees nose low.