"tw" wrote in message . ..
"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...

"Jay Stranahan" wrote in message
...
Just mildly curious, because this information doesn't seem to be
available on any of the web sites I visit: What sort of gee forces were
WW2 fighter aircraft built to withstand? I keep hearing stories about
wings coming off in dives or very tight sustained turns -- were they
*that* much more fragile than modern military craft?


Depends on the aircraft

The Spitfire and Hurricane were just about unbreakable being
able to handle more g than the pilot but the Me-109 was
known to have suffered wing tip and tail spar failures and had real
compressibility issues. One of the results was that despite the
theoretical performance Luftwaffe pilots were often a little
more hesitant about really aggressive manoeuvering than their
RAF opponents.

Wasn't this also because at least the Spit's stall characteristics were
docile, whilst the 109 and 190 were rather vicious in that respect?

Both aircraft were difficult though the Spitfire was marginal better
in the earlier series but much better in latter. The nerve of the
pilot counted for more than the differences in aircraft and at least
in the early series aircraft Me 109E, Me 109F the differences in
handling were not so great. The 109 had handly page automatic leading
edge slats that made it possible to opperate the aircraft with high
wing loading and gave a relatively benigne stall. (Handley Page and
Messerschmitt swapped a nos of usefull patents)

Geoffrey Welland talks of being able to hold a turn on the spit on the
pre-stall "buffet" while watching an Me 109 trying to follow him, stalling
and flick-rolling the other way into the ground.

The Luftwaffe wern't particulary concerned with turning circle in
specifying and selecting the Bf 109. The idea was to make an aircraft
as small as possible with the biggest engine and therefore the highest
power to weight ratio and lowest drag. In this they succeded. They
also succeded in making a very easy to produce aircraft. (1/4th the
labour content of the Spitfire excluding engine as its sheet metal was
all 2 dimensional) Throughout the war it always maintained the
abillity to perform a steep corkscrew climb that no aircraft could
follow and in the early Me 109E, Me 109F and final Me 109K had a climb
advantage due to power to weight ratio.

However it is an airframe that in chronilogical age was more in the
Hawker Hurricane era than the Spitfire.

The aerodynamics became outmoded: the slats limited role rate, the
ailerons became so stiff that the roll rate was only 1/4th that of a
Fw190 at speeds of over 400mph and the whole airframe was too draggy.
It soldiered on to long and the high wing loading meant that the
aircraft couldn't grow as well as the spitfire

The real reason the 109 suffered mostly was the quality of pilot
training.


The FW190 had a similarly
nasty stall I believe and pilots were leery of hauling it around too close
to the ground.

For the 190A: Its strength was in a very high roll rate and a very
effective engine at low altitude and its performance in the vertical.

The Ta 152H, a derivative of the FW190, could out turn and out run any
allied fighter though its roll rate was average.





The early versions of the Hawker Typhoon also had
structural problems with the prototype actually breaking
just aft of the cockpit, fortunately the pilot survived.
Improvements were made but tail failures were always
a problem.

Flutter. A very difficult problem that causes fatigue failure. The
first German digital computers Konrad Zuse Z3 was used in solving
flutter problems in Germany.