the Messerschmitt bf109!

This is a picture of the only "real" Messerschmitt built 109 flying today. there was one a few years ago owned by Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB) flying, but it got damaged in a landing accident some years ago. But it is under rebuild and restoration and hopefully will be flying again. The bf109 (bf stands for Bayerische Flugzeugwerke) Later Willi Messerschmitt started his own factory and the 109 was called Me109. Sadly "Black 6" had a landing accident at Duxford autumn 1997 but hopefully it will be rebuilt.

I got good news from Robert Stetter in Germay telling me that the 109 owned by Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB), which is now DaimlerChrysler Aerospace (DASA), is flying again. He has seen it a the international aviation exhibit (ILA) at Berlin in may 1998.
Visit his homepage to see some pitures of it.

messerschmitt 109 brief history and technical information

For those who love the sound of aircraft engines, you can click the update button of your browser to hear the sound of the Daimler-Benz V-12 in the 109 again. So for comparision you can click on the Rolls-Royce logo below to hear the Merlin roar. Note the difference in "sound", the 109 engine has a much "harder" and whistling sound than the Merlin.

Background and Technical Details
Like most things about Willy Messerschmitt, his relationship with the Nazis was ambigous. Hess, the deputy leader of the Nazi Party, was a life-long friend , but Erhard Milch, Göring's right-hand man, was an implacable enemy.
Milch's hostility can be traced from 1931 when two Messerschmitt M20's crashed, killing the passengers, one of whom was a great personal friend of Milch, head of Lufthansa, purchaser of the machines. He blamed Willy Messerschmitt but the enquiry said that the specification was at fault. Nevertheless Milch cancelled the order for ten more M20 aircraft and demanded the refund of money already paid. This bankrupted Messerschmitt's company and he had to start again almost from scratch.

When the nazis took power in 1933, Milch made sure that Messerschmitt din not share the contracts and subsidies that other German aircraft manufacturers enjoyed. When Milch was forced to give him a German goverment contract, Milch ordered him to build Heinkel biplanes under licence. Messerschmitt hated Heinkel almost as much as he hated biplanes.

But as Milch's power grew, so his influence in departemental decisions weakened. Udet became the Luftwaffe's Inspector of Fighers and Dive Bombers and then chief of the Development Section of its Technical Department. and when Messerschmitt's Bf 109 met his rival's He 112 in comparative trials, it was the flying demonstration that was the deciding factor at a time when the Heinkel still had wide support. But when Messerschmitt's chief test pilot came to the spinning test (considered very important by the German Air Ministry), instead of doing the ten spins to port and ten to starboard that the specification demanded, he did seventeen and twenty-one respectively. Then he took the aircraft up to over 24.000 feet and did a terminal velicity dive that flattened out almost at groung level. at that moment the Heinkel team must have guessed that their case was lost

Technical Data Bf 109E

Engine : Daimler-Benz DB 601A, 12-Cylinder inverted-vee, liquid-cooled engine, 1175 hp (PS)

Dimensions:
Wingspan : 32 ft 4 in (9.86 m) Length : 28 ft 4 in (8.64 m)
Wing Area : 176.53 sq ft (16.4 sq m
Weight: 4189 lb (1902 kg), loaded 5523 lb (2505.2 kg)
Speed: 293 mph at sea level (472 km/h) 348 mph at 14560 ft (560 km/h)
Armament : Two 20 mm MG forward-firing in wings, Two 7.9 mm MG 17 in upper cowling, One engine mounted 20 mm MG

During one of my visits to Biggin Hill, the 109 Black 6 was flying a display and a former Luftwaffe 109 pilot was attending the speaker tower. He was asked by the speaker if they were afraid of the Spitfires and replyed that the thing he was most scared of was running out of fuel!! The 109's limited range would only allow operations in the London area for about half an hour before returning to the airfields in France. Nevertheless, the Spitfire was a highly respected opponent by the Luftwaffe pilots. At one time Luftwaffe ace Adolf Galland told Göring, after his wing had been critisized for not shooting down enough RAF fighters, to get him a wing of Spitfires! Click Galland's image to the right to hear him tell about it.

Close window