"No one would deny that the Zero was one of the best slow speed turners, but at anything above 250mph the controls were almost rigid and as a result its actual performance in a turn at these sppeds was very poor. Had the controls been given a different gearing/ configeration whatever then she would probably have been an even better all round fighter."
I don't mean to throw (another) red herring into the mix but that's an interesting point. Could the turn performance of a fighter be altered in this way, or by simply increasing the size or throw of the elevators?? I don't know but I suspect not. It seems unlikely that the engineers of the day were unable to come up with such an obvious and easy fix for something like the 109.
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