"Comfort" in cockpits of BOB adversaries

[Heliocon]

Umm wtf - I thought he was very direct and honest with both his opinions and that he talked directly about issues that could be seen with the camera. I am 6,3 - I could never fit in the 109

[Moggy]

I'm sure I saw a documentary years ago explaining the size difference between the 2 cockpits. I thought it might of been Spitfire! Two seconds to kill but having seen it again it doesn't look like it. I'm sure it's in my video collection somewhere!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/battleo...in/11405.shtml

If memory serves, the Spitfire had a slightly larger cockpit but the 109 had a better engine layout and was easier for ground crew to work on.

[KG26_Alpha]

Interestingly from Two Seconds to Kill

Bader mentions the Spit wing "folding up",

I had also read about this when over stressing the aircraft due to the pilots having to be careful with the Spits in hard manoeuvres as they were able to go past the safe limits due to the control authority being very light on the stick less than 10lbs where as the Bf109 was more than 20lbs.

I hope someone will put those figures right for me but I'm going from memory.

[Moggy]

Originally Posted by KG26_Alpha

Interestingly from Two Seconds to Kill

Bader mentions the Spit wing "folding up",

I had also read about this when over stressing the aircraft due to the pilots having to be careful with the Spits in hard manoeuvres as they were able to go past the safe limits due to the control authority being very light on the stick less than 10lbs where as the Bf109 was more than 20lbs.

I hope someone will put those figures right for me but I'm going from memory.

Dodge, wasn't that the part where Bader and Stanford-Tuck were talking about a German ace who had managed to tear off a wing or 2 and the story had got around the German squadrons causing their pilots to pull out of divers early?

[KG26_Alpha]

Originally Posted by Moggy

Dodge, wasn't that the part where Bader and Stanford-Tuck were talking about a German ace who had managed to tear off a wing or 2 and the story had got around the German squadrons causing their pilots to pull out of divers early?

Hi Moggy

No this is regarding Spit pilots having to take care due to the lighter stick forces, it was easy for them to overstress the aircraft and pull the wings off it.

Don't want to get too off topic


Spit II pilots notes

[Voyager]

Originally Posted by Moggy

Dodge, wasn't that the part where Bader and Stanford-Tuck were talking about a German ace who had managed to tear off a wing or 2 and the story had got around the German squadrons causing their pilots to pull out of divers early?

My understanding is that it was the Bf-108, which was one of the ancestors of the Bf-109 was the source of most of the doubt about 109 wing strength.

I believe it was one of my folks aircraft books that related the story of an acrobatics pilot who did a very impressive routine in the 108 for some major air event, and when he'd landed, it was discovered that the leading edges had separated by a couple inches at the wing roots.

I'll have to dig it out next time I'm down there. I'm pretty sure it was that Smithsonian Coffetable book of aircraft, with all full color foldouts of aircraft that I poured over through most of my youth.

[yellonet]

Originally Posted by Heliocon

Umm wtf - I thought he was very direct and honest with both his opinions and that he talked directly about issues that could be seen with the camera.

Yeah, I guess that most of us thought of it like that.
But Sternjaeger claims that he has met the pilot in person, so of course he can interpret what we see and what the man says much better than the rest of us.
Goes without saying really.