P-51 vs. 109 Drag, The Truth! 

Thanks Bolt.

Pilot expertise in a turning fight was more critical than usual with the 109. In expert hands it was formidable, but its instability near its limits shrank its envelope considerably for most pilots, especially towards the end of the war. That's illustrated by accounts of flights of 109s that were mostly trivial opposition but with one or two hotshots that presented real problems.

I know ur comment is over a year old but buddy it is still "Fresh". Pointing this information out to aircraft enthusiast is about like convincing a liberal to accept facts. The P-51gained fame for 2 reasons. It could do what he spitfire did but with better mileage(Bomber crews really really like this as such have talked it up.) And the fighter tactics developed for stressed skin monoplanes (New and Hot stuff at the time) were based on the belief that "Planes of today are way to fast and therefore the days of dogfighting are over", that and the dangers of turn fighting with the Zero. So boom and zoom was developed and taught as the main basis for attack. But even with all that if the guy kickin the pedals isn't any good it's all a mute point.

@@warrenchambers4819 Thanks Warren. I'll also point out that another key to the Pony's legendary speed was the quality of the fuel available to the Allies. While the Germans were making do with 87-89 octane fuel (when they could actually get fuel), the Allies had access to 130, and even 150 octane gas. This allowed them to boost their engines to absolutely ridiculous levels (for the period). Not a good thing for the longevity of the plugs and exhaust valves, but a definite plus if the pilot found himself in a bad spot and needed to get the Hell outa Dodge.

@@BoltUpright190 I'm a autoTech(Grease monkey) and have been for over 30yrs so I can really appreciate your point. And your right it sure seemed to be our theory back then. A good example is when one visits the museum at Wright Patterson. The set up there really drives the point home to the visitors. They start you out going thru the axis aircraft of which they really have an outstanding collection and some really rare birds. But once you've seen a real Zero, the 109 and Fw-190 you round the corner to a monster. Your entire field of vision is filled with P-47, which is as big a twin engine bomber and it's only a single seat fighter plane!???? Dam. It dawns on one those engineers back then said " We got only 3 requirements. #1 Horse power and lots of it. #2 Guns, Guns, Guns and yes More guns! #3 Gas. More Gas. Lots more Gas (We've got plenty O gas keep it coming) Drop tanks for yup you guess it mo Gas!" I can just hear someone from way in the back of the room sayin "But sir the fuel mileage? " only to hear "Dam son your right and good idea!!! We'll add some more GAS!" Hahahahahahaha

Yep, he does an excellent job of highlighting the technical issues of developing aircraft.

I was just now wondering if you knew this channel...

Nice to see you here!

I totally concur.

Ja!

Thanks Paddy, I will probably take you up on the footage offer at some point, and of course I'll credit you.

Mark Felton is of similar nature albeit a related but different subject.

Dwight gets it. Well done Dwight.

Yeah there's more information here than I can soak up in one pass.

I watch them several times, first at regular speed, second at a faster speed but then slow it down for the information heavy parts...depending on available time.

@@nzsaltflatsracer8054 i agree, suprisingly great content.

Greg had a great video on the Bearcat. Apparently climb rate for carrier defense was the main parameter and could do that job. But taking away fuel and guns makes the whole concept seem too niche to be a real advance in technology. IMO

The Hellcat was the highest-scoring fighter plane of the war in the Pacific. It downed more enemy airplanes than any other of the planes in the Pacific theater. I think that is one reason Dodge named their car after it. What other car from America has achieved such overwhelming dominance over Japanese machines?

@@exploranator the corsair out performed it

🎉

Thanks Evan. I'm glad you like the channel.

I agree 100% And I don't even know what "erudite" means.

Presenting the NACA reports is off the geek scale and it doesn’t get any better than that.

Beagle76 Tell him thanks, I’m glad we have hormone replacement and drag queen story hour, it would be horrible to be speaking German.

@@BikingVikingHH You and I know it isn't that nuanced. Well, you might not, but as a historian of 20th century politics, I could tell you the reality is more of a slave labour of everyone deemed undesirable, and that the destruction of fascism and other similar far-right nationalist movements during the 20th century has made the world a better place for everyone regardless of what your outdated views might be (being assigned the wrong sex at birth is a very real scientific phenomenon according to one of my friends who is a geneticist). I'm grateful to Beagle's father for his service to our country. My great grandad wasn't in the 'raf but was on board HMS Belfast in the 'B' Turret we got his arctic star recently and I'm proud of his service, especially knowing the tale of the sinking of the Scharnhorst, and the harsh conditions on those arctic circle convoys. one of my other great grandads was in the REME, another in the RTR and the final one was an ARP warden in East London, although unfortunately I don't know as much about their service.

@@Reddsoldier you're wasting your time if you're trying to talk some sense into that deluded fuckwit. you'd have a better time trying to get a coherent response from a glass of stagnant water.

@@halowraith1 Yes, because it's quite certain that those brave allied veterans would've been thrilled with the idea of having their progeny become a minority demographic in their countries of birth via mass immigration. You and I both know that if they had been able to see into the future they would have gladly sided with ol' uncle Adolf.

@@jaromeunrooski6963 you go and get the opinion of those veterans then, and show them to me.

Thanks Carl.

Thanks Eric, I look at this under load in some other videos, I think the 262/P-80 one, but I'm not sure.

Thanks William.

You're not wrong! This video is way overdue.

For years I thought it had laminar flow as well, but NASA says no. Sometimes we have to change our minds when strong evidence shows up.

@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles If I interpret the data you show correctly, though, the wing potentially had laminar flow over 40% of the chord, under ideal circumstances, right? Just not in actual use.

That's exactly right. A perfect wing in a wind tunnel could do it an actual airplane off the assembly line, really couldn't.

A lot of those kills came at a time when German had air supremacy over most of Europe and Soviet aircraft and pilots in shambles though. Still require skills on the pilots part but its hard to quantify how much of that was skill and technical superiority vs other wartime conditions purely based on K/D ratio.

@@neurofiedyamato8763 North africa wasn't a theater where germans got air superiority. Not even in Russia. In 1942 germans got no air superiority anywhere. Maybe some temporary local superiority. But after Bob things started to become quite even. On 1943 they were on the lower side everywhere.

Germany had local air supremacy in the Eastern front up until around 1943. And that's all you need to rack up kills. The luftwaffe couldn't be "everywhere" but while they were there, they got plenty of kills. Germany had air superiority on the opening stages of Kursk for example. Germany racked up plenty of kills but they withdrew and lost air superiority. That didn't mean they lost it in direct confrontation. Air supremacy =/= kills and kills =/= equipment or skill superiority either. For a good overview of how things actually happened, multiple factors have to be considered, not just 'kills' or 'air control.' You need multiple factors to corroborate first. Also I said most of Europe. North Africa isn't Europe. I said Germany had air supremacy over Europe which they did in Poland, France, Norway and whatnot. Pilots most definitely racked up a lot of kills during those stages. Early USSR also did not have air supremacy, as I said above, Germany dominated wherever they are even if they did not have total control. Need I not mention how Germany could supply encircled troops purely by air in the early stages against the USSR?

@@neurofiedyamato8763 Actually, kills in France, and before were not that much. The battle was too short to rise up on kill claims. Same thing happened in poland and eastern europe. But north africa involved the planes in question at almost the same time, with the afrika korps luftwaffe being in far lesser numbers than their commonwealth opponents. When things were one to one, the germans got the better part. Later they were decimated a far numerous foe. Same thing happened in the channell. You can check Priller score. 101 voctories all in the western front. Also british pilots didn't do tours as far as I know the same way as american pilots did. They only started limiting flight hours on 1942. Priller did 307 combat missions with 101 kills, that also includes damaging bombers as kills, and maybe a full vier motoren who may be counted as four.

But one of the better english aces, got 37 kills onnmore than 700 tours, and mainly on the same places. At a time where forces were pretty matched.

Dont feel bad.everyone from that era was told the same bullshit on the laminar flow wings .i can still remembet my fathet telling me of americas air suppremacy due to special shaped wings on the mustang

Yeah, there are a least 1000 pages there, both books are fantastic.

Thanks, you're welcome.

The Meredith Effect was quite good on the Spitfire

Yup, that agrees 100% with the data I put up in the video.

@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles yeah mate bang on

Thank you, and Merry Christmas to you.

A laminar wing is one that maintains a laminar boundary layer significantly behind the leading edge. Its drag polar shows a distinct "bucket" at some range of lift coefficients, where this occurs. A negative pressure gradient is needed to achieve this, which is indeed done by having the thickest part closer to the mid chord. This however is not enough to make it a laminar wing. The camber must be shaped to reduce thickening of the boundary layer, and the surface must be very smooth. The negative pressure gradient that is achieved in this way is not very strong, so these airfoils are very sensitive to tolerances and surface roughness.

Droo Phus Thanks for sharing that. That's a nice story of your father in law. You honor his memory well.

@@smportis My pleasure. Thank you!

Thanks, all these planes are my favorites. If I absolutely had to pick one, it would probably be the 190, not because I think it's the best, but I just like it for some reason. Then again, ask me tomorrow and it might be the Corsair.

@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Haha! Two Great planes!

You low level aerobatic folks are impressive. I have done aerobatics, but always with a lot of room below me.

@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Well, room below has increased with the years also for me. Certified for airshow aerobatics in my 20ies and 30ies to 50 ft straight in level manouvers and 200ft for turning manouvers - there are no margins for error. The world is not perfect so what happens if somethings breaks or pilot error. Not sustainable. So today in my 50ies I do areobatics mostly above 2000 ft and with the docile Bucker Jungman. See my channel, look at the video about aerobatics with the Bucker Jungman Neil Williams style. It is going back to the roots and more healthy margins. The Lomcevac airshow at low altitude ended with this flight, see "Opening Airshow at Hvittingfoss 31/8 2013". Nothing went wrong there. However, last flight for this homemade airplane after 22 years service. Airplane is now in museum, I gave it away as a gift to our national aero museum in Bodø. Hangs in the roof. Mostly because of some other other odd stuff we did with it. Docking wingsuit parachute jumpers to the wingtips of it 22 times in 2012. Special designed wings and winglets for that. Fully legally and certified by Norwegian CAA. Not before the Draco in the US 7 years later it was done again. That much said. I really enjoy Your videos and while driving car for my hangglider adventures I always put youtube on the speaker and listen to what You have to say mostly without any visual. The wider understanding of compressors, superchargers and turbos I must admit that even flying some of this airplanes in the past the videos have contributed to a much better understanding of how this airplanes were matched up against each other and why. Today we (or my airshow fellow pilots that is) fly them on 100 octane fuel and lower boost for several reasons. In same museum as my old airplane hangs, there is a Me109F under restauration on the back room. Studying the hydrostatic controlled side mounted supercharger on the Daimler Benz and understanding how the bad fuel the germans had available contributed to high displacement engines and lower boost. Also a FW190 at the museum and the displacement on the BMW is even bigger. Looking at the lower displacement Merlins but very good performance over the altitude range we run Your videos to understand why. On my wish list for another video from You is a bit about german propeller wartime technology. US planes utilized quite big diameter and high surface area props. Sometimes with squered tips which puts high demand on pitch control precision. Probably for high altitude performance? Looking at german fighters, especially in the later stages of war, the props are not that big diameter and blade shapes are more tapered. Pointed tips. Most dominant on Me109 G and FW190 Dora models. Why is that?

Thanks Central.

I feel the same way, plus it's difficult to find a lot of photos of specific 109 variants.

Farmer Ted one of my favorites too!

G and K basically tried to put an 1945 engine in a 1942 plane, so naturally it wasn’t gonna fly as smooth

that is why..Bf-109 F für "favorit"

eric Hartmann exclusively used the Bf109F

@focke wulf Not according to his book He always favoured the Bf109

Excellent point.

Yep, but i have to say, that it is a handy number. It does tells you how aerodynamic a design is independent of it's size. This is perfect for things like wind tunnel tests were you have to use smaller models, to get an idea for the quality of your design. Of course, in the automotive world, a low Cw number also is a good way of advertising your design ;D.