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“At that moment (I must have been down to about a hundred yards), I hit his slipstream and my engine cut —stone dead.” He didn't need to describe his lower leg

“At that moment (I must have been down to about a hundred yards), I hit his slipstream and my engine cut —stone dead.” He didn't need to describe his lower legs suddenly becoming strangely warm. What isn't mentioned is that before the band aid was discovered thanks to Ms Shilling and her ... (it was often called 'er c**) a Spitfire would have to invert before diving to turn a neg. into a posi. So, when your enemy pushes forwards on the stick whilst frantically wriggling left and right, you would have to spin 180 on your longitudinal axis to follow. I'm sure many of the enemy would then fake to get you to spin and whilst you are fiddling around, slow down and get in behind you. I can imagine: ME109 finds Spitfire on his tail. He has two great options - better rate of climb and a pressurized fuel system which doesn't cut out in neg. g. The Spitfire has a better turning circle, so don't go there. I suspect that they would go for the fake dive - the Spit will have to invert to follow. Now, I don't know how long the early Spits can manage a dive before having to decide to invert or pull out, so that is a factor here. When the 109 sees the Spit inverting in the rear view, pull back fairly hard, slow down a bit, probably with a left to right jiggle with the rudder to "skid" rather than messing with revs and propellor pitch (takes to long to play with the controls). If done right the Spit will pass underneath your 109 and most importantly, be blind because he's inverted. Now you are behind him and you have a cannon plus a handful of pea shooters to deploy. If the Spit is canny, he should see the fake dip and probably try to turn horizontally and turn the scrap into a turning game. The Spit should win that because it has a better turning circle, in general. Have an off day at the office in one of these things and you end up dead. I can barely conceive of what it must have been like to operate like that, operation after operation, day after day, week on week, months turn to years. There is no let up.

smcl 5y ago
It actually is mentioned in the article: “When an enemy fighter dived from behind, fired and carried on diving past, one could not immediately dive in pursuit without the engine temporarily cutting and causing one to be left far behind. This could be avoided by rolling upside down, pulling back on the stick into a dive (positive g) then rolling level in the dive. […] Similarly, on sighting a target below, one suffered momentarily if one pushed the nose down to attack, a grave disadvantage.” I am curious about the scenario you raised as to how an ME109 pilot would behave. Did they know about this flaw in the Spitfire?
- gerdesj 5y ago
  I'm speculating somewhat about how it would play out but I'm sure that the Luftwaffe would have worked out the problem pretty quickly and developed tactics accordingly. I'm not a pilot but I have flown several aircraft. Being an RAF cadet at school, back in the day, you were allowed to do quite a lot of things that might make a civvy flight instructor's hair prematurely go white when doing your "flight experience." Obviously we'd start quite a long way up with ATC keeping the area clear. I was memorably told "you have control" when the bloody thing was upside down and I thought my eyeballs were trying to dive through my feet and I was hanging off the straps. "I have control" (barely a waver) and I finished the loop off to straight and level. I think the pedals did some corrections for me. The rudder ie left/right yaw is done by the pedals and aircraft with more than one seat are automatically dual control. Anyway. Imagine you are a WWII fighter pilot - this is as close to dualling as you can get. If you get back home after a sortie, then you are debriefed (did you do what you were supposed to) and you might make some comments. A Luftwaffe pilot on return might note that the enemy pilot seemed inclined to invert. That might have looked a bit showy and odd. Eventually, someone would have decided that Spitfires can't dive properly - who cares exactly why. Tactics follow. Our chaps would have been doing the same. We knew that the Spitfire was generally better in tight horizontal turns than the ME109 and perhaps the Focke Wulf 190 (I can't remember.) So our tactics would have favoured getting into a turning scrap.
- redis_mlc 5y ago
  All sides in WW2 captured airplanes and had dedicated technical staff to evaluate them. Here's an interview with a German ace who evaluated several Allied planes (he preferred the P-51): https://www.historynet.com/aviation-history-interview-with-world-war-ii-luftwaffe-ace-gunther-rall.htm https://www.historynet.com/aviation-history-interview-with-w... Britain mostly was on the lookout for fighters and fighter/bombers with novel antennas, since they could be used to understand new radio navigation and radar electronics. (One of the most advanced landed near shore, but the Navy guarded it in salt water instead of handing it over for timely study.) During the Korean War after a MiG-15 was "donated", the issue was how to verify it wasn't booby-trapped before entering it, since test pilots are valuable (Chuck Yeager was one of them.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Moolah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Moolah At the end of the Vietnam War, the north captured an entire fleet of US aircraft (87 F-5s, plus more types) that were used successfully against air battles with China.
deleted 5y ago
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Jeema101 5y ago
It's easy to forget about the human element what with all the interesting technical aspects. But you're right, when it came down to it, they were up in the sky, putting their lives in the hands of their machines, with someone else in a very similar machine armed with machine guns and cannons trying to essentially murder them. I suppose you might get somewhat used to it after a while, but I can't imagine the fear ever really truly went away completely.

smcl 5y ago

It actually is mentioned in the article: “When an enemy fighter dived from behind, fired and carried on diving past, one could not immediately dive in pursuit without the engine temporarily cutting and causing one to be left far behind. This could be avoided by rolling upside down, pulling back on the stick into a dive (positive g) then rolling level in the dive. […] Similarly, on sighting a target below, one suffered momentarily if one pushed the nose down to attack, a grave disadvantage.” I am curious about the scenario you raised as to how an ME109 pilot would behave. Did they know about this flaw in the Spitfire?

gerdesj 5y ago
I'm speculating somewhat about how it would play out but I'm sure that the Luftwaffe would have worked out the problem pretty quickly and developed tactics accordingly. I'm not a pilot but I have flown several aircraft. Being an RAF cadet at school, back in the day, you were allowed to do quite a lot of things that might make a civvy flight instructor's hair prematurely go white when doing your "flight experience." Obviously we'd start quite a long way up with ATC keeping the area clear. I was memorably told "you have control" when the bloody thing was upside down and I thought my eyeballs were trying to dive through my feet and I was hanging off the straps. "I have control" (barely a waver) and I finished the loop off to straight and level. I think the pedals did some corrections for me. The rudder ie left/right yaw is done by the pedals and aircraft with more than one seat are automatically dual control. Anyway. Imagine you are a WWII fighter pilot - this is as close to dualling as you can get. If you get back home after a sortie, then you are debriefed (did you do what you were supposed to) and you might make some comments. A Luftwaffe pilot on return might note that the enemy pilot seemed inclined to invert. That might have looked a bit showy and odd. Eventually, someone would have decided that Spitfires can't dive properly - who cares exactly why. Tactics follow. Our chaps would have been doing the same. We knew that the Spitfire was generally better in tight horizontal turns than the ME109 and perhaps the Focke Wulf 190 (I can't remember.) So our tactics would have favoured getting into a turning scrap.
redis_mlc 5y ago
All sides in WW2 captured airplanes and had dedicated technical staff to evaluate them. Here's an interview with a German ace who evaluated several Allied planes (he preferred the P-51): https://www.historynet.com/aviation-history-interview-with-world-war-ii-luftwaffe-ace-gunther-rall.htm https://www.historynet.com/aviation-history-interview-with-w... Britain mostly was on the lookout for fighters and fighter/bombers with novel antennas, since they could be used to understand new radio navigation and radar electronics. (One of the most advanced landed near shore, but the Navy guarded it in salt water instead of handing it over for timely study.) During the Korean War after a MiG-15 was "donated", the issue was how to verify it wasn't booby-trapped before entering it, since test pilots are valuable (Chuck Yeager was one of them.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Moolah https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Moolah At the end of the Vietnam War, the north captured an entire fleet of US aircraft (87 F-5s, plus more types) that were used successfully against air battles with China.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Jeema101 5y ago

It's easy to forget about the human element what with all the interesting technical aspects. But you're right, when it came down to it, they were up in the sky, putting their lives in the hands of their machines, with someone else in a very similar machine armed with machine guns and cannons trying to essentially murder them. I suppose you might get somewhat used to it after a while, but I can't imagine the fear ever really truly went away completely.