Quote:
Originally Posted by harrison987
You cannot pressurize an Erla Haube.
The reason why is because of the tubular construction, and lack of seal at the BACK end of the canopy.
The construction was steel and mild steel. Mild steel was used all around the tubular construction (especially at the rear), and bent very easily (malleable with your hand). As such, there is no way to seal around the cockpit.
In addition, the only part of the 109 cockpit that was ready for pressurization was the cockpit tub (firewall to seat back).
The fuselage was not made pressurized behind the seat...and the Erla Haube extended all the way to the baggage compartment.
There would have had to be a complete re-deign of the entire cockpit to make that work...as well as a newly designed canopy and rear armour.
This is why the 3-piece canopy was only used on pressurized models...it sealed right at the seat back, where the head armor (newly-designed for the pressurized cockpit) enclosed the entire cockpit.
Soooooo...if it had an Erla Haube...it was not pressurized.
The only way it could have been pressurized, is if it had the 3-piece G3/G5 Canopy.
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Please read my earlier post on the topic. A pressurized Erla Haube was designed and prototyped. There are two photographs of it in Schmoll (2017, p. 173). As I noted, this pressurized Erla Haube was significantly different in construction from a regular Erla Haube. The framing was reinforced, double walled transparencies with silica gel pellets were installed, there was a pressure seal around the entire circumference, and a pressure bulkhead at the back of the Haube, in front of the luggage compartment. The windscreen was also redesigned and incorporated heating. In many respects, it was an entirely new canopy from a technical point of view - but it retained the overall lay-out of a regular Erla Haube.
Reference:
Schmoll, P. 2017.
Me 109. Produktion und Einsatz. MZ-Buchverlag, Regenstauf, Germany. 312 pp.