Quote:
Originally Posted by George Hopp
So, one might ask: what was the difference between the Bf 109 G-6 MW 50, the Bf 109 G-6/R2 MW 50, and the Bf 109 G-14, since they all had the MW 50 system and carried the DB 605 AM engine.
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The G-6 / MW 50 is iirc an early designation for those G-6s carrying MW-50 boost, too. The /R2 bird is a fighter-recce version with cameras and MW-50.
And the G-14, since it had MW-50 as factory production standard, as some ancient paper tells us, is
'wie G-6', but the MW-50 system is using compressed air
'auf Ladeluftbasis'.
the early MW-50 G-6s were usually simple-to-do conversions (only a valve was changed and MW-50 was filled instead of GM-1 afaik) from GM-1 tank carrying high-alt fighters, which used compressed air carried onboard in oxygene bottles, to force GM-1 into the eye of the supercharger. Since GM-1 was a spring fuel used in emergency, it was a simple enough solution, since most fighters didn't carry GM-1.
When the first GM-1 birds were converted to MW-50, they kept that system to force the MW-50 tanks content into the supercharger -
a leftover from the GM-1 system..
The G-14, and later 'proper' MW-50 aircraft were built from the start with MW50 boost in mind, and thus they simply tapped the supercharger's surplus compressed air into the MW-50 tank to do the same - same metod was used for a long time with the droptanks, no need for extra pumps that can go wrong...