Very intereseting Bf109G-10 at e-bay

[veltro]

Originally Posted by John Beaman

My old friend Ferdinando is correct about the Erla G-14/AS. Its lower cowl was modified in a similar manner as its G-10 to accomodate the oil recovery lines and larger heads of the 605/AS. Since the heads were not as deep as the 605D the change may not have been as severe. As to why Mtt chose to use the cowling "bumps" on its 14/AS, it was probably, as mentioned, simple commonality with the soon to come 605D installation in the G-10. After all, the "normal" lower cowl from the G-1 on was basically the same so it was easier for Mtt to add those bumps instead of a whole new lower cowl, ala Erla. After all, Mtt built a lot more 14/AS machines than did Erla.

John, may I disagree for the first time with you? the DB605 AS engine didn't need any modification of the lower cowl. As a matter of fact, the "chin-bulged" cowl applied by MTT to its G-14/AS was simply a choice caused by the large availability of such lower cowls dictated by the contemporary production of K-4s on the same production lines.

There are a lot of photographs available showing that those "bulges" were of no use on the MTT aircraft... here are a couple:





The difference from a plane (G-10 from WNF or K-4 from MTT) who needed such bulges - caused by the tubings of the DB605D - is shown below, by the presence of the "slit" cut into the nose lower panel to give space to a tube which - in turn - needed to be covered by the bulge... (Erla designers decided instead to redesign the nose of their G-10s and K-4s, widening the section of the lower nose and thus incorporating the tubings with no bulges needed)





Thus, that is why both the "chin-bulges" on the MTT G-14/AS were useless, and the lower cowls of the Erla-buit G-14/AS were just normal ones, at least IMHO...

That is also why I do not believe to the presence on Erla G-14/AS of the enlarged lower cowl and of the "rectangular" panel on port side and, as proven by "Rita", such peculiarity was applied IMHO only since the innovative G-10 redesigned by Leipzig engineers onwards.

Summing up, the G-14/AS of Erla production were quite "normal" (if this word has a meaning speaking of the Bf 109 - as you know all too well, my friend...) apart from the higher oil nose filler hatch, whereas the anomaly on the MTT ones was the lower "chin-bulged" cowl applied only due to its availability and not by its need.

Sorry for being long in my post, but such things need clear explainations and examples, IMHO, which I hope to have supplied.

[Cpt_Farrel]

Ferdinando, there's no need to be regretful or sorry, your posts are most interesting.

The pics in the JG300 book was exactly what I had in mind but as I was at the summer house I didn't have it available.

As you say, it's hard to talk about normal when it comes to late 109's but with all the knowledge that is beeing collected and improved, it would seem that we're getting more and more understanding of the abnormalities of different factories and versions.

Cheers! / Anders