Me 109 compared to Soviet fighters' manoueverability

[Alfred.MONZAT]

Bf 109 G roll rate was good at low speed and decrease down to circa 90° at 300 mph and continue to decrease with the speed.

So the Bf 109, as it is said from the start of the thread, is not one of the most manoeuverable (its roll rate is fairly inferior to the Fw 190, La-5 or Spitfire with clipped wings) but decent (superior or equivalent to the majority of aircraft of this chart).

[Juha]

According to the sources I have the max roll rate for Bf 109 G was 85 - 92 deg/sec at 260 mph IAS (not TAS) at 10,000 ft with 50 lb stick force. Up to that it was average but at higher speeds it degenerated faster than in most a/c and over 320 - 330 mph IAS it went below that of P-39D-1-BE and only Hawker Typhoon and Zero of the a/c I have info rolled worse than 109 G after that.

[spiculum]

As combat speeds increased steadily the deteriorating of agility becomes more severe. That's why I called it mediocre.

[Alfred.MONZAT]

I still wonder as Mark Hanna, Dave Soutwood, Finns and German pilots I read reports on that subject did not confirm what you say. British test reports claims it to be comparable to the P-51B.

The DVL report gives for the F-2 (TAS at 3,000 m with 20kg/44lbs stick force) :
200 kph = 45 deg/sec
300 kph = 68 deg/sec
400 kph = 83 deg/sec
500 kph = 88 deg/sec
600 kph = 91 deg/sec
650 kph = 68 deg/sec
700 kph = 56 deg/sec

I would be surprised if the G was much inferior than the F in that area.

[Kutscha]

Maybe this will be of some help, http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/sl-wade.html

[spiculum]

The P-51B rolled a tad faster than the 190 at high speeds. Don't know about the DVL report.
The rate of roll chart from Kutscha's link places the 109 second worst at medium to high speeds and the P-51B at 3rd place.
Many sources contradicting...so which to choose from?

[Alfred.MONZAT]

I've always read that the Tempest was awful in rate of roll, confusing to say the least...

Here's the NACA file with the Bf 109 F-2 roll rate value from the DVL report converted more or less equivalent to IAS :



Indeed, Bf 109 F's roll rate decrease quickly over 530 km/h. Very strange I didn't came across this earlier. Bf 109 pilots were probably avoiding dogfight over this speed, that's maybe why they didn't think about it

[spiculum]

This is obviously the original NACA 868 report data drawing. The one I posted earlier is practically the same only without colors highlighting the lines and without the roll rates of P-40, P-38 and P-38L-1-LO.
Like I said there can be found many depictions of this.

I just can't see a 109F roll rate on it.?

[Juha]

Hello Alfred
IMHO you mispresent the Ribnitz' DVL study figures, the curve you use, in the Abb. 5 the thick dash-dotted curve shows what would have been achieved if the test pilot had been able to achieve 30 kg/66 lb stick force. But it seems that he was able only to achieve 20 kg/ 44 lb and so much lower roll rate at high speeds. As shown in Abb. 5, see also the Abb. 4 on the page 11, the dots show the achieved results.

[Juha]

Originally Posted by spiculum

The P-51B rolled a tad faster than the 190 at high speeds. Don't know about the DVL report.
The rate of roll chart from Kutscha's link places the 109 second worst at medium to high speeds and the P-51B at 3rd place.
Many sources contradicting...so which to choose from?

The DVL report was made by W. Ribnitz and dated 22 June 1944. Its title translates something like "The influence of the elastic properties of the wing on the rolling efficiency of Me 109 F-2". E.g. Dr. Conradis, Prof. Tank and Dr. Pabst have read it.