10 Things Most People Don't Know About The Bf-109

first introduced in 1937 before World War two even started yet becoming one of the most feared German fighters to encounter in a dogfight here are ten things most people don't know about the BF 109 number 10 shaky landings as dangerous as it was to other fighters in the sky landing the BF 109 was incredibly dangerous for its pilots with a very narrow landing gear and a heavy powerful engine these spiders were prone to tipping making coming back to base tricky every time number 9 one of the most produced military aircraft in history because of his success in the skies BF 109s produced nonstop throughout world war ii between 1936 and 1945 33,000 985 airframes were built only beat by Russia's Aleutian il-2 which had 36,000 183 airframes produced as a fun fact the most produced aircraft in history is the Cessna 172 with over 44,000 manufactured from 1956 to today number 8 BF 109 or me-109 the aircraft's designation has been a topic of debate for as long as the fighters been around it would make sense to think that would be called an M a 109 the prefix standing for measure Schmitt the fact of the matter is since its first flight in 1935 it was built by a company called bearish floats what oh thanks Google anyway that company was bought up by Messersmith in 1938 and to this day people call it by both names and get into bar fights over it number seven Germany's top three fighter aces used it Eric Hartman gerd bar corner and Gunther all had 352 301 and 275 aerial victories respectively almost all of those kills were made behind the stick of the bf 109 making it the most feared aircraft to encounter over European skies number six the most advanced fighter of its day while aerial battles of World War one were fought using early biplanes and triplanes the bf 109s construction was revolutionary when it was first flown in 1935 it was constructed of metal not wood and fabric had retractable landing gear and a closed canopy something never before seen on a fighter plane number five distinctive yellow noses although BF 109s had many different camouflage schemes their most iconic and most represented in movies is the one with the yellow nose although not good Camel by any means in the early stages of the war when European skies were full of German planes there was a lot of friendly fire going on the yellow noses simply helped Germans identify their buddies number four it was extremely versatile although all planes have different variants the BF 109 was constantly improved on throughout the war and also bit in a different role it had almost three dozen variants with different engines wingtips propellers and so on and so forth making one aircraft capable of being a fighter bomber escort fighter bomber day and night fighter ground attack and reconnaissance aircraft number three it was so good everyone wanted to use it the early success of the BF 109s design made all the Axis powers salivate at the thought of having one with its stellar performance from the beginning by the end of the war Bulgaria Croatia Czechoslovakia Finland Hungary Israel Italy Japan Romania the Slovak Republic the Spanish state Switzerland and Yugoslavia were using it number two credited with the highest kill ratio of any World War two aircraft there were many great planes that fought during world war two like the Spitfire Thunderbolt Mustang and others but no aircraft comes close to collectively shooting down fifteen thousand planes of the opposing team yes records show about fifteen thousand aircraft were shot down by pilots using BF 109s I'm sure there are a lot of factors at play here like length of service pilot recycling and such but these numbers are still impressive and finally number one only a handful of them survive we already mentioned how these planes were produced throughout the war but only 56 examples still exist today that's less than 0.1% of how many were built out of those 56 only 11 are air worthy good news is there are plenty under restoration right now all over the world so you might see one in an airshow near you in no time thanks for watching everybody hope you enjoyed the video hit that subscribe button if you want more content like this and if you have any ideas that you want to split together just drop us a line in the comments section you are now free to watch any cat videos you'd like [Music]

Channel: World War Wings

Views: 426,137

Rating: 4.8108621 out of 5

Keywords: bf-109, world war ii, WWII planes, Axis fighter plane, Fw-190, Best German fighter, famous Axis plane, Axis fighter planes, German fighter plane, messerschmitt planes, Willy Messerschmitt, Me 262

Id: XWoaT8boL7U

Length: 4min 56sec (296 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 24 2018