Inside The Cockpit - Messerschmitt Bf 109 E

I want to give special thanks to my patreon on channel supporters that make these videos possible it's them that provide the funds for me to travel to museums and without them this content would not exist hello everybody and welcome back to military aviation history I am your host Bismarck and today I am in the frugal ice I'm part of the Deutsche Museum in Munich looking at an iconic aircraft from world war ii the BF 109 is perhaps the most well known German aircraft of all time introduced into the late 1930s it went where the Germans went and it would become a symbol of the very sort of aggressive expansion of the Armed Forces the you later conflict but also perfectly encapsulates the essence of a fighter aircraft world war ii brought many different iconic aircraft but whether we like it or not just like with the german tiger tank the Messerschmitt has become a category in itself and I don't say this lightly personally I adore planes of all shapes and sizes but having done this job for a little while now I have noticed a tendency throughout this time however it's in the literature or in popular memory to return to a singular entity and this is when it comes to world war 2 warbirds the omnipresent status of the 109 it is almost as if there are planes and then there is the Messerschmitt so before we have a look inside of this one let's go over its history [Music] after the first world war Germany was forbidden to have an Air Force and strict conditions we're put in place for civilian aviation and engine development on paper Germany had been neutered in the embers of the great world war however Germany remained Restless and put into place various measures to ensure that should the moment arise it can relatively quickly build up a new air force when the Germans decided in 1945 to rearm and reestablish a new air force the Luftwaffe this was not exactly a surprise for anyone in the know at the previous year 1944 the newly established vice defense minister of the air ministry approached the main German companies for a fighter design [Music] the first prototype of what would be the BF 109 was drawn up relatively quickly the construction finished in May 1935 and there are two interesting features of this aircraft that are often overlooked first off the plans did for CA installation of a central mounted 20 millimeter cannon firing through the propeller hub mirroring essentially the later variants from the F model upwards no suitable cannon however was available so the plans were shelved second the plane is equipped with a British engine the Rose was castled ironically the Heinkel company developing a competitor to the bf 109 made sure this deal was possible the engine is not the final powerplant of course but it does enable mesh me to test the machine and work out the kinks and it was a contributing factor for making sure that the machine actually gets ready for the trial flights versus the competition the B of 109 v2 squares off against the Heinkel HD 112 the Arado AR ad and the focke-wulf fw 159 the latter true don't make it but the Heinkel aircraft is a fierce opponent both aircraft align closely with the desires of the air ministry they are fast have good characteristics in dive and climb are maneuverable and are relatively easy to produce v2 doesn't survive for long so we free steps in this is also the first machine to receive weaponry and it also receives radio equipment which is the novelty at a time to test both the 109 and the Heinkel 112 Germany to say it to send a good number of each to Spain to take part in the Spanish Civil War in Spain the e BF 109 goes through highs and lows there are still troubles with the machine of course the weaponry the powerplant and the radios but it does show itself to be a substantial improvement from the older biplanes to Germany's were using at a time and it fares really well against the Soviet is 16 the so-called a and B series were still equipped with the liquid co2 mode 210 with a maximum output of 680 horsepower at this point the 109 uses two sometimes three machine guns of a 7.92 millimeter caliber this was standards a few years before but newer machines have substantially more the i-16 for example sits at four machine guns and in britain the hurricane of spitfire started rolling out with eight because there is still no way to reliably install a 20 millimeter cannon in a central position experiments are conducted with wing mounted machine guns and later cannons of course of the 20 millimeter caliber the mg FF being chosen although these who did not roll out until 1948 coming to the e model then the aircraft finally reaches maturity the standard fuel-injected DB 601 a engine a production has kicked off and provides a maximum 1/2 hours and 100 horsepower to the aircraft this is a perceivable increase in power from the barely 700 horsepower of the dumo so the aircraft also needs to go through substantial changes to accommodate two new power plant the aircraft also saw a complete rework of the liquid cooling engine cooling which now ran via the wing mounted radiators the gear also had to be strengthened to reliably hold the extra 450 kilograms and the fuel tank was enlarged to accommodate 400 litres due to the higher demands of a DB 601 while attempts were made to once again accommodate an engine mounted 20 millimeter cannon here the internal layout changes did not allow for this at this time based on these changes then the BF 109e one is adopted into the Luftwaffe in 1948 let's quickly go over the design and essentially the specifications here the aircraft is eight point eight meters in length it spans nine point nine meters and it stands at 2.6 meters it is powered by OD daimler-benz 601 engine the powering it with 1,100 horsepower that allows it to go to 570 kilometers an hour empty weight is roughly 1900 kilograms and loaded goes up all the way to 2600 kilograms now the aircraft has a mixed armament there are two mg 17s these are 7.92 millimeters in calibre mounted on top of the engine cowling these actually have a substantial a mocha pass 'ti of 1,000 rounds each additionally the aircraft has two 20 millimeter cannons one in each wing these are the mg FF Slater on the mg FF - MS and they hold 60 rounds each with the exception of the control services and the flaps which were essentially metal skeletons covered in canvas you have a aircraft that is all metal and Messerschmitt actually designed this aircraft to be for the time mass-produced and so we do see certain improvements in the 109 that allow that mass production at very intensive sort of manufacturing techniques on our large scale at taking place a fuel tank of the 109 is essentially below the pilot it is shaped in an L shape similar to a chair and yes he essentially is sitting on it it sort of goes like this and it has a capacity of 400 litres which for the aircraft's purpose was what you needed and gave it around one hour of flight time a little bit more of course if you stretched it but this aircraft was designed essentially to go up at the air climb find the enemy defeat the enemy come back refuel restock your ammo and go back out again it was sort of a air superiority fighter it wasn't meant as a long-range escort one of the things we often talk about over the 109 of course the leading edge slats and they help the pilot or assist him in retaining control of the aircraft at low speeds or help maneuvering at those speeds as well the SATs are deployed automatically and in fact when a Messerschmitt is not the one that came up with this specific design but he gets a license for my British company just before the war and he also use it as in his B of 108 design when Germany invades Poland the vast majority of the Messerschmitts are of the e1 type however a transition to the e3 is in motion this aircraft brings with it a substantial change in firepower at the hands of two wing-mounted 20 millimeter mg FF cannons while possessing not the best characteristics for aerial combat they certainly pack a punch although the pilot was limited to 60 rounds each this aircraft was also exported to multiple nations Bulgaria Japan jugo-slavia although without the cueing mounted counts on that one Romania Switzerland and surprisingly three of them actually went to the Soviet Union what made the 109 such a good machine is that it possessed the one quality you want as a fighter pilot at the time and that was to be the one who sets the terms of the engagement in the 109 you had the speed and the performance to engage an enemy if you wanted but most critically unless you messed up big time or got surprised you had a Liberty to disengage as well with a powerful dive this is perhaps the critical advantage that made this aircraft a fighter pilots wet dream and what separates it really from a lot of its early contemporaries this also sets the tone for the German conceptualization of air warfare and has an influence in fervor designs but ultimately actually it comes back to haunt them as the Allies were all out of more powerful machines as well the bf 109 had a phenomenal production one very few have survived to this very day might have something to do with the fact that Germany well lost the war in any case among these rare aircrafts the e model is even rarer as it is the oldest mass-produced type of 109 the one we have here is well its historic value is not easily described we know it was built in 1938 so it is one of the first he fries to actually have been produced and it was one of 45 he once Andy freeze that was sent to Spain between 38 and 49 after the Legion left machines were retained payment was given in the form of mining rights that Germany got from Spain Spain also kept the e models in service long after the Second World War ended in fact they were only phased out after the Hispano Aviation H a111 - an interesting mix of a bf109 paired with a rolls-royce merlin engine appeared in the mid 1950s there's relatively little known about the service life of this particular aircraft although the running gag here in the museum is that about half of the Condor Legion has been built into this one to keep it fine for example the port wing comes from a completely different III model while starboard originates from an e1 in essence the sacrifice of many over 109 said the dedication of the Spanish to keep her in service ensure that we have at least one example left dating back all the way into the late 1940s in 1916 Spain gifted this aircraft of the deutsche museum and at this point it had been repainted in a camo scheme reminiscent of yak ashraddha as exits Francis I now want to introduce you to the cockpit I wasn't allowed to sit inside this aircraft the historic value of the machine is just too high for the museum to take that risk but they were kind enough to make a special exception by opening up the canopy and allowing me to film from the wing once again a big thank you to the staff of the deutsches museum the canopy hinges side weights towards starboard kept in place by a metal string when closed the string folds up inside behind the pilots head looking at the seat unless the Machine changed the layout it might be that this Spanish actually never made any modifications to this it looks like it's still the original early model seat you can recognize this from the shoulder straps that run via a single cutout in the seat the quick look at the portside here here we have the flap and elevator trim control the placement side by side allows you to operate both at the same time moving slightly forward we see their photo control this is not the early model throttle but a model that was used on later machines with an integrated propeller pitch control switch and this is going to make things very interesting in just a few minutes so remember it the orange handle slightly below the throttle is for the oil cooler flap setting the red handle sitting on the side of the canopy that's the emergency release and the white handle in the back is the fuel going through the instruments now from top to bottom here is the all-important clock no cockpit is complete without one of course next to that is the gunsight offset slightly to the right this one is the Arriflex vidiots it's worth a and this is usually abbreviated to a revi say it's worth aim considering the production number I have a feeling that this one comes from our later production run from the 1940s one row down starting on the left the Magneto's the red button is the emergency circuit breaker it's right next to it to the left moving towards the right the autumn/winter in metric followed by a magnetic compass although the cockpit is generally well preserved the age is clear to see on this one further to the right the manifold pressure as always in German planes this is given in utter or ata that's technical atmospheric pressure essentially kill upon divided by centimeter squared we're turning to the left one row down the speedometer in kph and your turn and slip here is the pitch control for the propeller in the early models and here it really gets interesting on tonal de for the e models used this switch to manually set prop pitch as they lacked any sort of automation you can see where it is set here it's rather awkward to use because the pilot either has to let go of the control stick or reach over with his left hand that should be on the throttle when the system for automatic prop which was added he didn't really have to worry about this anymore but the pilot could in fact still disengage the automatic system by flicking a switch set below the throttle and then set the pitch himself using the old switch you see here or with a new switch on the later throttle variants and this is what makes this interesting because this later throttle variant is the one you see here but the aircraft itself is an early model that should not have this automation however automation was later on which I highly doubt or what is more likely the Frog that you see here was added sometime during the life of the plane as a spare part and has no relevance to the proper system I don't remember seeing a switch actually to turn off the automation in the first place so it's likely that this is just a spare part added either by the spanish air force or the museum returning to the instruments the dial next to the pitch switch is your engine rpm with the clock light gauge next to it indicating the prop pitch setting and moving straight down orange handle is your hand pump the Vette handler is your emergency landing gear release the hole above it is where your usual landing gear control switch would be probably removed here of by the museum as a safety precaution the gauge with the e2 red and green lights is your landing gear position indicator and next to it you will find your oil and fuel pressure below we find the water cooling temperature to do a right and the oil temperature to the left if you're familiar of German aircraft you might have expected color coding here but as you can see this was not applied in this case the same goes for the fuel gauge and this one indicates your fuel reserve in hundreds of liters and we have a really nice feature for the time we have a shot or an ammo counter that is included in the aircraft's cockpit the numbers indicate your remaining ammo supply for the cannons counting down from 60 on either side however the nose mounted mgs only have a red warning light when the ammo runs out to the right side of the cockpit the electrical system switches for navigational lights and so on usually there would be markings here indicating the use of each switch but if they were ever applied there spain probably removed them for their own markings which have not survived an oxygen reserve for the pilot can be found to the button right next to the water cooling radiator flap if you swivel it away from you the flap opens up and of course if you swivel backwards it closes then there's also a small petrol tank for the starter which is found to the direct right of the pilot then the control stick it's as simple as it gets this is a couple gifts where if our and the bottom that you see on top that's the big nut for B button generally speaking the arc knob which is also the safety catch would rest on top of this but once you swivel it into the position that you see it right now the guns are essentially armed depending on how the guns are set up the Arkin off generally fires all weaponry while the bacon up only fires a limited selection for example you could isolate the machine guns for the cannons and F taken off on the bottom of this stick is not in view that is your press to transmit all right so that finishes up the cockpit I hope you enjoyed today's episode if you did consider supporting us on patreon to help fund more content like this one and get exclusive behind-the-scenes footage I want to thank the food web slice on name of the Dodge Museum here in Munich for their unparalleled access to this machine remember to Like share and subscribe and as always have a great day good hunting and see you in the sky

Channel: Military Aviation History

Views: 567,323

Keywords: Bf 109, Me 109, Messerschmitt, Emil, Bf 109E, E-3, E-1, Luftwaffe, aces, Germany, ww2, history, education

Id: HJHLn4RyBd0

Length: 18min 15sec (1095 seconds)

Published: Thu May 28 2020