Park north. Lifeline and five order online. I cannot go. Indeed. Adolph. Hitler the fuhrer. Dictator of Nazi Germany, along with Mao and Stalin, one of the most evil killer leaders of the 20th century. The Treaty of Versailles ended World War One. The Treaty stripped defeated Germany of territory, of weapons and what was left of its economy. Hitler was provoked to write his book Mein Kampf in English my struggle, where he laid out his plan for a new world order. His Nazi party would restore Germany and take over Europe. You know, I was a young guy also in those days, but I think their aim was how to by political measures. You know. Get an Improvement of the whole situation means primarily economically, politically. And no member of any other party was idolized. Like Hitler and his party, he was a great leader. You know? and nothing, no word against him, no critique against him. What he said this was right. No doubt. First thing that was implemented by Hitler after he had taken to power was a Ministry of Propaganda, and under this ministry all of the information industry had been centralised within half a year. That is, there were there was only one radio channel that was completely controlled by the Nazis and all of the print industry, all newspapers, all magazines were under control of a sensor that sat in the Ministry of Propaganda. It was strictly forbidden by law to listen to foreign radio stations to to radio stations outside Germany. So the first thing they tried was to limit the Germans view on the outside. World and make them think in the direction the Nazi Party had decided the people should think too. In fiery speeches day and night. To thousands, he preached two great evils, Judaism. And communism. Over six years, Hitler built an overwhelmingly powerful and tactically brilliant military force. ground, Sea and air. The Me 109, also called the BF 109, was Nazi Germany's most important fighter aircraft, both in operational importance and in numbers produced. It was arguably the best fighter in the world in 1940. It was faster than the Spitfire at high altitude, could dive more rapidly and carried a more effective armament of two cannon and two machine guns. The beginning of the end of the ME-109 as an unparalleled force of aviation began in August 1942 with the introduction of American heavy bombers such as the B-17 that gave the Allies the ability to bring the fight into German territory. The entire war for the Luftwaffe A had been offensive and because of this only two 109 units were stationed to defend the Reich. On top of this, German pilots had never encountered a bomber like the B-17 that could take such a punishment as well as dish it out. The introduction of the P-51 Mustang to the European theatre in the spring of 1944 marked the end of the Luftwaffe's air superiority over Europe. Both aircraft here today are remarkable examples of years and thousands of hours of hard work by dedicated expert technicians. And both, without the support of their owners, would be lost. Bringing World War Two's aircraft back to life is full of challenges and excitement. We thank all our warbird members and teams of talented specialists that keep them flying, preserving aviation history for future generations. What do you think, folks? Pretty good video, huh? That was Scott Guyette and, uh, Sleeping Dog Productions. And welcome back. I was here this morning I was here yesterday day before and I appreciate you all being here. Crowd seems to be growing and uh that's a very good thing. This is a very unique opportunity that we have today. I'm not sure we've ever done the zoom the way we're doing it with Kurt and Kurt welcome glad to glad to see you again. Thank you very much for being here. He's he's going to be kind of our local, no I shouldn't say our long range expert and I'll just I'll I'll say. Now Kurt if you if you hear something that you think is maybe incorrect or well we use we in the Air Force we used to call it the BS flag OK. So so if you see or hear something just you can wave your finger and we'll make believe that's and and and we'll come back to you but, we all know who he is at this point. The rest of the team here that we've gotten we've really got two teams. We've got two airplanes two teams and we're going to be talking about each one. Each one is a little bit different the acquisition. The airplanes themselves and uh yeah, we're going to ask Kurt in a little bit to just get into some of the history. I had a zoom call with Kurt Oh I guess about a week ago or so and he is an absolute wealth of information. And I'll say now the way things are going to work, we're going to talk about Kurt first with a little bit of the history of the airplane, it's inception, it's evolution. Then we're going to get into, hey, each airplane and the acquisition of each airplane, how it, hey, what happened to it, what, how did it go down? Where did it go down? How did we get it here? The restoration of the airplane, talked to some of the pilots of the airplane, do a little bit of a walk around on the airplane and then we're going to open it up to questions. And with the questions, Kurt's going to be part of that also. So we've got again, a wealth of information here available to us and Please be patient with us. I am, I'm not a professional at this. Connie talked me into it, I don't know, a couple years ago, I guess. And if you remember that voice that you just heard on the video, that was David Hartman. And and something that David told me was, hey, when you do this kind of stuff, Ed, you probably only want to have like 3 guys up here and, well, do the math because right now we've got 1.2.3.4.5. and Kurt, so we've got 6 right now. So. So it's going to be, yeah, a little bit of a challenge for me, but I'm going to do my best and I'll start with just basic introductions here. The first guy got on my left. His name is Doc winners. And he, he is the owner of let's see eenie meenie miney, that one right there. OK, that is his. He is the pilot of it also. And I asked him briefly, I hate guys like this because they're overachievers. You know he he goes to school, he gets a medical degree. Then he decides Oh no I want to go out and be a fighter pilot. So he goes through OCS with the Navy turns into an F-18 pilot and then comes back and hey as becomes a an eye doctor. Correct? OK An ophthalmologist and and oh by the way hey now he's got a warbird. So so that's the guy here and we're going to be asking him for some some numbers and and. And impressions of the airplane. But that's our first guy and I'll just ask him to introduce the guy alongside him who's in a second member of the team. I'm on, you're on. This is a Mike. Vadeboncoeur. He runs Midwest Aero Restorations, and they're responsible for this. Beautifully restored original aircraft and Dave Young and Steve Schultz are out there too. The three of them basically did it all. OK. Thank you. Jim Martinelli is next. Director of operations, Erickson Aircraft and he again is is responsible for a great deal of that airplane over there. So Jim, I'll let you introduce your team. Next to me is Doug Griffin. Doug is our 109 pilot. He's acquired a lot of 109 time this summer. He's flown the 109 from Oregon all the way to Detroit and then back to here. And next to him is David Reed. Our. Director of Maintenance and David is responsible for the mechanical restoration of the 109. OK. Thanks for the introductions. And Curt, I'm going to turn it over to you for a minute here and just let you give somewhat of a history of the airplane, it's it's inception, what it was supposed to do at first and how it evolves to pay these beautiful airplanes that we see in front of us. Yeah, OK well, it's a Messerschmitt. So uh everything starts with with Willy Messerschmitt It's designer. He was only thirty uh six years old when the 109 took for its first flight. A guy who was obsessed with lightweight and no drag engineering. A guy who was uh. Obsessed. With uh. optimized airplane. Structures just to give you a practical example. I'm pretty confident for example by. Mike Vadenboncoeur might elaborate more on that. If you have a look at the attachments points of uh the main landing gear. These also are the attachment parts of the um engine Mounting, of the lower engine mounted. So when the plane touches to the ground, the forces that are at play post are in the air are neutralized by the momentum that comes from the engine. He was always thinking in ways to optimise airframe structures um and of course. A requirement that came from the Luftwaffe was um. it should be the plane. The fighter plane should be uh easily road and rail transportable, having in mind that if you crash land a plane it should be easy to be recovered and. Brought back to to operations as soon as possible. The production history is also an important point. The 109 was relatively easy to produce, so all in all. I think 33,000 have been produced with only a handful to survive, and to my knowledge only one example which is totally original, which had been recovered by the Royal Air Force in the North African Desert in 1942 and then kept by the Imperial Royal Museum in London and have been. Trying until I think 15 years ago. Well, that was Willy Messerschmitt who had in mind to put a lightweight fighter and on the customer side, so to say. At the Luftwaffe you also had the two key people which were decisive for the ME 109's history. One of them was Ernst Udet the second highest scoring ace in World War One after the famed Red Baron with 62 kills, figuring now the director of the Technical Office of the. Air ministry and the other one was Robert Von Greim, also World War one Ace at 28 kills, who was heading the fighting compartment of the Air ministry. These two guys had the intellectual capacity to draw the right conclusions from the incredible massive dogfights they had in World War One, and the main conclusion was dogfights are nothing for average pilots. Regardless of the nations, every nation has lost too many pilots in dogfights, so they're idea of let's have flight that is so superior that even average pilot may score without being ported to a dogfight. Make Messhersmitt's passion for lightweight design and that was the birth point of the 109. The outcome was relatively light fighter. With. Superior performance in dives and in climbs. And of course in acceleration and in speed having high speed wing air for it. Right? Which was not as perfect as per as good performing at those speeds, but for that reason Messerschmitt had designed mechanically operated slats which you can see here on the airplanes which were pushing to the beating edge of the wings when the air flow was tough enough and which were popping out of wings or slowly coming out of the wings when the airplane when the air flow decreased when I'm when I'm gone overboard. Cortana. In the first four years of the year one night operation of the history, everything seemed to be confirmed by the war in Spain and by the war effort and in France, but there the 109 only met inferior opposition like Russian biplanes or relatively slow Polish or French fighters which were. Which had. Something between 550 to 80 knots. Less top speed than the 109 and then it was easy of course uh to uh to uh go for hit run culprits? And uh all of these planes were easy plane for the average Messersmitt pilot. The whole thing turned with the Battle of Britain There the 109 met Hurricanes and Spitfires and I'll look at the Spitfire. The Spitfire was a dogfighter by design. Look at that beautiful elliptical wing. Look at the higher wing area which made the Spitfire maneuver over a much wider range of speed. That was the reason why. it Infuriated debate with the chief of the German Luftwaffe Herman Göring one of the wing commanders of the German Luftwaffe later to become general fighters Adolf Gallen. Göring's question. God, what do you need to really cope with the Britons? replied give me a squadron of Spitfires. Check on the top of the agenda again. and the 109 wasn't much of a . Of a good dogfighter. It could be easily outranged by the Spits. However Messershmitt tried to turn the 109 into a dogfighter, and that was the so-called Friedreich's version or Vox in today's alphabet. Within the Cowling had been smooth and the. Elevator struts had been done away with the landing. the tail wheel had been made detractable. So here you had the best you can you could get in air flow of a 109 and for the for the dyed in the wool dog fighters of the Luftwaffe of which Günther Rall was one who who Connie had mentioned before the the F version really was what they longed for. I once talked about the F and the several 109 versions with Günther Rall and he said, you know Kurt. Flying the F in combat, that was like foil fencing that was really capable weapon, weapon in the hand of a man who had seat of the pants, who has good spatial orientation and who is a capable deflection shooter. That was the the F then the tides turned Germany was in the defensive the 109 which was originally designed for for. Being just a pure fighter became a became assigned multi roles fighter bomber or the like. The heavy arm. The heavy weapons return because they had to fight the B-17's and then it was obvious by 1943/1944 it had reached the the end of its development potential. It's still in the in the in the hands of a capable pilot, it still was. a respectable weapon, but in the hands of an average pilot, it was not a match for the Mustangs and for other Allied fighters. Anymore. No, no, no. I hope I wasn't too too long. I lost my mic. Oh. Oh. And you, you guys knew all that, right? You knew. Yeah. Yeah. They're just not in their head going. Yeah. OK. Thank you Kurt and please stand by. We're going to have some more questions for you for sure. But that gives you a quick idea of of where the airplane came from, you know, and me being a former Air Force fighter pilot, that's the kind of airplane I'd I'd want to fly back. Then it's like, hey, you know, if I'm a mediocre fighter pilot, what do I want? I want a better airplane so I can beat the other guy out there. And not only that, but he mentioned the fact that, hey, you know, does he want a dogfight with a guy? No, you don't want a dogfight with a guy. You want to kill him. Hey, on a, you know, either a high deflection gunshot and get out of there or or the current day, you know, hey, these F-22's, you know, they're blowing the other guys up 30 miles away and the other guy doesn't even know they're there. So. So yeah, What he says absolutely makes sense for that era. And and then, hey, we get down to the actual airplanes right now and I'm going to start with Doc and just say the first, the first question that I have is acquiring this airplane. It's got a very interesting story. I think you all will appreciate it. So Doc, go ahead, give me an idea of where this thing came from. So like he said, there's 33,000, but there are very few able actual authentic restorations left in the world. Most of the ones you've read about are E models. That black 6 he discussed fifteen years ago was started in the 70s and 80s and it flew for about 15 years in England and then they stopped flying and it was truly authentic too. This was recovered from a lake in Estonia. It was the former Eastern Front for the for the Germans as they were retreating in 1944. Lakes Swilboa in 1990. The pilot was returning to his base and was hit and mortally wounded the airplane, he was OK. He set it down on the lake, slid out on that Ice Lake to the very western edge and jumped out and ran West. And it sank as the spring thaws came in 1944 and no one ever recovered or no one knew about it until after the wall came down and the Russians. Decided to make some money and sell some things they. Pull this out in 1990 and took it to Moscow and showed it around for a little while and then it changed hands about five times and ended up not a lot done to it, just the original, all the original parts, airframe, everything just changed hands. No one really restored it until we did. We got it from a gentleman in Munich in 2012 and it took ten years. Wow. Wow. And then the restoration started. And how long was the restoration process? 10 years. That's that's when you're I mean they produced the the most beautiful Mustangs in the entire world and they did the Happy Jacks go buggy for me. And to transition and try to translate as a mechanical engineer into a totally different language, totally different tooling, totally different aspect, it was a really rough and challenging. Ball game for them and they. Did it really well. OK, and what model is this? Is this? It's a G6. It's a G6, OK, and I look does it have leading edge slats on? It it has aerodynamic slats, they're based based on basically aerodynamic forces. They'll they'll deploy or not depending upon what the wing sees as far as air. OK. And and I'll ask Kurt, how does that compare with the E that you were just talking about is, is this the the next generation if you will, is this a better airplane than that E model? That you were just talking about? Yeah, about the the G6, of course, picked up weight because the if it had got heavier armament. It was a capable airplane still. But it had to fulfill too many purposes for its original design. It had to serve as a fighter against other fighters. It had to serve again as a fighter against other bombers, that is. That explains the heavier armament, and it wasn't as easy to fly due to its increased takeoff rate as the E and the former versions and the F have been. The slats. The slats were a special failure, I recall. The talk with the counselor, who was so much a fan of the 109 F, but he's never he never got really familiar with the slats. Being a dogfighter. You know? In high banked turns, the lower the lower wing slat used to pop out when the air flow decreased while the higher wing slat still had been pressed into the leading edge. Which finally ended up in the airplane flipping over just when you were about to get the other guy. So for for a while, counter had the slats riveted into the leading edge of the wing to make good for that. But as the war in the east advanced and they were forced to move forward and forward to smaller airfields, to soft soft ground, airfields he. Could not just do away with the slats because there he needed lower landing speeds. Understand, understand. Thank you. Alright, Jim, how about acquisition of your airplane, what what can you tell us that story? Yeah, so my own? Our airplane is actually was born as a Spanish buchon and was flown by the Spanish military until the movie The Battle of Britain and. At that time, the movie production acquired most of the Spanish Air Forces, 109s and uh Heinkel 111s to produce the movie Battle of Britain. One of the pilots who flew in the Battle of Britain movie was a Connie Edwards. At the end of the production, Connie ended up with a large amount of of those airframes of the 109s, brought them to Texas, store them in Texas and over the years. Various collectors were able to get them in the early 1990s. Mr. Erickson, who owns the airplane. Struck a deal with Connie and purchased the airplane and brought it to Oregon and just assembled it and put it on static display. And in 2015 the decision was made to make it airworthy and took us about twenty months to do what you see here from what we got. OK. Talk about the engine a little bit. I think there's been some engine changes on this airplane haven't. There, yeah. So Dave will be able to give you more in depth on that. But when we were doing the airplane. The the Merlin powered Buchon is kind of a. Yeah, it just doesn't, you know, it doesn't appeal to that that clean 109 look. So Mr. Erickson was thinking, you know, let's, let's try to do something to to get closer to what you see here with the docs airplane. The decision was made to try and Allison. We mocked the Allison up in front of the the airplane. We borrowed some G-10 cowling from a friend of ours and we realized we were able to put the Allison literally inside of unmodified G-10 Cowling and the prop shaft ended up in the same exact location as where it was on the G-10. So engineering was done. To develop an engine mount and that stuff and we put the Allison in it and. Here it is. The rest is history. Huh? Huh. Alright. How about doc? Talk about your motor a little bit. What's in that thing? It's an original Daimler-Benz, the 605 Alpha, and it obviously is original because they didn't make any 605's after the war. So all the Daimler-Benzes you see flying are original engines, and there are several in Buchon's or closer airframes in Germany flying now. But they're very, very rare engines and Mike Nixon spent a great deal of time and effort and is quite expert at restoring. 605s is in German engines and this is probably his 7th or 8th at least 605 Daimler-Benz engine. Wow. OK, I gotta ask Kurt, how about what's the reputation of that motor, of the the 605? Was it a good motor? Did it? And how many hours could you expect out of it before you had to rebuild it? But what was he the opinion of the pilots of the motor? So while the pilots, of course were very fine with the engine because it was to my knowledge the first airplane engine mass production that comprised the mechanical fuel injection that is it was not really subject to negative G's. So if you had to evade from a fight, you just push this, push the stick and and then you were gone while with the carburetor fueled. Engines of the British, for example, you had to avoid negative G's or else your engine would go off for a. Couple of seconds. So the pilots always were very fine with the with the engine. But it's reliability of course, uh it depended on the theatre of war the airplane was in. You must imagine that if you fought on the very far southeast of the front in Europe, say on the Black Sea, the supply lines were pretty long and due to the changing climate conditions, a sensitive engine like this high power 2100 cubic inch 12 cylinder was not easy. To to maintain because just due to logistical affairs or it flew also in the deserts of Africa, and there the time between overhaul was in the double. Digits. How about uh temperatures? You mentioned it, was it better in the in the cold, was it better in the hot? Does it does it overheat on the ground? I know some of these airplanes do have problems in that regard. Does this have any any of those problems? Yeah, that, that, that might be. It might be better to ask one of the guys who really are the engine experts. For that. Yeah, you guys, you guys who fly it any any problems, you know, hey, getting the things started and you know, having to get it off the ground because it gets hot. Well, the high time pilot that I know of now in the world is a gentleman named Klaus Plasa in Germany and he's has 350 some odd hours and he used to tell me it's about 8 to 12. Minutes depending on conditions between startup and it over temps and you can't take off OK regardless of really ambient temperature and or facing the wind or downwind or whatever. It's you just don't have a lot of time and it's my understanding that the Spitfires are the same way those early airplanes, the mark one, mark two they were designed to Squadron basically lead the assembly point, jump in your airplane and take off the grass whichever direction you were. There was not a lot of Oshkosh taxing, yeah. Understand. Must Mustangs have that problem too here a little bit I think, but alright, good. Well, in that case, let's, let's get into some of the pilot stuff as as Maverick or goose would say. I guess. Huh. Let's. And that movie I think is going to be out here what? On Friday night? I think they got Top Gun Maverick being shown. But anyway, in that regard, flying time. Who's got the most flying time in in this thing? Yeah, they're pointing fingers. OK, what do you think? Easier plane to fly tough airplane to fly. You know I just look at the the the landing gear and the distance to the tail. It looks a little bit close coupled but not bad, is it? Is it an easy tail dragger to fly or a hard tail dragger dragger to fly? No, you're absolutely right. That's my first impression as well. You look at the airplane, it's very intimidating. You know, evil looking airplane in this like, I don't know, I'm not so sure I want to fly it. It's, it's intimidating, but I figured I'd give it a shot and and I got in it. And I absolutely love the airplane. It's it's not what you read about in the books in terms of landing mishaps and stuff. I just, I just the way I fly it is just that you know, slow it up, you know, probably about 120 knots on on base slowing up to about 110 on short final, then probably 90 over the numbers. And I just hold it off until it's done flying in the three-point attitude and once it hits the ground, when you put your feet on the floor, it doesn't do anything, anything weird. You prefer. Two to three-point to a wheel landing. Oh yeah I would not wheel land this airplane OK no no but I think it would be you know with the gear geometry the way it is and changing with the nose up and down it would be it would be a handful and plus you look at it you know the way the how far forward the gear is in that the the tail is really heavy on the ground weight wise it is really heavy. So to have the tail up in the air if the mains on the ground it's going pretty good clip so. OK, how about how about just basic cruise? First, air speeds. How fast you know, if you're you're cruising to come to Oshkosh, what were you cruising at? Well, looking at FlightAware, I was doing about 250 knots, 240 knots OK across the ground OK and 210 indicated. OK. And and how much gas you burn in how many gallons? Of burning 60 gallons an hour. OK. About Doc and yours? Same thing. Well it's the 605 it Kurt can correct me if I'm wrong it it's it's it's a much bigger engine than the Merlins and Allisons as far as displacement I believe it's more in line with the the the class of the Griffin so it inherently since it's a bigger engine it's going to use more fuel and I'm we've we're really young in the program so we're not. Don't have quite the numbers but I'm sure it's in the 70s at least and but it's very quick across the ground as far as when you trew it out nicely and I run in the all the German instruments in there, so I run in KPH and kilometers etcetera. But as far as the landing and characteristics and all that, you know it was designed like Kurt said to basically disassemble it with three or five guys, put the wings on the side, put it on a rail car and go to where the front. was because it's a very short ranged fighter, does not have a lot of gas, can't go anywhere really. So, and that was an Achilles heel for it. Of course, right at the Battle of Britain they really found that out. But, but go back again, I was always thinking before I started flying it, I mean, you're not going to build a fighter for ten years, 35 to really 45. They're putting them back together still with us bombing them. You're not going to build 33,000 if they're just. An animal, I mean, they've got to be a good airplane, but with takeoff, landing and up in flight and it is. And then the little experience I've had, I've had great people talking to me like Klaus Plasa on how to fly it. And I fly it in really nice conditions. And if you're staying on it, it's just fine. It's a tracks nicely. It sets down and three points just beautifully. It flies around the pattern like it lives there. So I find it to be quite. Quite enjoyable. Hmm. OK. We've talked about acquisition. We've talked about a little bit about the restoration. I'll talk to the restoration guys here just a second and and ask what was the most difficult part about restoring these things? And I don't care anybody? All of it. OK. I mean, parts are probably not readily available and if you do find them, they're probably very expensive or you get to manufacture them yourself. And yeah, I would think it would be a tremendously difficult process. Everything you've said is is right on and. You know, another aspect that we've had to deal with was dealing with where these airplanes were built. And so we're dealing with people in Germany and Austria and and some in the UK. Careful now, careful now, we're dealing with people in Germany. And they've been. Fantastic help. I mean, we wouldn't have been able to do it without our friends in. Germany and Austria who have some corporate knowledge of operating these types of airplanes. So we could have done it without them and and like I said it's we we had our own set of challenges here, but when we run out of a part or we run into a roadblock, it's like well where where do we go' Here in the states, I know where to go for P-51s and so forth. Over to Europe. So that added the complexity. There was more of time. How long is it gonna take for them to make it or have they made it? or how long is they're going to get here? And are they really understanding what I am asking. So that's that's something we dealt with for 10 years. I understand. How about gas? How much gas? Both the same? How much does each one airplane hold? Ours is about 105 gallons. OK. Yeah, ours is close to about 108-110. Same. So you so you're, you're right, it's really a short range kind of airplane. You're not going to be up there very long and yeah interesting. All right. Other points of note, I guess from a flying standpoint, you guys maneuver done acro, you know is it a high G airplane, can you what's, what's the G limit on these things? I know you're not gonna take them up there, but when they were brand new, but what was the G limit? Are we talking you know 5/7Gs or something like that? About 5 G's on the airframe. OK. And and you don't do that anymore probably, right? I mean most of the. Time? We'll do aerobatics in it. It's a very nice flying airplane. OK. And are you guys flying at all during the show here? Are you going to be. I don't know the answer to that. No? you guys. OK, so you're not going to see an Me 109 fly. All right. I'm going to turn it over to Kurt here for a minute because I know he's got some stories about a guy who flew these airplanes for a long time, was very successful and and. I'm curious, Kurt, your relationship with that, that German Ace named Günther. I know you were involved with a a book about Günther. I know you've got a wealth of information involving the guy. I wish I'd had the opportunity to meet him. But yeah, you got a quick story about Günther Rall, and I'll let you describe exactly who he is if the crowd doesn't know. Yeah, well, Günther Rall was one of the leading aces of World War Two, having scored two hundred. and 75 kills. So I think he's the third highest scoring ace in the history of air warfare. If you have met him, you would have been surprised to have a relatively small introvert with it. But not but not very extrovert or not very bragging or pretending guy, you know he, for me, he was a typical size of a fighter pilot. I I cannot tell you in inches, but it was about 1 metre, 75 centimetres. That seemed to be something like the standard size of a German fighter pilot, because guys of that size fitted exactly into the 109's cockpit. You you should not be 6 feet tall. That's a bit too, too much. For that airplane. And of course, it was like all fighter pilots when we were talking about air combat. He needed at least three hands to show you how things happen in the air. I got to know him, I think very well. And you know, if you have to do with these World War Two fighter pilots, they all start with those old colourful war stories. But if you get to know them better, you also get to know the more thoughtful side of these people and the the way they think about war. And one thing that comes to my mind was when. We were writing Günthers's biography. We were doing it in his beautiful home in Bad Reichenhalle. And we had a working day with everything laid out on his kitchen table. As all fighter pilots, he wasn't very much of a guy that was happy to fill binders or something like that. He had everything, all the documents stored in a in a chest. And then we we put it on the table and I tried to sort it out while recording device was on the table and we were talking about it. And then it was up to me to put that into proper German language. So we had a heavy working day, and after that was done we were sitting on the porch. He poured every one of us a glass of whiskey. And for a while we were saying nothing. And then I turned over to him and I saw tears running from his face. And I said in these days we were already on a first name basis. I said, Günther what's the matter? And he says, you know what the real thing is about war? Of the 275. Guys, I've killed. I saw the faces of at least 200 and they haunt me at night because they were my age. They were looking like me, and we were when we were turning in on the Eastern Front, the combat altitudes were so low you did not have to wear an oxygen mask. So you could really see the other guy and you knew in two or three minutes it would be over finally for one of of either him or you and with age. This haunts me more and more. It keeps me awake at night. And this one was the other side of the guy. He could talk brilliantly about air combat even after World War Two. He flew the F4-104 He introduced, in fact the F-104 to the German Air Force and he had amassed a considerable number of hours in the F4-104. So he really represents quite a part of aviation, military aviation history, and he always was a fighter pilot, but he was also a very. Very thoughtful guy. Thank you. Interesting perspective and and something I don't think any of us knew of that man. I would ask though you you mentioned the number of kills. I think people would be interested to know yeah he he shot down a lot of airplanes, but he was also shot down. Is that not correct? Yeah, I think he had to bail out eight times and he had one severe crash landing in Russia. A Location at which he broke his back three times. So that brought him into hospital for nine months. And the goods, the good thing about that hospital stay was there he met his wife who was a medical doctor in that hospital. So they they married. And then of course he would have had the opportunity to withdraw. He would have had the opportunity to fly a desk somewhere in the Air Ministry. But he returned to his squadron on the Eastern Front, because he, at the age of 24, for the other guys, was the old man. He was the one who was the squadron commander, and he knew very well he these guys relied on him as the old man. They they were lost. If he would not come back. So he returned to being a frontline pilot and had to fly with with cushions for a while because when he touched down that that that was very painful for him. And also in combat high G, positive High G maneuvers were painful. But finally he adapted and he made his career until he had scored 275 kills. And at the age of 27, this also amazes me over and over again. At the age of 27, he was in command of a fighter wing that comprised something like 120 fighters and 2000 men. So these guys really had received a crash course in leadership in wartime. And and and that had incredible loss rates. You know, he was one of the very few to survive who had flown in World War Two from the first to the last day. OK. If you met somebody like him Body like him, you know the Günther had something like 600 hours in missions and on the109, hes still was a predator in such in such an airplane though Me 109 was by the by that time by the end of the wars, technically inferior to your. Mustang. As I remember, he also lost his thumb. Is that not correct? Right. Didn't he have he had. He had his thumb shot off too. So quite a quite an amazing man. All right. Thank you, Kurt. I'm gonna we've got about 10 minutes left right now for the official program. I'm going to ask somebody in the group here to do a quick walk around and we'll only do one airplane, so it doesn't really matter. But we gotta uh. OK, eeny meeny miney moe. OK, looks like it's it's your turn. Yeah, I'll go ahead and do ours. I'll get up. So ours is the Allison powered G-10 variant of a 109 which is converted from a Spanish Buchon. Here what you see behind us and a number of challenges that we had with restoring this particular aircraft was just fitting the engine like Jim had said mentioned earlier and with the Curtis electric propeller. It has all original G-10 cowling that we sourced from Eastern Europe and then also the parts. It's something that we thought about for a long time as we always wanted to look authentic when the cowling is closed. So the one, the exhaust was one of the most difficult parts of the restoration being how it's lower. And the header manifold system that you see here. I mean getting it to really come out in the same spot using the induction scoop as the Allisons, the downdraft carburetor. And another problem with the running the Allison like they were talking about earlier is the overheating. And so we actually put oil coolers outboard of the landing gear. Wells as well and had new radiators made by Pacific down in Southern California. But we found that we didn't ended up not needing the oil clears and the outer part of the wing because the radiators worked so well in this airplane that we the overheating issue is practically nonexistent. Another neat feature of the later Model G-10s is the Earl Ahab canopy, which gets rid of the bars and the supports in the earlier canopies. It's a little bit lighter and then as you and for better visibility and then as you move farther aft. The tall tale where you'll see the counter weight of the rudder goes through the vertical versus the short one where they're counterweight is part of the rudder itself and it eclipses the vertical. And they did that because of crosswind conditions and a little bit better maneuverability. But those were the some of the biggest challenges other than installing the Allison engine for reliability and that's the primary reason that we did it so that we could fly it across the country from Oregon and display it for you today. Thank you. Alright. I think we've got seven plus a little bit in terms of time to go. So I'm going to open it up. And I know there's going to be some questions out there. So we've got microphones for you guys. So hold on and go ahead and speak up. Just one I don't think is this working. It's like you're. Talking. Questioning the restorers for both aircraft. Do you are there like shop manuals that exist today for these and obviously the originals would be in German, so to even know how to restore this, what documentation did you go off of? Did you do have the shop manuals? Were they translated? We do. We we have all the original German manuals that we know of. There are several manuals that were translated somewhere. I think in the UK that we also acquired, we have a limited set of. Blueprints that have also helped and those are those are invaluable, but yeah it we have a lot of documentation. And then kind of second to that. I mean in the pictures of the of the one that's running the Daimler-Benz engine that looks like when they fished it out of the river or lake or whatever it was, you know, was it complete this thing complete or I guess question for both of you, how much, how much like in-house fabbing did you have to do on components to get these airworthy? So for us it was a little bit different in respect that it was in the Battle of Britain movie like we had mentioned earlier and it wasn't a flying airplane. Persay I did have a lot of corrosion issues just for sitting for so long, but we did a lot of sheet metal work to the bottom of the wings, the tail section and in between the landing gear underneath of the cockpit area. But as far as sheet metal, it's a pretty original Spanish bouchon airframe and then we retro from the firewall forward, everything underneath the cowling is built from scratch. I don't have a microphone but I'm a loud. Guy. What about like? Sub sys. Sub components or systems not just the sheet metal. Did you have to like take the drawings and have suppliers make these in present day? We did have the blueprints just as they did, and we had said most, not most things, but a lot of things remanufactured right to the print as far as all the way down to the metallurgy, the type of metal, the grain structure and all that. So it would be functional. I just want to, I just want to thank you guys for one. You know, the money that it cost to do this and the time. I've been coming to ash cash since 1978 and I have never seen an Me 109 ever physically here. And there's two of them here. And I think one year there was supposed to be an Me one 109 and a Föcke Wulf 190 out of California, but for some reason they didn't make it. So again, thanks for bringing this. This is a real treat. I'm, I mean, I'm kind of a World War Two historian. Guy so. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Alright, Kyle's got one up there. There we go. Question question for Doc. The original fuselage. You are not able to use that in the restoration. Do you have any plans for that original fuselage? Well, actually we did use parts from the original fuselage, and a really good gentleman in Munich who's great at rebuilding, restoring fuselages from the war is obviously in his German shop. He took it upon himself to use. Much of our original fuselage in in the restored fuselage that we that we have now. OK. Thank you, Kyle. Got oh, we got one right. here. Paint schemes and that on the G-6, is that a recreation of the original scheme? And on the G-10 is that Herman Graf? That's correct, yes, Herman Graf for the G-10. OK. Yeah, so this the the G-6 here is. We had a lot of residual paint left on the airplane when it came out of the water, and we also worked very hard with some modelers. Modeler guys are just off the charts with all this kind of detail. And so we actually hired a guy to and he built a fantastic model after looking at all of our skins that we had laying out on the floor and came up with this pattern and the wing pattern slightly nonstandard, but that's the way it was. So yeah. And then also used the 4100 series. Serial number BF109G6s that had photographed, been photographed during the war kind of threw those together. Earla built airplanes and this according to historians is is it's most likely a paint scheme. We certainly have the yellow on the chin cowling and we had the yellow at the tail as well. OK. Up there some. There we go. OK. Again, thanks for doing this, but I'm kind of curious on the early development where their prototype models was. Did it come from something else and what did they look like? Or compared to what we see. All right, Kurt, you're on. Did you hear that question? Yes, of course. OK. There was a series of prototypes also housing smaller engines. The Daimler Benz engine wasn't available right from the start of the Me 109's history. It first was powered by Rolls Royce Kestrel, but the Daimler-Benz engine was already under development, so it was met to finally fit into the Power the 109. Of course there were there was a number of pre series models, prototypes and the like. OK. Follow on to that. Is how about other aerodynamic changes? Wingspan. Did they change wingspan at all during its? It's it's its evolution? Yeah, the from from the F series from the Friedreich the 109 had got rounded wing tips. They did not ever change. To my to my knowledge, they didn't never change the airfoil. OK, windproof might always remain the same, but the the wing got rounded wing tips to make good for the induced drag at the end of the rectangular wings of the E series. So it went faster, it turned faster, it was more. Reliable and that was one of the major changes of the wing. OK. Another change also Michael might elaborate on that was due to the modification of the landing gear. They they tried to improve the angle of the wheels with regard to the struts. So when you when you dettracted the landing gear, the wings needed a bullish to house the wheels, you are standing right in front of it general. So yeah so there you can see. The bulge in in the wing that houses the landing gear that also came with the G Series I think. And that is why, and also for other reasons, giving the ammunition feeders for the heavier guns that were mounted on top of the wing. That is why the from the G series on the Me 109 was nicknamed the Bump or the Bulge. By its pilots. OK, thank you. Alright we got another question way in the back, does he have a mic back there? Oh we got. OK. Let's go over on this side then. First, go ahead. Good afternoon. The G-6 is equipped with a drop tank. Many years ago I had the opportunity to ask Adolf Galland about the combat endurance of 109's during the Battle of Britain. I said to him, did you have drop tanks? His response was that the aircraft were fitted with drop tanks. The drop tanks had been tested and they worked wonderfully, however. In 1940 at the time of the battle, at the time of the Battle of Britain. They didn't have drop tanks, the supply system didn't make them available. Can you comment on that please? Like I said. Is that a question for me I guess? Yeah, yeah. I I'd say go ahead, yeah. Yeah, it's it's all true. It's all true. The competent. endurance of 109 was slightly above one. Hours, I mean it had a as as the as the guys mentioned it had something like 105 gallons tank and it consumed in combat. In combat it consumed about 100 hundred gallons per hour. So when you were escorting bombers from. France to London. You really had to keep an eye on your fuel guard gauge and to make sure you you make it home. And more than one pint it had to ditch in the channel. There were heavy losses for a pair of pilots who did not make it home over the English Channel. OK. Thank you. All right, go ahead. Right there. I have it. Yep. All right. So this is probably more of a tactical question. We're regarding the 109, but I've read that starting in 1944. When the Allied bombers were increasing in numbers and obviously you have the the the the P-51s coming into service that along with the the 109's counterpart, the Föcke- Wulf 190. If and when possible they would try to get both up in the air and the 109s would be used to divert or distract the escorting fighters while the more rugged 190s would attacked the bombers. And my question is were those tactics ever effective or was it a case of? Utility where there were so many fighters that regardless of how many 109s or 1090s were employed in that manner, were they ever effective against Allied bombers. I think that is also a historical question and Kurt may have some insight into that. I don't know the answer. That was established air tactics by the German Luftewaffe to make good for the deficiencies of both airplanes. The Föcke-Wulf had an optimum. How do you call that? The pressure head for the engine of about five thousand metres that is fifteen fifteen thousand feet. Whereas the Messerschmitt 109 was very good in high altitude combat. So and also the Föcke-Wulf 190 had an 190 had an air cooled radial engine which which was much more resistant to receiving hits. So it was an established tactics for the German Luftwaffe that. 190 units attacked the bombers, whereas the 109s. were responsible for for for top cover and responsible for distracting the Allied fighters from the Bomber units. OK. So right you are absolutely OK over here again. Oh, Mr. Roush? I'm out of my normal position here. I'm a friend. I'm a. No, no, ladies and gentlemen, this is Jack Roush. And. I, I will say no more. Obviously the crowd knows you, Jack. I I wanted, I prefer to be anonymous here. But I'm a friend of Kurts. And I saw went to see Gunther in Germany and I had many occasions in the United States to interact with him. A couple of things I think that people should know about Kurt or Günther even this limited time we've got is that he he didn't receive the highest honor for the German from Hitler for for his. Success in the air he didn't get the the swords and diamonds, he just got the swords. And it is also the case that when they were doing the editing of Kurt's book and he was picking all the pictures of that went in the book. I was present and he gave me an a look at the pictures and he would look at he had looked a little Kodak pictures and he would comment on what was happening with the person on the picture and then he would lose a tear and he would. Go to the next picture and lose a tear. All the people were dead that he was talking about. And one of the things that come out of one of the many symposiums I prepared with him is that he had the same emotion toward doing the things that were good for his homeland and his his his family that the American pilots did. And for that reason he became good friends with many of us. Thank you, Jack. And, and. Later if if you weren't here yesterday Bud Anderson was our our guest and later this afternoon I do believe, Bud is going to be doing a walk around with these gentlemen here. I think with Doc around an Me 109, it could be very interesting to watch a P-51 ace walk around in any 109. So I can hardly wait for that. All right, other uh questions. Oh here we go, Karen. My question has to do with pilot training. How many hours flying time did new pilots have to have before they went to the 109 in the early. Stages of the war and then how many hours did they have later at towards the end of the war? What's the difference in experience? I can, I can answer very briefly on that. Post War, Pre war pilots of course received an excessive training that was largely comparable to the training Bud Anderson had received I think, Bud was shipped to Europe with something like 400 hours in total under his belt. Most of them of course in fighters and that was also pre war fighter training in Germany from 1943 on. Training was cut all the while due to fuel shortages and other reasons, and in the last 12 to 15 months of the war, an average fighter pilot who came to the front line had something like 100 hours in total, fifteen one five hours on type. And the the loss rate was just like that. Of at the end of the war, that is in the last 12 months, months of the war only. One of ten pilots survived his first five missions. Wow, wow, wow. OK. Another question up front here. Go ahead. Yeah, my question is more for the Midwest guys. I know you said earlier that you won't be flying the airplane during the air show, but is there a chance that we can hear it on the ground with an engine run at some point this week? To be determined, as they say. So just to add to that, I'm obviously from the UK and I've heard Daimler-Benz 605s before and they sound absolutely phenomenal. And the guys, if they do get a chance to run it, it sounds phenomenal. It doesn't sound anything like a Merlin or an Allison. And it feels different in the airplane too. It just has a just a really nice wonderful deep rumble to it. If I if I can add one thing from before about the fuel, someone had a great fuel question. And that's one that was one of the Achilles heels of all the early fighters in in World War Two was fuel and range. And then and as you go through a war you anticipate what you need and of course day one you don't have what you need. Jack and Jay were nice enough to visit me about ten or fifteen years ago in San Antonio, and he took off in his Mustang with Jay in the back and they flew direct. To Chino nonstop in the Mustang you could put you know close to 500 gallons in it and these have 100. Yeah. So I'm I'm sure there's situations where I mean there's it's always nice unless you're on fire to have too much gas but when they when they flew over Europe the when they when we we had the idea on drop tanks too and we thought about them too and we were running out of range too in 42 and 43 our bombers. Got there in 42 and our loss rates in 43 were pretty substantial because our fighters would go a certain distance and then they had to come back because they were on their, of course, only internal, no aerial refueling of course. So obviously the Germans would be smart and wait to that range until they turned and then descended upon them. And of course, once we got ideas on drop tanks, even with drop tanks at P-47 and P-38, I'm not sure were nearly as efficient as the Mustang. It's been said, you know, the Mustang helped shorten the war of several months because they could fly all the way to Berlin, fight and then fly all the way back, all on gas of their own. Yep, Yep. And. And by the way, we've got Lucky Luckadoo, who's going to be here Saturday morning. The author of the book Damn Lucky B-17, Pilot from World War Two who did those missions, was escorted by the P-51s and he made his 25 missions and made it home. He'll be here Saturday morning. And should be a very, very interesting interview with him. Alright, Kyle up top there we got another question. So I've read that the 605 was D rated in terms of power output fairly early in its life, but I could never find out why. Do you guys have any insight to that? You guys have any idea? D rated? No, it'd be nice if Mike Nixon knew about that. The 605s came in a Alpha and a Bravo and they had different reduction gear cases in the front and I that's all just stop. Talking, Kurt, did you know anything about a D rating of the motor of the 605? Did they D rate it that you know? Yes, I know, but don't ask me for the reasons. Why. Oh OK. OK, alright, another question down front here. Hold on. We're we need a mic. We're working on it. It's done now. Yep. You got it. Now when it comes to the restorations, was there one specific part that stands out in your memory from each build that was like either for a technical reason or for another reason, just. Stands out to you to that was difficult. For us. From the very beginning, converting all of our procedures from American to German was our difficult step. I mean, we had to retool for. A different angle of rivet, we had to retool for different diameters because it's all metric. We had to we had to Co-op with the Collings Foundation on a complete set of appropriate DIN rivets. So we our goal from the beginning was to make it as completely German as possible. We didn't incorporate any AN American hardware so we we that in alone just really. Had us thinking, what are we doing? But you know, going forward, it's gonna you may be more difficult to maintain the airplane if something breaks. If it's a fitting that we just can't go get. We may have to make it. That's just something that docs accepted and and we're going to make it happen. Thank you doc. Thank you doc. Even though we have the the drawings and everything like that with the aircraft having to translate everything since it's a Buchon from Spanish into English. And then like they were saying the metric spec versus the standard and then plating was another big one that we found sending the hardware out to get stripped and replated it in. A lot of times if the plating wasn't done to the DIN spec, they would do it. The United States Mill spec, then it wouldn't fit back into the hole that it came out of. So then we would have to work through that issue as well and that that was really challenging. Yeah, we found that early on. We sent some. We thought, Oh well, most of the hardware appeared to be black. We'd set it out, got it CAD plated. Brought it back. We couldn't get nothing to fit. The precision was so tight that I they didn't really do any plating. They just sort of much like you buy. It's like a oxidize, yeah? So we bought an oxidizing kit and stripped our hardware and oxidized everything. Those darned Germans, you know. That was said many times. Yeah, alright other questions are oh we got one over here. Go ahead. For the guys flying the Daimler. And since you're flying it, what kind of TBO do you have on the engine? Again, it would be great to have Mike Nixon here. I I do believe that there are significantly reduced compared to the Merlins and even in the Merlins I was told I don't know this true but like they throw them away at 200 hours even if they're running good and uh so they were. They are very time intensive and need to be paid attention to every single flight the man hours per hour of flying is probably going to be. Pretty pretty gosh darn significant. OK. Got one at the top there. Go ahead, Sir. Yeah, question about the cannon, how it's designed and how it fires through the spinner, if you could explain that. And the second question would be about the main landing gear, the the camber, the angle of the tires. It seems very excessive. OK. As you know the the gear is like that. So like we said it could be transported really quickly, taken apart and gone to the front and that's why they left the gear like that on the. Fuselage, so you could just. Unbolt the wings and put them on the side and you don't have to touch the engine or the tail plane or anything. Just put it all together, put it on the rail car and go take it off the rail car, put the wings on and you go flying. And that's why they left them like that. So if they left the gear on the fuselage like that, they had to adapt obviously the geometry, and maybe Kurt can help me too. I do believe they changed the the geometry a little bit throughout the war on different on different types and they actually had fatter tires on some of the some of the squadrons that that flew in you know tundra where they needed a fatter tire that made even bigger bulge on the wing and and they had to incorporate the angle so it would fit in the wing and not be exposed too much. But you can still see a little exposure. So to answer your question was predominantly for their I believe. Their ease of transport. Does he have any comments on the camber? Any any comments Kurt on on the camber of the gear? Yeah, not, not, not in detail, but it's perfectly right. The main landing gear had been reworked several times also to make good for the constructive deficiencies of the whole thing. The longer war lasted, the more unexperienced the pilots were that were put on training in the 109, and the more difficult it became for unexperienced because the plants were so unexperienced to take off and land. That thing without willing to doing harm to it. I I recall one story of a very experienced man who had 59 kills in the 109 only against Western allies, and whose name was Julius Weinberg. And one day I was invited. Julius was invited along with me to an air show in England at the Shuttleworth Collection because they wanted to have an ace of the Battle of Britain, and all the all the planes in the Shuttleworth collection were piloted by active Royal Air Force pilots who. Next Monday morning we're to strap in their phantoms and other and and Jaguars and things. So after the show. They asked Julius Weinberg, Sir, how many kills do you have? And he said, yeah, well, I did not really count exactly, but it, I guess it was 59. And did you ever have a dog fight with the Spitfire? oh yes, several. And how many Spitfires did you shoot down? And he said, well, something around 40. And for a minute everything fell silent. Then he said, and then he said. But you know what? I crashed so many 109s on air talk and on on on takeoffs and landings that normally your king should have awarded me the Victory. Cross. Thank you for that perspective. All right, we got one over here, Kyle. Uh. The airframes that Connie Edwards had, those went to various buyers. Did you share any. Technology, parts, information or with your restorations and those airframes and can we expect more 109s to be restored from those those owners? Yeah uh. We didn't really share a lot those when they were bought out in a kind of a lump sum they. Went to Europe and were dispersed around. Most of them have been restored to flying condition as Buchons. I wouldn't say we really shared much with them. Much like the Midwest guys were saying, we dealt with a lot of modelers and a lot of other people in Europe who who are kind of in the 109 world. OK. Thank you. I've got one right here. Yep. Ooh you you OK? yep. Oh OK alright. Oh, is this? Ohh perfect. OK, so I have a historical question about the 109 that I hope isn't too out-of-the-box. But when it was first selected by the Luftwaffe, did it have to compete with other models of fighters? And if so, what were they and how did the 109 win? Good question. I go ahead Kurt, you're you're the guy on that one. Yeah, of course there was a competition against. Airplanes from Heinkel, from Arado, from all the major German manufacturers and it was a tough competition. But and and still and still debate is going on. Why did the Me 109 win this competition? Because other airplanes for example had that wider track landing gear. Other airplanes seemed to have been. Aerodynamically smoother than the 109. For example, the Heinkel 112 had an elliptical wing like the Spitfire was more of dogfighter, so debate is still going on. Why did the 109 win? And all the records of these days have been lost in World War Two. But it's my guess that it won finally because it was so easy to manufacture and as the Doc pointed out. It was easy to transport, it was rail and road. transportable, and that really mattered in a war of movement that Hitler already had in his mind. OK. Thank you very much. Alright, we've got last question, we've got the last question and yes, we have a youngster. Go ahead. What's the fuel Fences? Fuel. Capacity. Compared to the Spitfire. Fuel capacity compared to the Spitfire? What's the fuel capacity compared to a Spitfire? I believe the Mark 9 Spitfire mark 5 and 9 which are right around the time frame of these it it's pretty comparable I think they hold like 115 or 120 gallons and. Doc says 108, ours holds 105, so I think they're within 10 or 15 gallons of each other without drop tanks. OK. Thank you very much. And with that. I'm gonna wrap it up and say thank you gentlemen for what you've done. Thanks for the restoration, the acquisition, thanks for the flying. Thanks for the expertise and I'll say the same thing to you, Kurt. Thank you so much for. Your knowledge. Your expertise. And and your stories. It was an honor to be with you. I wish I would be there in in real life. Thank you very much and Connie and I plan to come visit. So with that folks, again, thank you very much. And we'll be back here tomorrow morning and we've got a Medal of Honor winner who is going to be here tomorrow. If you enjoyed this video, Please remember to like and subscribe. And as always, thank you for watching.
