Me.209V-4
In the spring of 1939, the Nazi propaganda machine broke the
news that an aircraft designated Messerschmitt Me 109R had set a new world air
speed record of 469.22 mph. The designation fostered the impression that the
machine was a variant of Germany’s new single-seat monoplane fighter, the
Messerschmitt Bf 109. In fact, the “Me 109R” was the prototype of an entirely
new aircraft, developed for the specific purpose of attacking the record. Its
correct designation was Me 209V1, and it was one of the most dangerous aircraft
ever built.
Developed at Messerschmitt’s Augsburg factory, the Me 209
was a small, low-wing monoplane designed around a specially engineered
Daimler-Benz DB 601ARJ twelve-cylinder inverted-vee liquid-cooled engine, which
gave 1800 hp and could be boosted to 2300 hp for short periods. The airframe
was kept as small as possible and equipment reduced to the absolute minimum.
The pilot’s cockpit was set well aft, the fin had a large ventral section, and
the tailplane and elevators were very small in area. The wide-track
undercarriage comprised two main members, retracting inwards into the wing and
fuselage centre section, and a tailskid was fitted to the ventral fin.
In order to reduce drag to an absolute minimum, radiators
were eliminated by introducing an engine evaporative cooling system. After
passing around the engine, the water coolant was piped out to the wings, where
it was cooled by partial evaporation through holes in the skin and then passed
back into circulation. Because the system entailed a constant loss of water, at
least 200 litres (44 gallons) had to be carried on each flight, even though the
engine could not be run for more than 30 minutes at a time.
The design bore the Messerschmitt project number P.1059. The
prototype, which also carried the civil registration D-INJR and the Werknummer
(Factory Number) 1185, flew for the first time on 1 August 1938, the pilot
being Dr J.H. Wurster, who was then both chief engineer and chief test pilot at
Augsburg. Some unpleasant characteristics became apparent from the beginning,
notably the aircraft’s tendency to nose down with no warning and for no
apparent reason. The controls were heavy and unwieldy, the aircraft was
generally unstable in flight, and the sink rate was high during the approach to
land, resulting in a heavy touchdown and an inclination to swerve violently.
A second aircraft, the Me 209V2, D-IWAH, made its first
flight on 4 April 1939. The role of chief test pilot had now been assumed by
Flugkapitän Fritz Wendel, leaving Dr Wurster to concentrate on engineering
matters. Wendel was less than enthusiastic about the little machine, and later
described his impressions of it.
In 1937, our Bf 109Bs
and Ds had caused a sensation at the Zurich International Flying meeting,
winning many of the contests, and much of my early time as Chief Test Pilot was
devoted to testing variants of this aircraft. Many an unkind word has been said
about the flight characteristics of this little beauty, but it was a lady all
through when compared to that winged horror with which I gained the world air
speed record.
Adolf Hitler was
determined that Germany should hold any and every aviation record, and he was
particularly anxious that we should gain the absolute speed record. At that
time the record had been established by Francesco Agello in a Macchi MC.72
seaplane at 440.7 mph. My predecessor, Dr Wurster, had raised the international
landplane speed record to 379.39 mph on November 11, 1937, in a DB 600-powered
Bf 109, but we were after the absolute record, and the result was the Me 209.
With its tiny wing
and, for those days, horrifying wing loading, the 209 was a brute. Its flying
characteristics still make me shudder. It had a dangerous tendency to nose down
without any reason or warning, and it touched down on the runway like a ton of
bricks. Even on the ground its characteristics were no more ladylike, as it
would suddenly swerve off the runway without any provocation.
The first prototype,
the Me 209V1, was initially fitted with a standard 1075 hp Daimler-Benz DB 601A
in order to get some idea of the aircraft’s flight characteristics before
installing the specially souped-up engine for the record flight. This special
engine delivered about 2300 hp for a short burst and then … a new engine!
Cooling presented Messerschmitt and the Daimler-Benz boys with a peach of a
problem. Had orthodox radiators been fitted their drag would have seriously
affected the plane’s speed. Therefore, a surface evaporation cooling system was
worked out. We knew that the working life of this souped-up engine would be but
half an hour at the very most, and the engineers commandeered all the available
space in the plane – which wasn’t much – for water tanks. The water was run
through the engine, out into the wing, condensed, and then back into the
discharger. About one and a half gallons of water were consumed every minute of
flying time, and the plane left a long trail of steam behind it!
On 4 April 1939, I
took off for a training flight in preparation for the speed record attempt in
the second prototype, the Me 209V2. After a few tiring minutes of heaving the
unwieldy controls, I turned in for a landing approach. I was accustomed to
lowering the undercarriage as I reached the Siebentischwald, a forest near the
airfield at Haunstetten, but on that day, without warning (everything happened
without warning in the Me 209) the lubricating system packed up, and
immediately the pistons were grinding in the cylinders and the airscrew was
standing as stiff as a poker. With a hell of a jolt, the plane virtually pulled
up in mid-air, the result of the combined drag of the lowered undercarriage and
the unfeathered airscrew. The vicious little brute started dropping like a
stone, and below me was that damned forest. I strained on the stick with all I
had and, to my surprise, the plane responded. I screamed over the last row of
trees bordering the Haunstetterstrasse, and was even more surprised to find
myself staggering away, relatively unhurt, from the heap of twisted metal that
seconds before had been an Me 209.
A few days before this
crash, on 30 March, Heinkel’s test pilot, Hans Dieterle, captured the absolute
speed record at 463.92 mph in our major competitor, the He 100V-8. So we had
been forced to set our sights higher, and we knew that if we did raise the
record still further it would be marginal. On 26 April 1939, only twenty-two
days after my crash, I climbed into the cockpit of the blue-painted Me 209V1,
now fitted with the souped-up engine, for an attempt to beat Dieterle. The
engine sparked into life with its characteristic roar. A very brief warm-up, a
last instrument check, and I was off, searing up and down the course and
screeching round the clearly marked turning points. I touched down again and
saw a crowd of workers and technicians racing towards the plane. I climbed out
of the cockpit, and Willi Messerschmitt slapped me on the back and told me that
we had ‘got it’. The Me 209, as I was to discover later, had averaged 469.22
mph.
Originally, it had been intended that the record attempt would
be made by the third prototype Me 209, the V3 (D-IVFP, Werknummer 1187), but as
this was not ready in time the V1 was used instead. The record was to stand for
thirty years, until 16 August 1969, when it was beaten by American pilot Darryl
G. Greenamyer, who achieved an average speed of 482.533 mph in his Grumman
F8F-2 Bearcat, Conquest I.
The Me 209V3 eventually flew at the end of May 1939 and was
used for experimental flying. With the coming of war in September 1939 all
thoughts of further record-breaking attempts were abandoned, and the fourth
prototype Me 209, the V4 (D-IRND, Werknummer 1188) was completed as a fighter.
The Me 209V4 first flew on 12 May 1939 and had a redesigned wing with automatic
leading edge slats. Provision was made for the installation of two nose-mounted
7.9 mm MG 17 machine-guns and one 30 mm MK 108 cannon (at a later date, an
attempt was made to install two additional MK 108 cannon in the wings). After
eight test flights the surface evaporation cooling system was abandoned in favour
of a more orthodox arrangement of underwing radiators; the wing span was
progressively increased and the slats were replaced by drooping leading edges.
Further flight testing, however, revealed that the Me 209V4 could not attain
its original estimated performance expectations and offered no great advantage
over the standard Messerschmitt Bf 109.
The story of the Me 209, however, had by no means ended.
Early in 1941, the Augsburg design team began to study a potential replacement
for the Bf 109. Allocated the designation Me 309, the new fighter was of
advanced concept, featuring a pressurised cockpit, tricycle undercarriage and
retractable radiator. The new type incorporated a number of lessons learned
during the Me 209 development programme, and various features were tested on
modified Bf 109s. Because of all the innovations development was slow, and it
was not until the end of 1941 that design work was completed.
The first prototype, the Me 309V1, began taxiing trials on
27 June 1942 and snags immediately manifested themselves. First of all, the
coolant feed lines fractured, and it was found that they had been mounted too
rigidly to withstand engine vibrations. No sooner had this fault been rectified
than a serious nosewheel shimmy developed during ground runs. This, together
with a directional snaking problem, delayed the prototype’s maiden flight until
18 July 1942. Meanwhile, official interest in the project had waned, and
production of the Me 309 was restricted to an experimental series of nine
aircraft, not all of which were built. After the directional snaking and other
problems had been sorted out the Me 309V1 was put through its paces at the
Luftwaffe Experimental Establishment, Rechlin, where it was flown with a 1450
hp DB 605B engine in place of its original 1750 hp DB 603A. Rechlin test pilots
were critical of its potential, one of them reporting that:
The Me 309 will be
acceptable after certain improvements have been effected, but it should be
stressed that this fighter will provide the average service pilot with handling
difficulties. Control forces are very high by comparison with those of current
fighters, and the nosewheel undercarriage is likely to present problems when
the fighter uses operational airfields. With full armament, the Me 309 will be
only some 30 mph faster than the Bf 109G, and there would seem to be no
advantage to introducing this fighter when superior types (e.g. the Fw 190D)
are already leaving the assembly lines.
The second prototype, the Me 309V2, which was intended for
high-speed trials, made its first flight on 29 November 1942. It was also its
last, because the nosewheel leg collapsed during landing and the aircraft was
damaged beyond repair. The test programme planned for the V2 could therefore
not be implemented until the completion of the Me 309V3 in March 1943, by which
time the radical Me 262 jet fighter was undergoing flight trials. The Me 309V3
was assigned to the Me 262 programme, testing cockpit pressurisation systems
and ejector seats.
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