Friedrich-4B

For about an hour or so...

Indeed they do, particularly certain people who run a "rival" website What's interesting about all these complaints that the site is biased, is that not one of the complainants has actually demonstrated that oodles of German combat reports &/etc can be found in - say - the Bundesarchiv, to redress the purported bias, nor have any of the complainants ever offered to help by going to the time and considerable expense involved in digging out any such documents and posting them on the net, for the rest of us to download for free. :music_whistling:

See RAF Repair Categories WW 2 The entry should read as follows: 610S CAC ops 24-6-44 ros, then 350S 22-2-45 CAC ops 28-2-45 : thus, RB152 was damaged - possibly on the same day - and repaired on site by an outside repair unit on June 24, 1944: on 22 Feb '45, it had been transferred to 350 Sqn directly from 610 Sqn.

CAC = Category AC; ops = operations. Combined, it means that the damage was sustained during an operational sortie There were several damage categories ranging from A = minor, usually repairable by the unit, to E, which was essentially a right-off. Within each category, there were also sub-categories; eg: C1, C2, C3

The PRU were part of 2 TAF (see below Orders of Battle Shores and Thomas Vol 1, pages 120-121) Look at Headquarters and 84 & 84 Groups; HQ was a dedicated PR Wing, while the other two groups also had PR Wings: [/url]

For 'armed recce' I presume you mean Tactical Reconnaissance?: Armed Reconnaissance was undertaken by all 2 TAF fighter squadrons - it essentially meant going out fully armed and shooting at/shooting down/breaking anything German behind the German front lines.

There is no evidence of 'falsification' - all that's happened is that, for years, a certain forum member has been carrying out a vindictive little campaign against the owners of WW2 Aircraft performance and their website, both here and on many other forums. As such, any opinion on the site and its documents by that member can be safely disregarded.

RAF: (from strength returns evening June 5; Shores and Thomas Vol 1) *Allison engined Mustangs, mainly Mk Is & 1As (ie P-51) as of June 6; later Mk IIs (P-51A) : one of these days, it may be possible to design tactical recce missions? *Mustang IIIs (P-51B/C) also used as F/B *Mosquito VI *Mosquito XIII (Nightfighter) *Typhoon IB (bombs = 250, 500 or 1,000 lb, 3 in RP A/P or HE) *Boston IIIA *Mitchell II (B-25C or D) ADGB: Spitfire VII - used operationally over Normandy by 131, 616 sqns Spitfire XII - ditto 41 sqn Outsiders: Spitfire P.R XI, Wellington XIII, Auster IV Wow! Big deal, I was mistaken. There's absolutely no need to accuse people of lying. :thumbdown:

Kurfurst's link only shows a single page of a 4 page document: The entire document ( Leistungen Me 109 G mit DB 605 AS) can be downloaded as a pdf from WW 2 Aircraft Performance [ame]http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/me109/VB-109-20-L-43.pdf[/ame] This is part of a range of 109 G documents, http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/me109/me109g.html There are also Fw 190D-9 documents http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/fw190/fw190d9test.html Also available are English translations, in HTML, translated by a native German speaker.

Wouldn't it be lovely if Kurfurst would stop quibbling over properly cited, original documentation, and provide some real data of his own, proving that Spitfire XIVs were not operational over France Jan-Sept 1944. In fact, it would be even lovelier if Kurfurst would provide some Luftwaffe K-4 combat reports or a list of K-4 air to air victories against 2 TAF, instead of complaining that the Spitfire XIVs and Tempests Vs scored insufficient kills to be considered (In His Humble Opinion) significant. :smilewink: Although the Spitfire XIVs shot down relatively few manned Luftwaffe aircraft, it wasn't their fault that the Luftwaffe hardly ever turned up to be shot down in the first place! :lol:

Totally wrong: the Tempests and Spitfire XIVs were fully armed fighters, being used by fighter squadrons: the F.R. XIVs were also fully armed and were used for tactical reconnaissance operations by Tac Recon units; they were just as capable of engaging in combat operations, and often did so. While the Tempest and XIV squadrons didn't see much combat over Normandy, they were fully operational, integral parts of the RAF What is interesting is that the Allied fighter pilots didn't notice any real difference when the 109K-4s became operational - the Luftwaffe fighters kept going up and they kept being shot down, regardless of whether they were 109G-6s or 109K-4s. The reason the USAAF's 8th AF shot down more fighters than 2 TAF is simply because all of their fighters (mostly P-51s in November '44) were used in air-interception roles, or they deliberately sought out the German fighters once freed from escorting bombers. That, and the fact that the German fighters were forced to engage heavily escorted bombers, meant that the chances of engaging in aerial combat were far higher for the Americans. Shores' and Thomas' 2 TAF books give a far more balanced perspective of 2 TAF's combat experiences, than Kurfurst's somewhat limited opinions will ever provide.

In tests carried out on a Spitfire VB in 1943, removing the mast in favour of a whip aerial showed that the maximum speed was increased by ½ mph! It probably wasn't considered worthwhile removing the mast, which would also entail changing the skinning immediately behind the canopy.

One of the comments made by Bunyap is "...everything is subject to change...": hopefully, this means that the external details can still be changed. There's more than enough information to make a persuasive case to alter the physical appearance, but such details shouldn't take priority for now, because... +1 :smilewink:

No apology needed: I see, BTW, that MK356 is now in the colours and markings of Sqn. Ldr. 'Johnnny' Plagis, 126 Sqn. Either scheme would look good on ED's Spitfire L.F. Mk IX.

Purely for interest; Attached is an Aeroplane Monthly article written by test pilot Alex Henshaw, who production tested thousands of Castle Bromwich built Spitfires (article has been split into two parts for the purpose of downloading):

Indeed, the very first person to complain bitterly about the unreleased Spitfire spent some time disparaging Yo-Yo's professionalism: http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2720897&postcount=1 http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2721042&postcount=9 for several pages, all for the sake of 3 mph. It's a bit rich for this same member to predict that other members will react just as badly...:smilewink: No doubt, once the Spitfire is released, the stick forces will be fine, and there will be nothing to worry about, in just the same way that other Spitfire L.F Mk IX characteristics will be the best in the business.

:thumbup: Excellent, Kurfurst will be thus in total agreement with Yo-Yo's professional understanding of the said documents, and his professional verdict on how ED's Spitfire IX will handle: Hopefully Kurfurst has the full test and the context of these tests? Wrong, wrong wrong! Matching the ailerons was done during production testing of each Spitfire. What the "well recognized quirk" was hasn't been specified by Kurfurst, unless he's trying to claim that the Spitfire test pilots didn't bother to test the ailerons by citing an isolated example of a much used prototype. 50lbs...50lbs...we now have 71lbs...7lbs...any advance on 71lbs of stick force required? Thus, Kurfurst now claims that "no less 71 lbs stick force was required to produce about 10 degrees aileron" can be universally applied to all 5,000 + Spitfire IXs because of one extract from one unspecified report, on an unspecified Spitfire and unidentified Mark of Spitfire, when he has already fulminated at length on how tricky the Spitfire's ailerons were to set up. Perhaps Kurfurst would like to share the entire document with all of us, instead of using a selected "sound bite"? Gosh! One warbird pilot account stating that he had to "wrestle" with the ailerons (mind you, Kurfurst also forgot to highlight Ethell's other statements) Can Kurfurst provide any documented statements from wartime, operational pilots complaining about having to arm-wrestle with the metal ailerons during combat? Back to warbird pilots - here's another opinion: http://www.warbirdalley.com/articles/spitfire-flight-report.htm Different strokes for different folks, etc etc... Can we dare to hope that Kurfurst has got some fully documented and reliable statistics to show just how many Spitfires were afflicted with poor ailerons, and just how badly this affected operational Spitfires? Can he also demonstrate why the aileron matching and tuning has anything to do with Ed's Spitfire IX - albeit Kurfurst still wants this to be factored in... In other words, Kurfurst very much hopes that ED's Spitfire IX will be a slow, hard to control cow, dominated by heavy, mis-matched ailerons and overly light elevators. Fortunately we can rely on Yo-Yo's professionalism and objectivity, and his understanding of the copious documents and data he has gathered from excellent sources, rather than having to bother with Kurfurst's very small number of highly selective bits and bobs; Kurfurst's mostly undocumented opinions on how the Spitfire handled and performed will not, quite rightly, make the slightest bit of difference to the performance and flight qualities of Ed's L.F. Mk. IX.

Cheers Krupi; the edition of Quill's book I posted from is a rather elderly edition from the local library - mine went missing last year, so I'm also awaiting the arrival of a new copy. Incidentally, Quill does mention that ailerons had to be 'tuned' to each Spitfire, because even small production variations in such areas as the hinges, wing shrouds, aileron nose-balance profile etc could have a "spectacular effect" on the lateral handling of each Spitfire. While interesting, it's not going to be relevant to Ed's Mk IX.

Unfortunately Isby didn't use a reference for the 9lb vs 43 lb comment, because ref 35 only shows Jeffrey Quill's book, which doesn't go into detail about the stick weights (see attached). Also of interest are Quill's comments about longitudinal instability encountered on Spitfire Vs in 1942, describing how the inertia weight was used to fix this; he goes on to explain how enlarging the elevator's horn-balances meant that the inertia weights could be dispensed with. (NB: some self-proclaimed "experts" have dismissed Quill's opinions as either being irrelevant, because he was a mere test pilot, not an engineer, or as propaganda, because he worked for Supermarine and wouldn't say anything bad about the Spitfire! :doh: ) quill_aileron.pdf

Nice one! Thanks for that - now downloaded.

And Kurfurst gets this from one graph (with no explanatory note) from one airframe out of what, some 24,000 Spitfires and Seafires built? As for the so-called problem of matching ailerons being random throughout the war? Totally wrong; the fabric ailerons were difficult to match because: a) their structures were not as stiff as those of the metal ailerons... b) there was often the need to glue lengths of cord to the trailing edges of the fabric covered aileron to get the trim right. Both problems disappeared with the metal covered ailerons, making them far, far easier to match. Hopefully Kurfurst can provide some real data/documentation to back all this up. I have far more confidence that Yo-Yo, with his access to real data (rather than possible pilot anecdotes) knows how the Spitfire IX handled and how it should feel. :smilewink:

Just for interest, I'm attaching a report on the effectiveness of the Spitfire's fabric covered ailerons

Too right. I have the full NACA 868 report: the summary presented with the graph shown by Kurfurst is as follows (quote from pages 37-38 ) : The report: [ame]http://naca.central.cranfield.ac.uk/reports/1947/naca-report-868.pdf[/ame]

Just guessing that Kurfurst, who for years has been such a dedicated Spitfire enthusiast, can provide good documentation that proves that the sad, slow old Spitfire IX was a bit of a cow for the average RAF pilot to handle, in much the same way that an oversteering race or rally car could be considered tricky for an average driver. :thumbup: No doubt Kurfurst can also provide documentation that shows that all wartime Spitfire IXs used inertia weights to band-aid the aircraft's purported longitudinal instability? Otherwise, what is the point of Kurfurst's post? Is Kurfurst implying that ED's Spitfire IX will be an oversteering cow that only the more experienced players will be able to handle properly? Or is he claiming that Yo-Yo's statement is wrong, because Kurfurst knows that ED's Spitfire IX will oversteer into the nearest tree at every opportunity without a skilled pilot at the helm? :dunno: