Still flying WW2 planes

Or the fact that anyone with about $2,000 and up(IIRC, that was what fighters were going for, bombers were probably more) could purchase a US warplane for themselves. It should also be mentioned that most just went right to the scrap yards.

 

The Collings Foundation posted this on their Facebook page today:

Dear Friends,

It is with a heavy heart that I must send out this letter. Yesterday Fred Lewis was tragically killed while flying pipeline patrol in a Citabria outside of Chico, Ca, along with his aerial observer.

Fred has been a pilot as well as a trustee of the Collings Foundation for many years. More important he has been a dear friend to all of us and has dedicated his life after retirement t...o supporting veterans and continuing to preserve history to keep their memory alive.

Fred has been a devoted father to Doug, Mark, Amanda and Karina as well as a dedicated husband to his wife Lynn. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers during this difficult time.

I will try to keep everyone informed as to arrangements as they are become set. Please forward this message on as I do not have access to all of the email addresses for people who knew and loved Fred at this time.

GODSPEED MY FRIEND

 

You should have bought 10...!!

From Wiki.....
"Bf 109s remained in foreign service for many years after World War II. The Swiss used their Bf 109Gs well into the 1950s. The Finnish Air Force did not retire their Bf 109Gs until March 1954. Romania used its Bf 109s until 1955. The Spanish Hispanos flew even longer. Some were still in service in the late 1960s. They appeared in films (notably The Battle of Britain) playing the role of Bf 109Es. Some Hispano airframes were sold to museums, which rebuilt them as Bf 109s."

I wonder what became of those planes.?
Is there a BF-109 that still fly's today.?
Thank You

 

Yeah theres a G with tropical colours flying...i think, if it hasnt had another taxiing accident...the bad LG design haunts to this day...

 

There are at least three Gs that I know of; a G-4(registration D-FWME), G-6(D-FMBB), and a G-10(D-FDME, back in the air as of 2010).

Edit: The -4 and -6 are both of Spanish construction, while the -10 is mostly original, but with Spanish wings.

 

I know that was a problem...but I do not know why.
Was it due to the rather narrow track of the LG.?
They swung down from that rather slender chassis.
Most planes had a much wider track when the wheels came down I guess.?
Thanks

 

IIRC, the Trop G-2 crashed back in 1997, AFAIK, it was only restored to static/display condition, and is on display at RAF Museum in Hendon. It suffered a possible loss of coolant accident and declared an emergency landing. However, the G-2 came in too high and fast to stop in time and ran off the runway, nosing over in the soft ground.

EADS Bf-109G-4 "Red 7" has been a hard-luck aircraft, her gear collapsed in July, 2005, causing extensive damage. The G-4 again came to grief not long after being restored to operation in 2008 when one landing gear would not lock down and the pilot elected to come in for a gears up belly landing. Thankfully damage was kept to a mimimum, and she was back in the air in just under a year.

As an aside, it is not necessarily that it is a problem with the gear, but the 109 is notoriously hard to handle in a crosswind landing situation, as this 2012 photo of "Red-7" almost coming to grief yet again.

from http://www.abpic.co.uk/photo/1365830/

 

Here is the Accident report for the Trop G-2 G-USTV.
http://www.aaib.gov.uk/cms_resources.cfm?file=/dft_avsafety_pdf_501760.pdf

 

Attaching the wheel leg to the fuselage would be stronger but does limit the tread. It would free up some space inside the wing as well. I imagine the narrow tread caused more problems on the Eastern front and with less experienced pilots but what a service life !!!! Seeing one sitting next to a FW 190 really emphasizes the difference but that is a rare sight. I do not know of another mainline fighter that had an inverted V engine but some here can address that better than I can.

The 109 is certainly an iconic aircraft.

To think of all the WW2 aircraft, Allied and Axis, that were cut up and melted down is a bit heart rending.

 

As to the inverted V engine, I doubt that the the other aircraft engine makers did not felt the need "to reinvent the wheel." Continental Motors tried with their Continental XI-1430, but the engine never really got out of the experimental stage - only 23 were produced.

 

An Inverted V...?
So if you were standing on the ground...looking at the nose of the plane...the crank would be on top...and the cylinder heads would be on the bottom...with the pistons firing "down" toward the ground.?
Thank You

 

The accidents occurred due to the narrow wheel base...it bobbled and tipped...the narrow wheel base was due to Willy wanting just one actuator in what was a small and light fighter...The one actuator opening and closing both gear rather than one each inside the wings.

 

The narrow stance of the Bf-109 was not the real issue with its ground handling woes. The Spitfire gear also had a narrow stance, but it did not suffer the same handling problems. The Bf-109 wheels canted inward rather than the wheels being verticle in the landing stance. Both wheels running on their inner edges make them both want to turn inward (how does a motorcycle turn at cruise speed?). As soon as the tail swings a little (as tail draggers tend to do), the wheel on the outside of the swing gets more force on it and becomes dominant. It is trying to turn the aircraft 'inward' which is the same direction that the tail swing initiated and thus the landing gear actually multiplies the turning force. Any failure to immediately correct the tail swing will result in a turning force too great for the small tail and rudder to compensate for and a ground loop or worse will result.

 

An Inverted V...?

So if you were standing on the ground...looking at the nose of the plane...the crank would be on top...and the cylinder heads would be on the bottom...with the pistons firing "down" toward the ground.?

Thank You



Your description is correct Denny, indeed the Bf 109 had an inverted V-12 MB BD 601 engine. Pistons pointing down. It was a rather advanced design, using fuel injection and dry oil sump so oil drainage was not a big issue. It is interesting in that it's contemporaries, the Hurricane, Spitfire, P-40-51's Yaks 3-9 , etc were the opposite. Obviously worked quite well!!

Worth noting it had a variable speed supercharger.

 

Speaking of Allied inverted V-12s. While looking into the Curtiss SO3C "Seamew", I noticed that she had a Ranger V-770-6 inverted V-12 for a powerplant. The Ranger V-770 series was not very successful, but was used on several aircraft, however these were mostly training aircraft - with the Seamew being the sole exception(although, it's poor performance quickly sidelined it from combat use).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranger_V-770
http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=853
http://www.enginehistory.org/Piston/Fairchild/Fairchild.shtml

 

Interesting...Thanks

 

Not crazy at all, I anted up for a ride on Aluminum Overcast about 10 years ago... worth every penny.

I was out in the yard last weekend and saw a B-25 flying over. I live not to far from the Kalamazoo Air Zoo and they've had the B-25 this past month, believe the B-17 will be back next month. There's no mistaking the sound of warbirds flying around, nothing else quite like it.