Euromilitaire 2012 - first pictures & 'best in show' contender

Okay, the judges haven't yet decided on their 'best in show' as I write this and they are unlikely to vote for this stupendous 32nd scale crash-landed He 111 with wounded crew - but it was my personal 'best', no question. More from the 2012 edition of Europe's premier show for armour and figure modellers here

Fw. Hermann Dibbel SG 2

From the Morning Bulletin (Australia 1954) and originally posted by Carlos on TOCH

Rank: Feldwebel
Unit: III./Stuka-Geschwader 2
Awarded DKIG on: February 26 1943

Teaches Writing In The SkyESSEN < AP).

-Ten years ago, front-line Russian soldiers gazed Into the skies where a lone German Stuka spelled out in huge, smoky letters an appeal to them to surrender. Sky-writer Hermann Dibbel, a Luftwaffe Master Sergeant was on his job. Today, Hermann Dibbel is a miner in a Ruhr colliery with: a monthly salary of about 600' marks (142.80 U.S. dollars). But recently, Dibbel got back his old job with a new twist. He claims to be Europe's only sky-writing instructor and foreign aerial advertising firms have hired him to teach their own pilots. Sky-writing is difficult, Dibbel says. lt is not only aerobatic flying, but requires extra delicate balance and control.  "When you are writing 2400 ft. letters in the sky, you do not see them," he said. "You have to use a stop watch and rely on skill. This is because a bad letter cannot be erased. If one letter is bad, the whole slogan may be illegible to the people down below." Only by going 3000 ft. lower, after finishing the text, can Dibbel see what he has written.Dibbel was one of several pilots selected by the German psychological warfare division for sky-writing surrender appeals over the Russian front. Until then, he had been a combat flier. He is credited with sinking a British cruiser, three transports and destroying 30 Soviet tanks with his single-engined Stuka dive bomber. He was a talented sky-writing student and later flew missions over Yugoslavia In an attempt to induce Tito's partisans to surrender.After World War Two, he fled from East Germany to the Ruhr and became a miner. Then he was re-discovered. Dibbel has accompanied a Swiss pilot on several flights from Duesseldorf airport and showed him how to sky-write.He has a simple method for beginners; mount a can with limewater on a bicycle and then try to write upside-down letters backwards while riding.Aerial advertising agents estimate that each sky-written letter costs about 50 marks (1150 dollars). Dibbel can do more than 30 letters an hour.He hopes to set up his own advertising firm soon. But Dibbel-like all other Germans -is forbidden to fly by Allied occupation law. This ban is to be lifted whenever the West German peace contract, restoring sovereignty 'of the Bonn Republic, goes into effect....

Bf 109 ace Arnold Bringmann JG 3, JG 7

Currently on offer at Michael Meyer's Ebay sales

Bf 109 Friedrich belonging to the  Stab II./JG 3 photographed on 1 July 1942. The pilot in the cockpit is Gefr. Arnold Bringmann seen here on his return from the sortie on which he achieved his first victory, an Il-2 over Schtschigry. Bringmann survived the war having notched up at least 30 victories. He was acting Staffelkapitän of 1./ JG 3 for the Bodenplatte operation on New Year's Day 1945 with the rank of Feldwebel. At war's end he was flying the Me 262 Turbo with JG 7.

Contending with torque - late war Messerschmitt 109s - and the limitations of German engineering

"..The day was rounded off with a demonstration of captured American aircraft, in particular a P-51 Mustang – it was stressed that our Bf 109s and Fw 190s were generally superior to this type. We soon realised on our first combat sortie that this statement was not entirely accurate.."

Uffz. Kurt Scherer II./JG 4 (quoted in Mombeek " Storming the Bombers")

As Bob Goebel explains so eloquently in his fine memoir  'Mustang Ace' all pilots flying single-engined fighters have to contend with torque - the heavy spinning engine and propeller causes the small light fighter airframe to veer off its centre-line axis. This is obviously inconvenient, especially for a gun-platform when you are trying to keep the sight pipper on the target. Trimming or re-trimming, usually through applications of rudder is essential to keep the aircraft flying straight without yawing. And -as my good friend 'Crump' points out- there are are other contributory factors to the left-swinging tendencies at work on high-performance tail-draggers, eg P-factor (propeller effect) - the blade on the left side upswing has the wing and the ground interfering with its thrust production compared to the right side down-swinging blade. The right side produces more thrust and therefore pushes the aircraft to the left.

On the P-51 a light off-set of the vertical fin was built into the design which generated an aerodynamic force which helped to balance out the torque. But even here any zero-yaw condition enhancements incorporated into the airframe are only true at one given airspeed and power setting- at a high power setting and low airspeed, as during a steep climb, the torque is greater than the correction. Conversely in a high speed dive aerodynamic forces are greater than the torque.

The average Bf 109 pilot enjoyed no such refinement as an off-set tail fin - with its small airframe and control surfaces the Bf 109 pilot had more to do in the cockpit than most. Of course as Messerschmitt himself put it, he had set out to produce a small fast fighter " and not a barn door.." ( as quoted in Isby, ' The decisive duel' P378) But with its small wing, narrow-track undercarriage, an overloaded airframe and large engine driving a broad-three-bladed propeller there were potentially lethal handling difficulties to contend with. At high speeds the Bf 109 required considerable stick forces. Well-trained pilots could handle this, but the Bf 109 could nonetheless be quite a handful even for an experienced pilot, especially on the ground! On the afternoon of 25 August 1944 the Kommandeur of I./JG 4 Major Walter Hoeckner taxiied out at Ziegenhain to lead his Gruppe on a transfer to France and the Western Front ;

"..It was on 25 August that I saw Hoeckner kill himself at Ziegenhain. His fighter powered off but flipped over at a height of around twenty metres and smashed into the ground. Those pilots that were already airborne and those just lifting off were completely stunned.... I almost met the same fate. The cockpits of our Me 109s were extremely cramped. With parachute, equipment and personal items it was sometimes difficult to get much leverage on the stick, wedged as it was in-between our knees. On one takeoff my machine veered off to starboard without me being able to do much about it - my knees got in the way of the stick movement. Fortunately I was already over the valley that ran along one side of the airfield. I was able to push the stick forward and pick up speed and managed to keep the aircraft under control by the skin of my teeth..." 

Ogfr. Horst Jaekel, 3./JG 4 ; (extracted from 'Storming the bombers' - a chronicle of JG 4, Mombeeck, trans. Neil Page )

Aged nearly 30, Walter Hoeckner had been flying the Bf 109 since 1940. On 25 June 1941 as Staffelkapitän of 6./JG 77, he had claimed no less than eight SB-2s during a freie Jagd sweep. At the time of his death he was a 68-victory Ritterkreuzträger, with sixteen of his victories notched up in the West, of which at least six were four-engined bombers. The Bf 109 was a particularly unforgiving aircraft, both for the novice and the seasoned ace. The tendency of the Bf 109 to swing badly on landing and take-off could of course be countered - but it required plenty of rudder. And if the tail was " lifted aggressively ", in the words of the late Mark Hanna (who also died at the controls of a Bf 109!), " the left swing tendency was difficult to stop and happens very quickly ". At altitude and high speed the Bf 109 tended to swing “like a pendulum combined with a rolling movement” to paraphrase an RAF translation of comments by test pilot Heinrich Beauvais;

".incompletely trimmed ailerons and rudder ruin the feel of the aircraft to uselessness. Therefore, the aircraft must be carefully flown in.. " At high speed, the Bf 109 was " like a brick..", requiring both hands to move the controls. Oscar Boesch commented;

" ..When turning the FW 190 as high speed, it only took one hand on the stick to control the aircraft. In the 109 it took two hands and a lot of strength to make a tight turn if you had some speed. This destroyed the feel for flying the aircraft...."

The following data for the Bf 109 E is extracted from a British test document "Messerschmitt Me 109 Handling and Manoeuverability Tests by the Ministry of Supply. September 1940" (via Olivier 'butch2k' at the allaboutwarfare forum) "...More detailed aileron tests (measurement of stick forces and time to bank) were made.. These tests showed that although the Me 109 ailerons felt much heavier than those of the Spitfire at speeds between 300mph (483kph) and 400mph (644kph), the a/c could be made to bank at about the same rate as the Spitfire at these high speeds. The more ‘solid' feel of the Me 109 ailerons at high airspeeds is attributed to the smaller stick travel (± 4 in. compared to ± 8 in. on the Spitfire), fairly rigid control circuit, and partly to the awkward seating position of the pilot...at 400mph (644kph) the Me 109 pilot, pushing sideways with all his strength, can only apply about 1/5 aileron, thereby banking 45 deg. in about 4 secs.; on the Spitfire also, only 1/5 aileron can be applied at 400mph, and again the time to 45 deg. bank is about 4 secs..."  

Both aircraft types thus have their rolling maneuverability at high speeds seriously curtailed by aileron heaviness. The Spitfire's ailerons do not feel as ‘solid' at 400mph as those of the Me 109; this is because there is rather more 'stretch' in the aileron control circuit of the Spitfire. Note the detail for the maximum sideways force a pilot can exert on the stick - which worked out at around 60 lb. on the Spitfire, but only about 40 lb. on the Me 109; as indicated in the personal account above the reason for this difference is that the cockpit of the Me 109 is so cramped that a pilot cannot bring his arm round into the position most favourable for applying a large side force to the stick.  And it was not only the ailerons that caused problems for the 109 pilot. The following is again from the "Messerschmitt Me 109 Handling and Maneuverability Tests by the Ministry of Supply. September 1940":

 "..It is at high speeds that lack of a rudder trimmer most seriously inconveniences the pilot. At 215 mph (346 km/h) the a/c is trimmed directionally, no rudder being required. At higher speeds left rudder must be applied, and at 300mph (483 km/h) about 2 deg of left rudder are needed. The rudder is very heavy at high speeds, and a large force is required to apply even such a small amount; this becomes very tiring, and affects the pilot's ability to put on more left rudder to assist a turn to the left. Consequently at high speeds the Me 109 turns more readily to the right than to the left...."  

Test programmes to improve the flying characteristics of the Bf 109 ran virtually throughout the career of the aircraft. But it was only with the introduction of the high powered AS variants that certain refinements were introduced into the Bf 109 design to improve directional stability and reduce stick forces at high speed.  These essentially involved redesigned and enlarged tail surfaces (with better aerodynamic profiling - see diagram above), Flettner rudder tabs controllable from the cockpit, the introduction of a taller tail wheel strut and larger main wheels giving better ground control and visibility. All these options were tested from 1941 onwards in an effort to reduce aileron and rudder forces and eliminate yaw.  

 But, although the taller rudder as well as the Flettners made the 109 a more agile machine, the tall rudders were generally only introduced on the AS engined variants, and the Flettner tabs, – as on Friedrich-Karl Müller’s Bf 109 K here and Specht's G-6/AS below- were only incorporated on a smallish percentage of production - in the case of the Bf 109 K-4 only some 200 were equipped with Flettner rudder tabs

 Messerschmitt testing never resulted in widespread introduction of the possible 'improvements' - dispersed production and quality-control issues, to cite just a few reasons, saw to that. At war's end plenty of Bf 109s were of course still flying with the short vertical stabilizer and rudder and still featured the short tail-wheel strut. 

As mentioned above yaw is a vitally important factor in aerial gunnery - if the aircraft is yawing then the line of sight is not pointing in the direction of travel. It is perhaps significant that as bigger, faster turning engines were introduced in the same basic Bf 109 airframe the numbers of high-scoring aces on the type dried up; only 8 Luftwaffe aces out of the supposed 100 + who achieved more than one hundred victories started their careers after 1942. Of course this mostly has to do with the quality of the opposition too eg the performance of the P-51 over the Reich. Performance was also impacted by the various upgrades in the Bf 109's firepower. But you have to wonder whether any of this was of any benefit to the average Bf 109 pilot. In February 1944 alone over one thousand Luftwaffe aircraft were lost in accidents, a good proportion of which were due to inadequate training (quoted in Isby 'The decisive duel' P361). As Bob Goebel points out, all fighter pilots - certainly all US P-51 pilots - could probably fly well. However only relatively few could shoot well. The Luftwaffe Nachwuchs at the controls of their high-powered and heavily armed Bf 109s could do neither. They didn't stand a chance. 

Also on this blog  - Pilot training, discipline and procedures - " the Luftwaffe's greatest failure.." 

The "RAF-waffe" captured Luftwaffe - No 1426 Flight - Enemy aircraft Circus visit Framlingham Station 153, 390th BG during March 1944

Just back from holiday in the beautiful county of Suffolk. Visited the 390th BG Memorial air museum housed in the original wartime control tower of Framlingham station 153 located just outside Parham village, some five miles from Framlingham. On display are recovered aircraft wreckage and engines, uniforms, documents, photos and rare memorabilia. I was allowed to photograph these interesting and 'atmospheric' views of the "RAFwaffe" - No 1426 Flight - Enemy aircraft Circus, seen visiting Parham/Framlingham airfield, home to the Flying Fortresses of the 390th BG on 12 March 1944. These photos are on display at the control tower museum. American aircrews had the chance to inspect these captured enemy aircraft, observe them in flight as they flew passes over the airfield and generally improve their aircraft recognition skills. The flight was based at Collyweston near Wittering until early 1945. 

The Fw 190 was labelled as 'PE 882', which would make it the SKG 10 machine originally coded " H+ " of II. Gruppe, flown by Uffz. Otto Bechtolder. Disorientated en route and running short of fuel, the pilot had force-landed at RAF West Malling, 16 April 1943. 

There are colour views of some of the RAF's captured Luftwaffe machines elsewhere on this blog..
http://falkeeins.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/captured-luftwaffe-types-1.html

Heinkel He 59 over Dunkirk

courtesy of Marco at koelsch333 Ebay sales

Currently on offer at koelsch333 Ebay sales, a selection of 'atmospheric' views from June 1940 of the remnants of the BEF on the beach at Malo-les-Bains, just down the coast from Dunkirk..

Hans Dittes ex-Hispano Bf 109 G-10 (G-6/AS) 'Black 2' and the aircraft of wilde Sau ace Friedrich-Karl Müller of NJGr. 10 and NJG 11

Mark Hanna and Hans Dittes photographed in 1995 at North Weald with Dittes' converted G-10 'Black 2' via Richard Crockett and below, seen at Duxford

"..Regarding the ex-Dittes Bf 109 G-10: registered D-FEHD as a Ha 1112 until its metamorphosis into a Bf 109G-10, whereupon it became a D-FDME and received a DB605. There has been a lot of speculation about how much of it is actually still a Hispano, only Mr Dittes has never commented in public, so I guess we will never know.."

Back in 1995 when the Dittes G-10 "rebuild/conversion" was being featured in the aviation press (Warbirds Worldwide, Jet & Prop 1/1995 etc ) it was often stated that Dittes had his machine painted up in the colours of his friend and leading wilde Sau night fighter ace Friedrich-Karl Müller, a pre-war Lufthansa pilot who achieved around 30 victories in one of the most difficult forms of combat flying imaginable - 'unguided' night-time freelance hunting in a single-engine fighter in the cloud-banked and freezing skies over Germany during the winters of 1943 and 1944. Only Müller's machine was not a G-10 nor was it 'black 2'.....

On 24 July 1943, the RAF had escalated their night bomber offensive with the launch of a series of raids against the port city of Hamburg. The raids were significant for the first successful deployment of 'Window'--tiny strips of metal foil - which, cut to the right wavelength, successfully jammed German radar equipment.  The attack and the resulting firestorm, which caused hugh loss of life and damage to industrial installations, prompted the German High Command to give greater urgency to proposals then being tried out by the Nachtjagdversuchskommando Herrmann,  (Night fighter Test Detachment Herrmann), led by decorated bomber pilot Oberst Hajo Herrmann. Conceived during early 1943 as a means of making up for a general shortage of night fighters, Herrmann's unit utilised Bf 109s and Fw 190s aircraft based at Bonn Hangelar (not Deelen, as stated in one recent article..), flown by ex-bomber and Lufthansa pilots who were experienced in blind flying techniques, to attack the RAF bombers visually. Operating with the aid of searchlights or the light from flares- independently of radar-  this method of attack was dubbed 'wilde Sau' or 'wild boar' night fighting and the relative success of early trials led to the establishment of Herrmann's Jagdgeschwader 300 and other wilde Sau units. Early in 1944 - as JG 300 began flying sorties against USAF bombers raiding by day - the 'aces' of JG 300's 1. Staffel were detached under Hptm. Friedrich-Karl Müller to form the specialist single-engine night fighter unit NJGr.10. One of the primary roles of this unit was to develop tactics to combat the RAF's Mosquito bombers....

  

Details of the men and machines of the Mosquito (Moskito) hunters of NJGr. 10 (or I./NJG 11), the specialist units established out of 1./ JG 300 in early 1944, which Müller led in combat, are as rare as hen's teeth.  Jet and Prop published the photo above left of Müller's '2'- captioned in German as being " the only image to depict the ace's 'Black 2'..." - in their issue dated 1/1995. Now I've always had an interest Friedrich-Karl Müller's aircraft. While most Luftwaffe enthusiasts are aware that Friedrich-Karl 'Nasen' Müller flew at least a couple of Fw 190s coded 'Green 3' with the Geschwaderstab of JG 300, very little is known of the other aircraft he flew - unless you count all those frankly ridiculous stories (not to mention John Weal artworks..) of the Bf 109(s) that he supposedly flew with a Schräge Musik installation! There is however more than one image of his Bf 109 coded '2'. In fact there is a nice sequence taken in the summer of 1944 in the collection of Luftwaffe and JG 300 historian Jean-Yves Lorant and it was thanks to M. Lorant that I recently obtained access to Müller's log book to verify the details of this aircraft along with a chance to look at the photos. M. Lorant has very kindly allowed me to reproduce one of them here. Armed with this knowledge I then asked my good friend Anders Hjortsberg of The Profile Paintshop if he would illustrate Müller's '2' based on what we learnt....click on the profile to see the full view of Ander's super artwork - LARGE!

1./NJGr 10 Moskito hunter as flown by Friedrich-Karl Müller during July-August 1944 is a Bf 109 G-6/AS  "Red 2" (WNr. unknown). Probably built by Mtt. Regensburg judging by the camouflage and stencil below the canopy. The lower surfaces are black - judging from the other photos that I have been able to study. The Kennziffer '2' is confirmed as red from Müller's log book. The aircraft features a red fuselage band (just visible in one image), pointing to this as being an ex-JG 300 aircraft. Note the absence of head armour to save some additional weight, a feature of Bf 109s selected for the specialised role of hunting RAF Mosquitos. While not visible in any of the published photos of 'Red 2' - see my articles in Model Aircraft Monthly June-July 2014 - all of Müller's aircraft sported a rudder scoreboard, from his Fw 190 'Green 3' to his final K-4. 'Red 2' in fact featured a most unusual 'out-sized' Hakenkreuz which over-lapped the rudder hinge line - although unfortunately this image is not available for publication.  The rare photo reproduced below was taken on the occasion of the visit of Müller's wife and son to Werneuchen. The very large bunch of flowers was most likely presented to mark the ace's award of the Ritterkreuz during July 1944 for 23 victories which was followed shortly thereafter by his promotion to command I./NJG 11. Müller's;24th victory on 23 August 1944 was his first (and only?) Mosquito. There is no evidence in his Flugbuch that he ever flew a G-10 or that he ever flew a 'Black 2'. He made at least six flights with this Bf 109 G-6/AS "Red 2" from 26 July 1944, including two combat sorties from Werneuchen during the night of 27-28 July 1944. These Moskito hunting missions were timed at 00h03-00h44 and then from 01h10-01h53 followed by landings back at Werneuchen in both cases. Both sorties were evidently unsuccessful. According to his 'erster Wart', Gefreiter Hans Knott, it was this same 'Red 2' which was then repainted 'Green 3' early in September 1944 when Müller took over I./NJG 11 and elected to re-use his preferred number. Click to view the complete image...

Photo courtesy Jean-Yves Lorant via famille Müller.

Additional images in this series show Müller in the cockpit of this aircraft being strapped in by his mechanic Gefreiter Hans Knott. These photos are again in the Lorant archive via Hartmut Küper.  As for Müller's other aircraft - well, his log book features several Bf 109 G-6/AS and G-14/AS machines with a number of different blue, white or red Kennziffer. But no 'black 2'. He reverted back to 'Green 3' as Kommandeur of I./ NJG 11 in the autumn of 1944. His final Messerschmitt was a Bf 109 K-4 displaying the double chevrons of the Gruppenkommandeur of  I./ NJG 11. Müller, who went back to flying for Lufthansa post-war, even passed on the actual rudder from his last Bf 109 K-4 to Hans Dittes to be incorporated in latter's Buchon/G-10 rebuild - although ultimately it was not.. 

Jean Barby's model of Friedrich-Karl Müller's NJGr. 10 G-6/ AS is featured on this blog