Fw 190 as plane for Graf Zeppelin

[critical mass]

The Fw 190 had -for a carrier- an untolerably high landing speed and long take off run. Same reason nobody wanted to have a P51 or P47 on a carrier.

The Bf 109T performance was on par with the Hellcat, and unlike the Fw 190, it had bening low speed / stall speed behaviour.

Concern over the USAAF's inability to escort B-29s all the way to mainland Japan resulted in the highly classified "Seahorse" project (NAA-133), an effort to "navalize" the P-51.

On 15 November 1944, naval aviator (and later test pilot) Lieutenant Bob Elder, in a P-51D-5-NA 44-14017, started flight tests from the deck of the carrier Shangri-La. This Mustang had been fitted with an arrestor hook, which was attached to a reinforced bulkhead behind the tail wheel opening; the hook was housed in a streamlined position under the rudder fairing and could be released from the cockpit.

The tests showed that the Mustang could be flown off the carrier deck without the aid of a catapult, using a flap setting of 20° down and 5° of up elevator. Landings were found to be easy, and, by allowing the tail wheel to contact the deck before the main gear, the aircraft could be stopped in a minimum distance.

The project was canceled after U.S. Marines secured the Japanese island of Iwo Jima and its airfields, making it possible for standard P-51D models to accompany B-29s all the way to the Japanese home islands and back

I am aware of the navalized P51. Though it still didn´t materialized. Everybody knows that the P-51 was 50mph faster than the F6F, yet they didn´t replace the Hellcat with P51 either late war or post war.
Lt. Elder noted the follwoing issues with P51 carrier landings:


[+] Stall speed margin was extremely low, too low for safety
[+] Rudder control at low speed and high angles of attack was inadequate
[+] Landing attitude had to be very carefully controlled to avoid airframe damage
[+] Go-arounds required slow throttle advancement. The extreme power of the Packard/Merlin engine meant that a high-power fast throttle advancement could put the aircraft into a roll or snap-roll. At low speeds this would prove a fatal mistake.

Finally, Lt. Elder did not believe that the Mustang had a place in carrier operations. Feasability and practicability are seperate entities.

[Dili]

Thanks. Actually the Spitfire (Seafire) didn't perform well.

[Takao]

[+] Stall speed margin was extremely low, too low for safety

Well, this is poorly worded...Actually, it was the margin between the P-51's stall speed(82mph) and the upper limit of the arrester gear(90mph). Thus the margin between stalling and snapping a wire is only 8mph.

[+] Landing attitude had to be very carefully controlled to avoid airframe damage

Didn't this apply to all tail draggers?

[+] Go-arounds required slow throttle advancement. The extreme power of the Packard/Merlin engine meant that a high-power fast throttle advancement could put the aircraft into a roll or snap-roll. At low speeds this would prove a fatal mistake.

It's called a torque roll...
This also applied to the Hellcat and more so to the F4U Corsair.

[Dili]

What about the information of higher than usual causalities in Me 109 take off and landing due to low span of landing gear and maybe some weakness there too. Just a rumor?

Cannot be confirmed statistically. In Norway, from a fighter group operating both, Bf 109 and Fw 190, the Bf 109 had a lower landing and take off accident rate through 1944 and 1943 (large sample). I haven´t checked other theatres, however.

Thanks.

[Alejandro_]

However, to the best of my knowledge, the Fw 190 suffered from a propensity for engine fires, and this really was not cured until late in the 190A-4 production series...This would be roughly about the same time that the final stop work order on the GZ was handed down. So, again, it becomes a matter of timing.

Even without fires, the engine life of early variants was very short, which does not make it very suitable for carrier use. Also, range was not great. It was not so much of an issue in the Atlantic, but had to be taken into account.

Feasability and practicability are seperate entities.

Exactly, F6F was good enough versus Japanese types, and very easy to operate from a carrier. It was also very sturdy.

[Latze]

What about the information of higher than usual causalities in Me 109 take off and landing due to low span of landing gear and maybe some weakness there too. Just a rumor?

Cannot be confirmed statistically. In Norway, from a fighter group operating both, Bf 109 and Fw 190, the Bf 109 had a lower landing and take off accident rate through 1944 and 1943 (large sample). I haven´t checked other theatres, however.

That is interesting. I think I got the idea from Bill Gunston that the Bf 109 (at least the G series) was very accident prone in take off and landing and that one of the big advantages of the Fw 190 was the width of the carriage. Do you have a theory were this misconception comes from?

[antwony]

Just to be clear: I do not think that keeping a good plane in service for several years is per se the wrong thing to do. Just that German military institutions of the time had a tendency to tinker, needlessly optimize and shift priorities - especially with regards to military hardware.

Like your use fo the word: tinker. For me, that's a good description of the Germans attempt to play catch up, once the advanced nations got serious about military technology and left their increasing obsolescent designs behind and the Me109 is an excellent example of their incompetence and inefficiency. As far as I'm aware, the 109F-4/Z of early 1941, was the fastest 109 till the G-14 of late 44.

Good points regarding the Me 109 T, but the Fw 190 could replace the Ju 87 as well, no?

Could the Fw190G/F, etc... divebomb? Understand that Corsair pilots, late war, used to lower the under carriage and use them as divebrakes. But, I'm pretty sure this was for ground attack missions. Putting a bomb somewhere near a target marker, while some enthusiast takes pot shots with a rifle, is very different to hitting a warship manuevring at ~70kmph shooting 100's/ 1000's of shells at you.

There was, apparently, a Focke Wulf 190 torpedo bomber. But, know little to nothing about them.

The Bf 109T performance was on par with the Hellcat

It, absolutely, was not comparable and is a very ridiculous comparison to attempt to make. Thought you may have been mixed up with the Wildcat. But, you mention the F6F Hellcat repeatedly...

The Hellcat entered service in 1943, the 109E, which the T was based on, in 1939. The initial model of the Hellcat generated over 2,000HP, no 109 ever had that much power.

I am aware of the navalized P51.

I'm confused, were you aware of naval testing when you first wrote your inccorect statement about take off length, or after you'd read the link Ironmachine provided?

I'm presuming afterwards as your response to Linnedoggie is a copy-paste from Ironmachine's link and isn't disputing Linedoggie's point.

Everybody knows that the P-51 was 50mph faster than the F6F, yet they didn´t replace the Hellcat with P51 either late war or post war.

So?

Linedoggie was talking about range, not speed. The F4U's would have been ~50mph faster. than contempery Apaches/ Mustangs, but the USN didn't rush it into service.

Your contribution to this thread is off topic and pointless. Fw190 on the Graf Zeppelin, in case you forgot.

As far as I'm aware, apart from some reconnaissance planes (B24, Catalina, etc...) the USN and USAAF didn't play well together in regards to sharing designs. The Dauntless/ Banshee is, I'm pretty sure, about it and the Army Air Force barely used those. Actually, now that i think about it, I seem to remember there was all kinds of dick waving and territorial pissing about the B24's

Thanks. Actually the Spitfire (Seafire) didn't perform well.

Not sure how you're defining performance here. If you mean the initial model struggled to survive even a few landings and even the later, improved, models couldn't withstand constant use, then sure I'm with you.

But, once in the air, it would pretty easy to make the case that is was the best pure fighter of all seaborne WW2 planes.

The Fleet Air Arm seemed the poor cousin of Britain's war effort and their options; C,D,E, etc..., if they didn't have Seafire's, were pretty awful.

[Dili]

@ antwony

-You can't compare directly power levels of an aircraft with inline engine which is much more aerodynamic with one with radial, the later always need much more power to achieve same performance. That said Bf 109 was at end of the rope of possible improvements by mid war due to being a such small aircraft.

- Yes, Salerno was a disaster. I have no defined opinion on Seafire combat capabilities against other sea based aircraft, but i know it was need to build a version for very low level combat, i think this was done due to torpedo bomber threat.

[critical mass]

As far as I'm aware, the 109F-4/Z of early 1941, was the fastest 109 till the G-14 of late 44.

Since You are including GM-1, then the Bf-109G5AS/U2 was both, faster and earlier.

The Bf 109T performance was on par with the Hellcat

It, absolutely, was not comparable and is a very ridiculous comparison to attempt to make. Thought you may have been mixed up with the Wildcat. But, you mention the F6F Hellcat repeatedly...

The Hellcat entered service in 1943, the 109E, which the T was based on, in 1939. The initial model of the Hellcat generated over 2,000HP, no 109 ever had that much power.

Pure motor Hp are among the most irrelevant performance proxies one might want to refer. It´s a pointless attempt. Relevant instead are power/weight and lift drag ratio´s. The F6F-3 may have had 2000bhp with ADI but it also features about twice the mass of the Bf 109T and was a much larger A/C. It´s among the lowest performing 2000hp class fighter A/C in ww2. This came with good characteristics, necessary for carrier OP´s such as low stall speed, low approach speed, good controllability at front end approaces of the power curve, etc. However, the Bf 109T had an even lower stall speed than the F6F-3. On the other end, the F6F-3 was faster on the deck and at altitude than the -109T on climb- and compat power- but not significantly so, and that advantage is for F6F-3 with ADI and Bf-109T without ADI. 15-20mph, while notable, doesn´t give much of a tactical edge.
Further, the Bf-109T had similar climb across the board (initial climb 1000m/s vs 990m/s for F6F-3 with ADI). The Tony did feature a higher cruise speed, which lends an energy advantage when entering a dogfight. There is no direct comparison on maneuverability of Tony vs Hellcat The Hellcat but power curve and lift drag coefficients do not lend advantage to the F6F-3, except for high speed roll. The latter, however, does dive better, and it has substantially larger tactical range. Both planes were fitted to carry droppable ordnance and -tanks. In many of these areas advantages can be found for the Hellcat but there are also distinct areas and subareas where the Bf 109 T is better. By all intents, the Bf 109T wouldn´t have stayed on Db-601N during 1943/4 and at the very least would have been upgraded to Db-601E, which is sufficient to shift the balance broadly to the Tony across the board.

Your contribution to this thread is off topic and pointless. Fw 190 on the Graf Zeppelin, in case you forgot.

I am aware of the navalized P51.

Linedoggie was talking about range, not speed. The F4U's would have been ~50mph faster. than contempery Apaches/ Mustangs, but the USN didn't rush it into service.

[/quote]

Apparently You lost track of the aspect touching the discussion. Let me help You catching up. I claimed that the Fw 190 was unsuitable for GRAF ZEPPELIN carrier OP´s because of it´s high stall speed, high landing speed, long take off run and rough stall speed behavior. These are well documented in comparison with Bf 109, which had been choosen for GRAF ZEPPELIN and modified to even improve upon these aspects of it´s low speed performance envelope in particular. Carrier A/C during ww2 was not about top speed first and foremost because the A/C had to be operable from capacity limited platforms, requiring good low speed enevelope charakteristics.
Therefore the sideline of P51 had relevance, as it was instrumentalized to demonstrate that a high performance land fighter with poor low speed behavior could be operated from a carrier. Yes, it could be flown safely. You could probably even shorten AND narrow the flight deck and still operate a P51 from a carrier if You carefully hit the arrestor cable with every approach. But it would be ridicolous to shorten the flight deck and it would be ridicoulous to use a plane with such small low speed margin in view of the required pilot skills. That´s similarely true about the Fw 190 as it was for the P51 and the test pilot expressed it. You may quibble all day long about the details, feel free to express Your opinion but at the end of the day LineDoggie presented a case which did not took into consideration any thought on the difficulties in approaching and landing on a carrier as expressed by Lt. Elder in the reports. I am pretty sure he did it in best faith, as he might choose to show that thought was given to navalize the P51. But these details are important in critical reviews simply because a carrier is physically more limited and a more dangerous place to operate than a field in the open.

That beeing said, I consider Your memo both, offensive in nature and displaced in tone. Because my time is too valuable to be invested in such a type of discussion, I suppose You will be happy to know that I will resign from posting in this thread anymore.

[antwony]

@ antwony

-You can't compare directly power levels of an aircraft with inline engine which is much more aerodynamic with one with radial, the later always need much more power to achieve same performance. That said Bf 109 was at end of the rope of possible improvements by mid war due to being a such small aircraft.

I'll admit I was being a bit checky mantioning horsepower. I'm familiar with Criticalmass's posting history and the German's failed attempts to up the horsepower their piston engines could produce, so I was baiting him a bit. But, conversely, I wasn't being delusional/ willfully lying, so I'm not ashamed nor am I going to apologise.

The Spitfire was the same size, although (depending on varient) quite a bit lighter than the 109. British engineers managed to improve it right through till its manufacture was stopped in 1948. Grumman's final piston engined fighter, the F8F Bearcat was smaller, lighter and faster than the Hellcat. Even the Russians, who like the German's couldn't produce high horse powered piston engines, managed to continuously improve their light fighter, the Yak.

For a nation with such an engineering heritage, and future, WW2 era German engineering was pretty much atrocious.

- Yes, Salerno was a disaster. I have no defined opinion on Seafire combat capabilities against other sea based aircraft, but i know it was need to build a version for very low level combat, i think this was done due to torpedo bomber threat.

Would argee that WW2 histography would tend to portray the situation vis-a-vis aircover at Salerno as disasterous and in particularly the Seafire being a disaster. But, I'd disagree. The Seafire's on the CVE's were meant to transfer to Salerno airfield on D +1. I think it was about a week they operated off the too slow, too small decks. They still flew the bulk of the missions over the landing zone. There were only 36 fighters in Sicily, the rest of the land based planes were operating out of Tunisia, which was quite a ways off.

In retrospect, the two fleet carriers of Force H, which were mainly operating Wildcats, should have transferred those squadrons to the CVEs and operated purely Seafires, which had "less bad" statistics in regards to landing on the faster ships. But, Fleet Air Arm liked it Wildcats, a plane comparable to and successful against the Me109. RN's fleet carrier's were the service's "front line" units and they may not have been keen to operate a new plane type i.e. the Seafire.

The clipped wing thing was pretty common for all types of Spitfires, mid/ late war. It wasn't purely for the Seafire, it was a low altitude optimisation. I'm sure the Americans, if they'd realised it was going to be neccessary, could have made F6F's/ F4U's which were excellent at high altitude. But, they hadn't and off Okinawa, the Seafire was the best performer at altitude against kamikazes

Since You are including GM-1, then the Bf-109G5AS/U2 was both, faster and earlier.

OK, so in late 1943, the German's made a reconnaissance sub-varient (in its dozens???) of a high altitude version of the 109 which was comparable to first world aircraft of over two years earlier. I stand corrected.

Pure motor Hp are among the most irrelevant performance proxies one might want to refer. It´s a pointless attempt. Relevant instead are power/weight and lift drag ratio´s. The F6F-3 may have had 2000bhp with ADI but it also features about twice the mass of the Bf 109T and was a much larger A/C. It´s among the lowest performing 2000hp class fighter A/C in ww2.

Sure, the Hellcat was a big lump of Detroit iron, which competent engineers who knew what they were doing considered important.

This came with good characteristics, necessary for carrier OP´s such as low stall speed, low approach speed, good controllability at front end approaces of the power curve, etc. However, the Bf 109T had an even lower stall speed than the F6F-3. On the other end, the F6F-3 was faster on the deck and at altitude than the -109T on climb- and compat power- but not significantly so, and that advantage is for F6F-3 with ADI and Bf-109T without ADI. 15-20mph, while notable, doesn´t give much of a tactical edge.
Further, the Bf-109T had similar climb across the board (initial climb 1000m/s vs 990m/s for F6F-3 with ADI). The Tony did feature a higher cruise speed, which lends an energy advantage when entering a dogfight. There is no direct comparison on maneuverability of Tony vs Hellcat The Hellcat but power curve and lift drag coefficients do not lend advantage to the F6F-3, except for high speed roll. The latter, however, does dive better, and it has substantially larger tactical range. Both planes were fitted to carry droppable ordnance and -tanks. In many of these areas advantages can be found for the Hellcat but there are also distinct areas and subareas where the Bf 109 T is better. By all intents, the Bf 109T wouldn´t have stayed on Db-601N during 1943/4 and at the very least would have been upgraded to Db-601E, which is sufficient to shift the balance broadly to the Tony across the board.

So the 109T-2 which has the engine of an 109F-1 (DB601N) but offered a performance, after navalisation, akin to an E-4 is comparable to a Hellcat, while a plane which never existed, your varient with a DB- 601E (the f-3's) engine is going to be superior... OK, I understand what you're saying but don't agree. The difference between the Db601N/ E wouldn't be a couple fo hundred horsepower would it?

Apparently You lost track of the aspect touching the discussion. Let me help You catching up. I claimed that the Fw 190 was unsuitable for GRAF ZEPPELIN carrier OP´s because of it´s high stall speed, high landing speed, long take off run and rough stall speed behavior. These are well documented in comparison with Bf 109, which had been choosen for GRAF ZEPPELIN and modified to even improve upon these aspects of it´s low speed performance envelope in particular. Carrier A/C during ww2 was not about top speed first and foremost because the A/C had to be operable from capacity limited platforms, requiring good low speed enevelope charakteristics.
Therefore the sideline of P51 had relevance, as it was instrumentalized to demonstrate that a high performance land fighter with poor low speed behavior could be operated from a carrier. Yes, it could be flown safely. You could probably even shorten AND narrow the flight deck and still operate a P51 from a carrier if You carefully hit the arrestor cable with every approach. But it would be ridicolous to shorten the flight deck and it would be ridicoulous to use a plane with such small low speed margin in view of the required pilot skills. That´s similarely true about the Fw 190 as it was for the P51 and the test pilot expressed it. You may quibble all day long about the details, feel free to express Your opinion but at the end of the day LineDoggie presented a case which did not took into consideration any thought on the difficulties in approaching and landing on a carrier as expressed by Lt. Elder in the reports. I am pretty sure he did it in best faith, as he might choose to show that thought was given to navalize the P51. But these details are important in critical reviews simply because a carrier is physically more limited and a more dangerous place to operate than a field in the open.

You make good points, with a acceptable level of snideness since my reply to you wasn't polite.

That beeing said, I consider Your memo both, offensive in nature and displaced in tone. Because my time is too valuable to be invested in such a type of discussion, I suppose You will be happy to know that I will resign from posting in this thread anymore.

Yes, you are correct. I consider your posts mendicious and don't like you. Is perhaps for the best to not reply to each other

[JAG13]

So the 109T-2 which has the engine of an 109F-1 (DB601N) but offered a performance, after navalisation, akin to an E-4 is comparable to a Hellcat, while a plane which never existed, your varient with a DB- 601E (the f-3's) engine is going to be superior... OK, I understand what you're saying but don't agree. The difference between the Db601N/ E wouldn't be a couple fo hundred horsepower would it?

Yes a couple hundred HP with a B4 601E, to that you would have to add the streamlining of the F version and the use of C3 fuel and the possible addition of MW50.

The F4 did 670Km/h on B4.

[JAG13]

What about the information of higher than usual causalities in Me 109 take off and landing due to low span of landing gear and maybe some weakness there too. Just a rumor?

Cannot be confirmed statistically. In Norway, from a fighter group operating both, Bf 109 and Fw 190, the Bf 109 had a lower landing and take off accident rate through 1944 and 1943 (large sample). I haven´t checked other theatres, however.

They operated out of the sand dune in Helgoland as well, the crosswinds must have been a nightmare, managed to shoot down a B17 from there IIRC.

[Pruitt]

To be a really successful Carrier Fighter the aircraft should have folding wings and in a perfect world, a wide Landing Gear. The Bf 109 had neither. The British adapted the Spitfire to Carrier use and they did not change the landing gear. The Bf 109 would have a problem with its landing gear as the Spitfire did. The Fw 190 had a really nice wide landing gear. If they could have redesigned the wing to fold, it could have been a better Carrier aircraft. How did the two aircraft fit onto the elevators? How much space did they take up in the hangars?

Pruitt

[Natter]

There was, apparently, a Focke Wulf 190 torpedo bomber. But, know little to nothing about them

Only prototype(s).

[JAG13]

To be a really successful Carrier Fighter the aircraft should have folding wings and in a perfect world, a wide Landing Gear. The BF 109 had neither. The British adapted the Spitfire to Carrier use and they did not change the landing gear. The BF 109 would have a problem with its landing gear as the Spitfire did. The FW 190 had a really nice wide landing gear. If they could have redesigned the wing to fold, it could have been a better Carrier aircraft. How did the two aircraft fit onto the elevators? How much space did they take up in the hangars?

Pruitt

The 109T was designed with a folding wing, when the CV was dropped the planes were modified on the production line and the mechanism welded shut as primary sources indicate.

GZ elevators were 14m wide, you could fit an unfolded Stuka if you wanted...

The Spitfire was improvised and thrown onto carriers pretty much as is... the 109T actually went through a 2 year redesign process to make it CV capable, quite the difference. Here a pic of an early model 109 in cat trials:



The F4F landing gear was actually narrower than the 109's.