Messerschmitt Bf (Me) 109 G2

Bf (Me) 109

Fighter aircraft

The story of the Bf (Me) 109 began in 1934, when work started at Bayerische Flugzeugwerke (BFW) in Augsburg – subsequently renamed Messerschmitt AG in 1938 – to develop a lightweight fighter aircraft for the Reich Ministry of Aviation as part of a design competition. When designing the aircraft – originally designated the Bf 109 – Willy Messerschmitt incorporated all the available experience and knowledge of aircraft construction at the time.

The fighter aircraft was designed and built as a low-wing aircraft in an all-metal monocoque design, with retractable landing gear, a closed canopy, automatic slats, landing flaps and a variable-pitch propeller. The Bf (Me) 109 V 1 prototype completed its maiden flight on 28 May 1935. In as early as 1937, a prototype reached speeds of 611 km/h, which saw Germany setting the world speed record for landplanes for the very first time.

The Bf (Me) 109 entered series production for the German Luftwaffe from 1937 onwards, establishing itself as its standard fighter aircraft. Over time, the Bf (Me) 109 appeared in many different versions as it was adapted in line with evolving needs. In 1938, version E was fitted with the DB 601 engine with a 30 L displacement. The airframe was refined aerodynamically in 1939 and the aircraft then initially went into series production as the Bf (Me) 109 F. The most extensive series production so far then started in late 1941 with the Bf (Me) 109 G and the even more powerful DB 605 engine. The last series-production design in Germany was the Bf (Me) 109 K, which was built from autumn 1944 onwards. By the end of the Second World War, around 34,000 Bf (Me) 109s had been built – the highest ever production figure for a fighter aircraft.

From 1945 until the late 1950s, around another 1,000 of the aircraft with various engines were built in other countries, such as the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, as it was then known, and Spain.

The DB 605 engine

The DB 605 is one of Germany’s most produced high-performance piston engines. It was developed on the basis of the DB 601 engine that Daimler-Benz had been producing since 1935, which for its part was based on the DB 600 series.

The engine’s notable technical features include a Bosch fuel injection pump, a hydraulically driven supercharger and a spur gear with a reduction ratio of 1:1.685 for the DB 605 A and 1:1.875 for version B; whereby 2,600 crankshaft rotations equal 1,385 propeller rotations.

Running a high-performance engine of this type isn’t entirely straightforward. However, since Airbus has been refurbishing and maintaining the engine in-house and, above all, monitoring it during ongoing operations, its reliability has quickly increased.

MESSERSCHMITT MUSEUM OF FLIGHT

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Bf (Me) 109 G2

SERVICE HISTORY

MESSERSCHMITT Bf (Me) 109 G2

In 1943, Spain entered into a contract with the German Reich. This contract related to the manufacture under licence of the Messerschmitt Bf 109 G2, which was to be the Spanish air force’s standard fighter aircraft.

Hispano Aviación S.A. was founded on 25 June 1943 for this purpose. Some 25 of these aircraft were to be supplied by Germany as basic stock and models, and a further 175 were then to be built under licence in Spain. Due to the war, however, Germany supplied the 25 airframes – but no engines for them. Fitted with an Hispano-Suiza HSI2Z89 engine from Switzerland, the aircraft flew as prototype Bf 109 J and then, from March 1945, as HA 1109 J1L. Following test flights, the aircraft was transferred to the National Institute of Aerospace Technology (INTA, Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeronáutica) in January 1946 for the certification process. Ground tests and test flights were then performed until 1947, when production of the airframes started. By 1953, a total of 171 had been supplied to the Spanish air force, including the 25 German airframes already delivered. Equipped with HSI2Z17 engines, the aircraft now had the designation HA 1109 K1L.

This aircraft is one of these original HA1109 K1Ls with the serial number 54 and therefore one of the Spanish airframes that were built in 1948. A number of modifications suggest that this aircraft was one of the prototypes operated with HispanoSuiza engines and that it may have been one of the four aircraft tested by INTA. After it was taken out of service, Hispano gave the aircraft to Seville City Council as an exhibit, probably in 1955. The City Council installed it at the children’s play park at Club Náutico. The aircraft started to suffer from wear due to the effects of the weather, which made it dangerous for children at play, so in early 1968, it was given back to Hispano. It was bought by British producers for ground scenes in the ‘Battle of Britain’ film. Once filming had finished, it was then left at the Punta Umbría beach near Huelva in south-western Spain, where it remained until late April 1968. When Prof. Willy Messerschmitt was personally looking for two Bf (Me) 109s for exhibition purposes in April 1968, he reached an agreement with the production company to buy the aircraft. The HA 1109 was restored by Maestranza Aérea de Sevilla, the Air Mastership of Seville. On 12 June 1968, it was transported from Tamblada to Augsburg-Haunstetten in Germany, home of the Messerschmitt headquarters, where it then spent a few years on show by the main entrance. In 1990, the aircraft was moved to one of the exhibition halls of the ‘Fliegendes Museum’ aviation museum at the ‘Flugschule Koch’ flying school located at the Augsburg-Mühlhausen airport. In 1994, the aircraft was returned to Dasa, as the museum was relocating to Tannheim. At Dasa, a plan that had been in the making for a long time – namely, to equip the HA 1109 with a non-airworthy DB 605 and carry out a few other characteristic modifications to remodel it as a Bf 109 G2 – finally came to fruition. This modification work was carried out in 1994/95 at the training workshop in Augsburg with the help of a number of specialist companies based in Manching.