1 Las alas de la Luftwaffe Bf 109

Video from the channel Ccman848 Extremeñu about Messerschmitt Bf 109, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 48:28. Language: Spanish. Video type: Documentary.

First episode of a documentary series dubbed into Spanish about Luftwaffe aircraft, dedicated to the Messerschmitt Bf 109. It mixes period footage, preserved and restored aircraft, and testimonies from former German pilots, including Günther Rall. An American test pilot who flew captured examples and a member of the restoration team at the Imperial War Museum in Duxford also speak.

The account starts with the German aces of the First World War, such as Oswald Boelcke and Manfred von Richthofen, and with Hermann Göring, a pupil of Boelcke's and future head of the Luftwaffe. After the defeat and the Treaty of Versailles, German aviation was reborn through civil aviation. The failure of Willy Messerschmitt's M20 for Lufthansa put him at odds with Erhard Milch, and that enmity nearly left his company out of the competition for the new fighter. Against the Arado 80, the Focke-Wulf 159 and the Heinkel 112, the design derived from the Bf 108 won out for its speed and because it was easier to manufacture.

The documentary follows the aircraft through the Condor Legion in Spain, Poland, France and Dunkirk, and the Battle of Britain, where its short range hampered it as a bomber escort. It continues through the Eastern Front and the defense of the Reich in 1944, against American bombers escorted by fighters such as the P-47. Werner Mölders, who died in 1941 when the transport aircraft he was traveling in crashed, and Adolf Galland, who succeeded him in command of the fighter force and argued for giving priority to fighters, also appear.

According to the documentary, about 35,000 units were built, making it the most numerous combat aircraft in history. Hispano Aviación kept building it in Seville: its first HA-1109 flew in March 1945, moving in 1953 to the Merlin-engined HA-1112-M1L Buchón. The last one flew in 1956. The Daimler-Benz DB 605A engine was an inverted V12 with fuel injection, which responded quickly to the throttle and avoided problems with negative g; it could also be changed within hours. Pilots recall a narrow cockpit with poor rear visibility and a narrow, tall landing gear that made takeoff difficult for novices. Rall, with 275 victories, was shot down by a P-47 and survived. In January 1945 fewer than a thousand Bf 109s remained, and very few survive today.