Messerschmitt Bf 109

Video from the channel Mundo de Aviación about Messerschmitt Bf 109, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 11:36. Language: Spanish. Video type: Documentary.

A review of the Messerschmitt Bf 109: its design, technical features, combat history and the evolution of its production series, up to the versions built after the war.

Willy Messerschmitt designed it in the early 1930s at Bayerische Flugzeugwerke, the source of the Bf prefix, for a Reich Air Ministry competition that also included Arado, Focke-Wulf and Heinkel. The first prototype was completed in May 1935 with a Rolls-Royce engine bought in the United Kingdom, because German engines were not yet ready. It debuted with the Condor Legion in the Spanish Civil War and from September 1939 was the main Luftwaffe fighter. It was also supplied to Finland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Slovakia.

33,984 units were built between 1937 and 1945, and the G series alone exceeded 12,000. Its innovations were the all-metal monocoque fuselage, retractable landing gear, automatic slats and an enclosed cockpit. The landing gear, narrow and attached to the fuselage, allowed the wings to be removed without supporting the aircraft, but made it unstable on the ground: at least 10% of all Bf 109s were lost in takeoffs and landings. One hundred and five pilots scored more than 100 kills with it. After the war it was produced in Czechoslovakia as the Avia S-99 and S-199, and in Spain as the Hispano Aviación HA-1109 and HA-1112 Buchón.