Me: I will go to bed early today Also me: *proceeds to watch a 24-minute video about the landing gear of the Me 109*

On poor airfields in Russia, many pilots preferred the poor me109 landing gear because it collapsed upon bad landings whereas the sturdy FW190 gear flipped you over and broke your neck.

I think you missed one big thing about the changes in performance and the changes in pilot training. The first Bf 109s had less than 700hp max power, while that almost tripled with late versions of the plane. This means that the produced engine torque also significantly increased, making the gear problem even bigger. Meanwhile the quality of pilot training deteriorated further and further during the war with the ever growing need for new pilots. Couple these things together and you have a big reason for why the gear is generally seen as a critical flaw nowadays.

My guess would be both the 109 & Spitfire were trying to minimise the landing loads effect upon the wings.

Improving your fighter: Willy Messerschmit - remove bits to make it lighter. Kurt Tank - add bits to make it stronger.

One reason why germans had so much problems with the me-109 landing gear was that they landed on the main carriage with high speed while finns had very little problems with the me-109 landing gear doing three point landing at lower speed. Yes, the landing gear of me-109 was problematic but the much bigger problem was the poor training of german pilots at later half of ww2.

When I was a child 25 years ago I watched lots of history documentaries about the war. Many of those spoke briefly about the bf109 and it's contribution to the war effort and this matter regarding the narrow width of the gear was brought up several times. I have wondered why this is the case since I was a child, and you have helped solve this. Thank you for illuminating this very nebulous part of history for me which I have been wondering about for so long.

Bismarck, could you discuss the never-built Me-109H series. 1: Long wings meant for high altitude. 2: Reworked landing gear with a wider stance. 3: I may be wrong, but I think the DB603 was intended for it. Might be the DB605T, but I recall this plane as a little weird.

Great video. Most historians will tell you that another main factor in the the narrow gear design was to allow the aircraft to be roll-on/roll-off capable on train wagons. The Junkers Ju-52 fuselage width was also designed around this specification. With the wings of the Ju removed, the fuselage would fit on a standard flatbed train wagon. And by removing the inner portion of the trailing edge of the wings, they could also be transported on a train wagon in the vertical position and not exceed the maximum DIN height for train transport. A similar specification was designed into the BF-109 landing gear maximum width, which allowed it to be transported on a train wagon with the wings removed. I liked the Pirelli tires!

"The Bf 109's Landing Gear is the Panther's final drive of the air" Change my mid.

This feels like a larger and much older version of the G36 heat myth.

16:10: Ah, here we see two Bf-109's in the wild, during mating season. Messerschmidt couplings can be quite violent - here the male has aggressively broken the female's vertical stabilizer.

I read Heinz Knoke's book I Flew For The Fuhrer and he mentions about himself going for his first solo flight in the Me-109 which was also his first flight in the 109. He was watching the pilot who was doing his first solo just before Knoke's did his and as the aircraft came in to land it crashed killing the pilot. Having seen his fellow pilot die he was immediately told to take his flight. You can just imagine how nerve wracking that must have been. It does make you wonder why trainer aircraft were not introduced sooner.

This is the type of issue when you get when designing a vehicle for professionals vs conscript or Expert vs Novice. The Gear would be less on an issue for experienced pilots, but would challenge new flyers. Planes that were designed around conscript flyers rather than career pros tend towards fewer Bad habits, even if it meant slightly lower performance.

*Big thank you to those that actively support the channel via Patreon or Channel Memberships!* -Patreons www.patreon.com/join/Bismarck -Channel Membership kzfaq.info/love/mpahmxWXajV0-tuMMzSzAgjoin

The problem with the 109 gear is that the wheels have a lot of "toe out". Willie Messerschmit wanted a clean looking plane with no wheel fairings on the top of the wing, so he made the wheels fit into the wing parallel to the wing chord line. When the gear is extended, the wheels are toe'd out, which is a highly directionally unstable situation (even if it had a nose wheel). With no toe out, the wheels would have needed a small fairing (hump) on the upper wing skin since the wheels would be at an angle to the chord line. Test pilots told Willie to fix the problem, but Willie's ego would not let him put a "hump" in the wing skin (even if it was aerodynamically insignificant). The Spitfire had a narrower gear track than the 109, so the 109's narrow gear was not the issue. Nearly all planes of the era were "taildraggers" and pilots were familiar with their handling characteristics, which were considered "normal". Landing fast or slow makes no difference, and a faster "wheel" landing is actually more helpful in maintaining aerodynamic control, particularly in a 109 which is a bit skimpy in the fin/rudder department anyway. Toe out (wheels angle out) is unstable and any yaw is amplified by the toe out, which gets exponentially worse as the yaw (difference between the where the wheels/nose are pointed and the path the aircraft is going) increases. This was an easy thing to fix. Willie's ego was not. I skimmed through the video and didn't notice this fault being mentioned. I'll watch the whole video later, as it is still interesting to watch. I hope it does get mentioned in the video since it's the reason for the 109's poor ground handling (small fin/rudder doesn't help matters).

Another problem with the 109 gear is the extreme negative chamber of the wheels. Negative camber is less stable in straight line motion which, of course, is the path that aircraft take when taking off and landing. I’m not aware of any other aircraft that had such an excessive negative camber. Clearly the designers wanted to get as much spread on the wheels as possible with fuselage mounted gear and took extreme liberty with the camber to get there. No WWII military aircraft or post WWII civilian tailwheel aircraft that I’ve ever seen have negative camber like this. I’ve flown a lot of different tailwheel aircraft...in fact, I own one....and in my opinion the 109 gear looks just wrong. It has to be an absolute bear on pavement. Grass would be more forgiving to some extent. Research aside, I’ll bet there were TONS of ground loops. Keep in mind that many if not most ground loop accidents end up with a scraped wingtip which could be repaired easy enough and not show up as a major accident or total loss. Also, the 109 looks to have a relatively small rudder which, when combined with the gear setup, would cause the plane to be even more prone to ground loops in a cross wind. Great video, by the way. Very well produced and quite interesting.

Handy for transit with wings removed. Not great beyond that IMO.

I've been studying aircraft and aviation history since I was about 3 years old, and 23 years later I'm still learning new stuff. Keep up the great work!

Well done on the explantion of all the factors that weigh in on design and function of an aircraft.

Its funny how "they did it like that because they had always done it like that" is a very reasonable argument... one should always be careful with hindsight

Me: * expects Bismarck to have a name like Hans Fritzgerald Müller * Bismarck: Hi I’m Chris

I appreciate your emphasis on actually READING a book or two to wrapping your head around a subject. Thanks!

I'm reaching back a few decades but I owned a Luscombe 8E. It had narrow high gear similar to the 109. I'll never forget my instructor telling me after my tailwheel checkout, that if I made it back to my home base, to mail him my logbook to sign. He wouldn't sign me off otherwise. I made it home ok and never mailed him my logbook. I later got a local instructor to sign it. I owned a couple of more taildraggers after the Luscombe. I never groundlooped or even came close but there were some nervous moments until I got some time under my belt.

Wonderful video, I agree entirely, while not ideal, it wasn't a fatal flaw and probably not that much worse than a typical U.S. fighter. I liked seeing the reference to A.F.N.A.

The (FM-2 “Wilder”) Wildcat was a great asset to the Fleet Air Arm, bringing it to nearly the level of the fighter opposition. It was also an aircraft specifically designed for modern carrier operations, thereby setting new standards for British designers in the field. The Wildcat was a potent fighter, with splendid maneuverability, good performance, heavy firepower, and excellent range and endurance. On top of this, it was a superb deck-landing aircraft. - Captain Eric 'Winkle' Brown: Duels in the Sky

Thanks for the video. Didn't mention one critical point which is the importance of locking the tailwheel before takeoff and landing. After taxiing the machine about with an unlocked tailwheel, if you forgot to lock the tailwheel then you stood a tremendous chance of ground-looping the machine on take-off and likewise upon landing. That tailwheel lock was there for a very important reason.

Love your vids. Best KZfaqr at responding to viewer comments. In the future would you do a vid series on German aces, specifically Hartmann?

Awesome video man! Really loving this channel. Could you make a video about something relatively obscure, such as aviation during the Falklands War? I would watch that for sure.

I could tell that the undercarriage was sketchy when i made 1/72nd models of them when i was 12! (difficult to (land) squarely)

I have to admire the ingenuity of the guys that mounted a 109 to a truck so they could tow it away.

Like always, great video! I've always wondered how the landing gear was operated on this plane...thank you!

It is apt to borrow a word from Matt Easton of Schola Gladiatoria: "Context"😉

Hast das Thema ordentlich umgegraben. Gute Arbeit!

If I remember correctly, one of the main design objectives of the supermarine spiteful, the proposed successor to the spitfire, was to have a wider inward folding undercarriage to improve ground handling characteristics.

Chris, you are so good at researching, producing and presenting videos it's almost unbelievable to me. Keep the great work. I very much like you videos and will donate.if I can. Your videos help keep me sane in this lockdown in Thailand.

I would contest the claim that having a narrow gear attached near the wing root is necessarily simpler from a design perspective. The hydraulics for the main gear in this configuration would have to be squeezed in right where the engine firewall and oil cooler would likely be. Moving the pivot point farther out along the span allows for a less cluttered forward fuselage.

That description of the Bf 109’s landing gear by Generalleutnant Funck strikes me as being entertainingly engineer-esque. His insistence on the term “rackety” delighted me, in particular.

Great video,well thought out and argued/presented. Thank you.

I read an interesting comment from a WWII pilot who flew the 109. It was generally understood that during the takeoff roll the pilot had to carefully open the throttle because too much sudden power could cause the plane to veer off to the left, overcoming full application of rudder to the right. Their solution was to takeoff with application of continuous FULL right rudder, and to steer the plane with the throttle. More throttle for left turn, less throttle for right. This gave full control since the rudder was incapable of overpowering the turning tendencies from the engine. (Keep in mind that precise control wasn't needed - the 109s often were taking off from huge grass fields, not from narrow runways).

"let's just roll with it" Ouch, lol

22:46 pirelli tyres O.O bf109s racing each other on the ground in monaco XD

Very informative and well structured, keep it up!

Terrific video Chris, really enjoyed your analysis of this interesting subject!

Given the relative newness of cantilever wing designs at that time, and the overriding concern that they be strong enough to take flight loads, I can understand the reluctance to add to the wing stresses by mounting the landing gear in the wings.

There seemed to be very few real flaws with the design characteristics of the BF109... I think I’d rather have the gear flaw than less armour like the Zero or poor dogfighting issues like the XP 39 Airacobra above 15000 feet.

I do love learning so much stuff with you. Gracias Bismark.

Willie Messerschmitt wrote a section on the Benefits for gear attachment in the 109. He did acknowledge that the track was narrow. It was quite simple, he was designing an aircraft which would often take hits and always need servicing at speed, often in a hurry, often without workshop help. Consequently he attached the gear to the fuselage so that the wings could be removed with just 4 bolts and the rest of the aircraft more easily accessible. He includes photos of a group of these fighters being serviced. (Possibly in the desert) You can easily see how service crews could get at the bits they were going for and how a wing from one plane could be quickly swapped in from an other if it was beyond simple repair. He suggested 4 bolts when the designers of a post-war civil aircraft were arguing about how many scores of bolts (he says) were needed to hold on the wings. I think they said something about the number of landings this plane was to perform.

One of reasons was ability to move fuselage while wings were detached. Edit: Paused video,made my comment, 3s later you said the same thing. lol

Probably, the design issues were load path and finding room for the early style of cylinders and actuators. Inboard struts take the forces directly to the strongest part of the aircraft structure and after a bit of experience the mechanisms could be engineered to fit in a thin wing.

Excellent video. I love your videos. Informative and entertaining.

Talked with a English air show pilot in a bar the night after an airchow in Roskilde in Denmark. he was flying a Me 109 at the air-chow (Spanish with a Merlin motor) also flying Spitfire, Hurricane + several other WV2 planes and he told that the 109 was a devil on start and landing because it have toe out on the main tires when the tail is down but shifted to toe in when the tail lifted and this total shifted the handling and made it much more difficult to handle under start and landing then a Spitfire who also not was an easy bird to handle on the ground and cost several pilots lives on that account. Big engines with enormous torque don’t make it easy-er to handle special on later models with the more powerful motors, to much gas to fast is able to lift a wheel from the ground even when the plane is standing still, both on a Spitfire and the 109.

@militaryaviationhistory Would situating the gear closer to the fuselage increase role rate and overall flight characteristics, by positioning weight closer to the axis of roll? If so was the preformance difference noticeable or minute? Thks

Gear! Not gears! "Gears" are sprocketed, meshing wheels. "Gear" is equipment, and is already plural, like rain gear or camping gear.

Bf 109: Lands the wrong way Landing Gear: *You Died* *Score: 68* *Respawn* *Title Screen*

Great insight into problems that weren't nearly as bad as some had made it to be, keep up the the excellent work :)

How many of these had "damaged" gear from combat, or just plain simple combat damage resulting in a bad landing ?? also valid questions.

German boy born in 1922 Grow up during great depression, life hard man with silly mustache shouts like a cool dude Join his newly formed air force spend years training and accumulate hundreds of flight hours war finally comes around you have the newest German fighter, the BF-109 You're going to become the modern Manfred Von Richtofen! *Bf109 landing gear: "No"*

Great vid, liked it alot mate, keep up the good work!

BF-109 was the 1st and only gas powered model airplanes I had as a kid. The prop cut my dad's finger on start up and I crashed it shortly afterwards the same day. The plane was the kind that were flown around in a circle by control lines. It was a nice plane.

It is important to consider the design requirements, Dr Messerschmitt put a lot of focus on the easy of production techniques, the 109 airframe is a lot easier to produce than a Spitfire, and consistent with time to produce the Hurricane using older manufacturing methods. For production the 109 was an outstanding design. Also to paraphrase Udet undercarriage design was not Messerschmitt’s a strong point. The Spitfire focused on aerodynamics, let’s not forget, they nearly cancelled it, because of production difficulties. However, considering the Spitfire 1a and 109e, the Spitfire, was heavier, not all down to the armour, whilst still has fast and with a lower wing loading such at that point of development it did not suffer significant propeller torque, of the later Mk IX and XIV models. However, the 109e was already suffering from greater propeller torque problems, which were not helped by the design. Dr Messerschmitt problem was the 109 replacement designs proved inferior, so they had to solider on with the 109 bolting on more powerful engines to over come the aerodynamic problems of the original lightweight airframe, compounding the undercarriage difficulties. To be far to both let’s not forget they were landing on grass fields so the Hurricane and 190 undercarriage designs are better suited.

Can someone explain who in hell thought this was good for the carrier Germany wanted

Excelente video, espero que más adelante nos des algunos videos dedicados al Focke Wulf 190.

One overlooked major design change was that, from the 109F onwards, a thin Clark Y section was used for the fin/rudder assempbly, to help overcome the swing due to torque. The theory was that it would help keep the aircraft rolling straight oncethe airflow started to affect the tail. Obviously it didn't work at low speeds (start of take off roll and deceleration during landing) but, none the less, it's a design factor that is so often overlooked

Was there a flaw where on takeoff they would pull to one side

Gotta love how Germans can't pronounce "TH" but substtute "D" or "F " not a complaint just humourous

Great channel thanks for covering the early problems with landing gear . I had the privilege of building two MK1a spitfire wings . The 1a suffered taxi nose over problems so later Mk were altered with a simple aluminum wedge situated on landing gear pintol fitting . This would put the main gear wheels more forwards negating this Nose over . Hence the mechanics would sit on the tail while taxing out. No pintol fittings exist anymore for the MK1 so pintol fitting from a later MK were used , however the holes are now at different angle these were reamed up and slightly oversized bolts used on the build .

17:21 If you wonder where Steinhoff got a face like that, he was badly burnt in a Me262 jet accident when attached to JG-44

In the American wildcat...small also, cranking up with a hand wheel into the Hull... But no problems?

The 109 was a VERY successful design.

Good job with this video. I've often wondered about this type of undercarriage and why the BF 109 got such a bad wrap while the Spitfire, with essentially the same format, was hardly criticised.

I really liked the example of compactness with that Wildcat pic.

Just another reason why FW-190 is better.

Really great video Bismarck. As usual! Real lovers of historical aircraft spend years agonizing over such topics, while flying golfers just smile, climb into their Cessna Skyhawks with the idea that the world is their oyster. They'd look at a BF-108 and say "Shuck's 'n Friday, , I didn't even know a 4-seater 109 was ever made!" *Bismarck, if you've a mind to it, I'd sure like to get your take on the Bell P-39 Airacobra. A real Buck Rogers airplane at the outset. Yet, in similar fashion as the Curtiss P-40 Warhawk, it came into its own only when used in the correct theaters of war.

Royal Hungarian Air Force might disagree with the statement that the Messer had a weak gear. In February 1944 a Hungarian Bf-109G-6 landed behind Soviet lines on a field covered in half meter deep snow to rescue a downed wingman. (The brave pilot was Lt. Miklós Kenyeres, and Lt. György Debrődy was the one he rescued.) The landing was successful, and after ditching the canopy and the parachute they both squeezed themselves into the cockpit and even managed to take off over the head of the Soviet infantry closing in to capture them. Then they landed at the airfield at Uman. During the final approach and flaring Debrődy had to sit on the fuselage so Kenyeres can straighten himself out and see what's ahead. Admittedly though, this was a super extraordinary piloting feat and nobody ever managed (or was a fool enough to try to manage) it again. Although there was an American pilot who rescued his wingman the same way with a P-51 Mustang.

I met in Billancourt an old man, retired from Renault and former welder (at the end a driver at Renault's headquarter). He told me he used to be a young forced worker in Germany, in a landing gear factory. In 1945, only him in the factory could teach how to weld to the others, especially Polonese people thrown there to replace German workers gone to the front. There also was a kind of Kapo in the factory but this man did not know how to weld... This French worker, laughing about this past days, said this sentence to me (I try to translate it the most accurate): "You know, it's hard to make a welding that ... only looks good"...

Q: What is wrong with the landing gear? A: It is tired.

Excellent video. Very well researched and presented. Thank you sir.

Would have been interesting to chase down more statistics from the RAF regarding the Spitfire undercarriage problems, as I feel they were actually a lot more similar to the problems with the Bf109. From a structural standpoint, both aircraft (Bf108/109 & Spitfire) technically had the undercarriage mounted to the fuselage, leaving the wings, as you state, being an 'add on item'.

Narrow landing gear is problematic for taildraggers (conventional landing gear) because it makes it more difficult to stop a ground loop once one begins. Taildraggers have this problem due to their center of gravity being behind the main gear. However, the problem is easier to deal with if you take off and land directly into the wind (Ie no crosswind component). Aircraft designed in the 30s and earlier are the more likely to have narrow gear because so much of the early flying was done from air"fields" rather than air"strips" (runways). If you are operating out of a big flat field, you can always takeoff and land directly into the wind. This makes groundlooping less likely though not impossible. Carrier flight operations are also conducted directly into the wind. As runways became more common, newer designs were more likely to have wider landing gear. This didn't last long, tricycle gear aircraft soon became the predominant form of landing gear.

I read a story somewhere- I can’t find reference to it, maybe in Erich Hartmann’s biography or in the book “Horrido” of a squadron of 109’s that had been operating on grass fields on the Russian front that flew in to a German airport with concrete runways, and most of them ground looped or crashed.

I really wondered about this configuration on the Spitfire.

Very informative video complemented by some equally informative comments (Increased power, toe in vs. toe out, camber). A gem!

Thanks for a great video. And the part with the 108. My father had one and we flew it a lot. Almost every weekend. He allowed me to take the controls when we was at safe altitude. I was 13-14 years old :) Yes, the guy who bought it from my father made a "almost" ground loop, only damaging the propeller. It was OY-AIH,- I think it's back in Germany now as D-IBFW.

7:51 The plane smoke: Well looks like we don’t need that!

I failed to note below, I do much enjoy your work. You really have to give numbers or your just blowing smoke or you have to really do of good work finding effective 'voices' from the past to make up for the numbers. You are very good at both. With the additional inclusion of realizing a war is not a battle between machines, its a battle between nations.

Dr Bismarck this is the video I have been waiting for. Thank you. Those gear just look so spindly.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 Excellent investigation and explanation into the topic!

Thanks for this interesting video. Great information to help the guides of our museum in telling the public about our reconstructed Bf 109G-5 that we have on display.

Imagine trying to land a wounded 109 after a long mission on the eastern front on a snowy/icey runway. Expert mode.

Thanks for explaining this subject. Now it makes much more sense.

Very good content thank you for sharing I really enjoy your channel 👍

Very good concise video, I learnt a lot about the 109....but it is easy to criticise on reflection, after all it was built on the practise of the day - the Spitfire too had narrow landing gear, compared with the Hawker Hurricane. I’ll be searching out other videos, thanks.

Excellent videos! There's been an interesting series of videos by Kermit Weeks' engineer on the restoration of a '108 over about the last year (obviously they have stopped due to covid at the moment though!)

Glad you responded, nobody responds on this site. BF-109 is a cool bird, just needed a little bit of tweeking to be the best. The FW-190 was truly the sntizle, its a flying tank with prop blades that smack the air on the cheeks. LOL!

A very good channel! Still waiting for your first video intro to a Japanese plane!

I think that the overriding reason that Messerschmitt put the main gear on the fuselage is that they didn't have to substantially alter the structure. There already existed a strong place to add the gear hardware. There would be a substantial modification to the wing structure to accept the landing gear required in order to locate it in the wing.

My understanding, prior to watching Biz’s explanation, was the ease of removing/replacing the wings for maintenance and assembly at the factory. Survey says….. Gen Steinhoff was sportin’ some pretty fly shades there.

Thanks for posting.. A pretty thorough analysis of landing gear design.

Very informative and interesting!! Thank you very much!!😊