Messerschmitt Bf (Me) 109 G4

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.