The Battle of Britain Five Months That Changed History, May—October 1940 by James Holland (z-lib.org).epub

turn. The theoretically minimum turning circle of the Me 109E was 885
feet, while that of a Spitfire was 696 feet. Any aircraft will lose speed when
turning, which is one of the reasons not to turn in the first place when in the
middle of a dogfight. However, by pulling back on the stick, and allowing
the slats to open – which would occur at around 120 mph – an Me 109
could, in fact, out-turn a Spitfire. In any case, as was revealed by the
Farnborough tests, Spitfire and Hurricane pilots were often reluctant to push
their aircraft in as tight a turn as possible because they were worried about
stalling. A pilot could feel the aircraft nearing the stall as the control
column would start to shake; it was what was called ‘pre-stall buffeting’. It
was easy to recover an Me 109E from a stall, but this was not always the
case with the Hurricane, which, despite being a very forgiving aircraft,
could flip over and go into a spin. ‘The Hurricane would always drop a
wing,’ says Pete Brothers. ‘It was notorious for it.’ The Spitfire, despite its
thoroughbred, silky handling, could also prove a handful if ever pushed to
stalling point. Pilots were warned of this in the accompanying Pilot’s Notes.
‘Never attempt a “tail-chase” with an enemy aeroplane having a smaller
turning circle than the Spitfire,’ it noted. ‘If stalling incidence is reached,
the aeroplane usually does a violent shudder, with a loud “clattering” noise,
and comes out of the turn with a violent flick. This would be a serious loss
of advantage in a combat.’
Certainly, during the Farnborough tests, the pilots, despite being highly
experienced combat and test pilots, were nervous about stalling both the
Spitfire and the Hurricane. ‘In a surprisingly large number of cases,
however,’ noted the report, ‘the Me 109 succeeded in keeping on the tail of
the Spitfire or Hurricane during these turning tests, merely because our
pilots would not tighten up the turn sufficiently from fear of stalling and
spinning.’ It is interesting that those writing the report felt it necessary to
underline this key part of their findings. In other words, what was
comparable on paper did not really represent what was happening in the air.
The Me 109E, on the other hand, was less likely to flip and spin in a stall,
and its high stalling speed could be used by skilled pilots to good effect in
combat, because a stall enabled it to lose sudden height very quickly, a
useful trick when being pursued.
It was also true that the Me 109E had a comparatively narrow
undercarriage, which made it less stable on the ground, potentially a hazard
in the hands of inexperienced pilots when touching down. However,