me 109 lives!

[DONDon1]

Hi ,

this is my first me109 I have seen in flying condition (in Oppenheim Germany last week) She flew two loopings and some rolles.

Thomas

[Matt Starr]

ah ha, you got to degerfeld to see siggi's machine I see!!
Mfg
Matt

[Matt Starr]

woops I see she was away at Oppenheim and not at Degerfeld (she is based there). My father has done much work on this machine!
Matt

[Para82nd]

One of the best looking planes in History, your so lucky to see one fly!

[Heer Flak]

I bet that was a treat. I would have like to have seen that. Where you able to look in the cockpit?

Eric

[Chet Sowersby]

Now that is sweet!

Chet

[Philippe DB]

Thanks for posting the pic Thomas, just felt an adrenaline boost just by watching that pic and imagining how it would feel to take of in it


KR
Philippe

[Matt Starr]

My Dad has always said it like this,
Watching a DB605 from the outside it absolutely stupendous! You've never felt anyhting like it before, then when your ground running it you can multiply it by a few times as its you in the cockpit handling the machine, then when you've got to taxi the bugger out and then fly it, it is infinitely more exciting and feels even better!
He doesnt want to fly the 109 as it takes much time to convert on to it, but has flown a P51
Matt
I have many pics of this machine if anyone is interested, oh hell pip I'm going to hijack your thread and turn it into a 109 pics thread

[Matt Starr]

So what do we have here then?
Ok what we have is 4 years of work costing 500,000 Euros. This aircarft is an ex Spanish Hispano converted by the work of Siggis knowle and his team to produce a Me109G-4 powered by the Daimler Benz 605A engine. I work with Messerschmitts and my father was able to travel a couple of times to Germany to help Siggi set his engine up before the bird flew. 605's can cause alot of problems if you do not set them up right!! It is easy to jump in and try and throw the engine together and then thrash it about but you will not get very far! It takes alot of work to get the engine working correctly and even then there will be problems. The 605 only has a life of 100 Hours, after this you need to strip and rebuild it and before the 100 Hours are up you will probably have had to rebuild it a couple of times!! My father has calculated that 1 hour of running the engine costs £2000 so it is not a cheap thing to play with and that is why the best are needed to run them and that is why my father travels around the country and to other countries helping people set their engines up! So lets have a few pictures (taken by my father)
These first few pics were taken on the second flight of the machine, before it was made public that it even existed!

[Matt Starr]

My father is not quite as able with the camera as I am (he still takes good pics though ) so there is not much usable pictures of the flight but here we have a side shot of the baby landing. Once can see the added red light underneath and the lack of the Haken Kreuz on the tail

[Matt Starr]

Here we have the front view of the G-4, showing the shallow oil cooler, the German team do not like their baby getting dirty, but the problem is she should be dirty, that is how they like to live! All oily and sooty like a 109 should be!

[Matt Starr]

Red 7 has already been given a clean before her evening sortie!

[Matt Starr]

You know the DB's still working when you get a good soot trail behind her, its when the trail stops that you should start to get worried!!

[Matt Starr]

Hiding in an almost clinical looking hanger

[Matt Starr]

If I remember correctly this is before she had flown
We can see here the cowls lifted showing the engine and the engine bearers which are milled and cost 10,000 Euros a pop