The ME-109 was Germany’s best fighter aircraft during World War Two. It was considered as a counterpart to the Japanese Zero. Though lacking in range, it was a reliable and fast aircraft. During the war period, many different versions were created. The variations included structural, armament and powertrain. The ME-109A was powered by a 640 PS (631 hp, 471 kW) Junkers Jumo 210B engine driving a two-blade fixed-pitch propeller. Its production was later changed to the 670 PS (661 hp, 493 kW) Jumo 210D as soon as it became available.
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The ME-109 ‘s armament was initially planned to be just two cowl-mounted 7.92 mm MG 17 machine guns, but the existing competition in the form of the Spitfire and the hurricane made a third gun necessary. The most popular version was the ME-109F. It was much improved aerodynamically and the Bf 109 F offered a much increased maximum range of 1,700 km. This was a serious improvement when compared to the Bf 109 E's maximum range figure of only 660 km
The ME-109F
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After some F-1 were rushed into service, an unexpected structural flaw of the wing and tail section was revealed. The engineers noticed the wing surface wrinkling or fracturing. This unfortunately made some plane to crash. In one such accident, one pilot, the commander of JG 2 "Richthofen", Wilhelm Balthasar, lost his life when he was attacked by a British Spitfire during a test flight. While he was making an evasive maneuver, the wings of the ME-109F simply broke away and Balthasar was killed when his aircraft hit the ground. Engineers introduced slightly thicker wing skins and reinforced spars to deal with the wing problems. Further Tests were also carried out to find out why the tails had failed, and it was found that at certain engine settings a high-frequency oscillation in the tailplane spar was overlapped by harmonic vibrations from the engine. This caused a combined effect being enough to cause structural failure at the rear fuselage attachment point. The whole fuselage had to be subsequently strengthened.