This paper discusses Willy Messerschmitt, the Messerschmitt Company, Messerschmitt airplanes, and the guys who flew them. Then we will go on to talk about the Messerschmitt DNA in today’s fighters and jet liners.
But first, a few disclaimers.
I am not a fighter pilot or an aircraft designer, so some of you experts might trip me up on some arcane point.
A lot of this stuff I’ll discuss, I picked up when hanging around Europe after the war. But I didn’t really trust my memory after fifty years, so I’ve checked this data with independent sources, and anything I couldn’t verify, I didn’t include.
Now a word about the Nazis, the people who ruled Germany before and during World War II. There is no question that these guys were really bad actors, and were responsible for horrible crimes. Willy Messerschmitt himself, if not a Nazi, was certainly a player. He was on an intimate basis with most of the big shots, and after the war, was imprisoned for being a “Fellow Traveler”, partially due to the use of slave labor.
I don’t want to get into politics, moral issues, or value judgments with this paper. Just want to discuss airplanes, and the guys who built and flew them. So, on with the discussion.
You World War II airplane buffs might have noticed that some Messerschmitt airplanes are called Bf, Like Bf109, and some are Me, Like Me262. So let’s talk about the reason why.
Bayerische Flugzeugwerke, (or Bf for short) was the predecessor to Messerschmitt, and was incorporated in 1926. This translates to Bavarian Airplane Works, in English. Kind of like BMW for Bayerische Motorenwerke, the car company, which is Bavarian Motor Works, in English.
As we will see later, Bayerische Flugzeugwerke was reorganized as Messerschmitt AG in1938. So every Messerschmitt design after July 1938 was an Me and those before remained Bf
But most of the previous Bf designs were informally called Me anyway. Incidentally, the Me was pronounced as one word in German, sounding like the English word “may”, and not as two separate letters.
Willy Messerschmitt joined Bayerische Flugzeugwerke in 1927, when he was 29 years old, and rose rapidly through the ranks. He was a legendary designer. Ranking with other great designers of the era, like Kurt Tank, R. J. Mitchell, Kelly Johnson, Alexander Seversky, etc.
Anyway, by the early thirties, Messerschmitt was chief engineer, essentially ran the company, and was becoming indispensable.
In an earlier life, though, he had got on the wrong side of Erhard Milch, who was then Chairman of Lufthansa, the German commercial airline. Milch was convinced that a plane crash that killed a close friend was due to a bad design of Messerschmitt’s.
But now, Milch was Air Minister, reporting to Hermann Goering, and was responsible for all German aircraft production. And was still really upset with Messerschmitt.
So, even though Messerschmitt was running the company, Milch wouldn’t give him any recognition. The company also found it hard to get any government contracts, and was living on commercial work and export sales.
Messerschmitt then went around Milch and became buddies with Goering, and Rudolph Hess, who was Hitler’s deputy. But he still couldn’t get anywhere
Goering, incidentally, was a WW I ace, having shot down 21 Allied airplanes, and even taken over command of the Red Baron’s old squadron, after Richthofen was killed. He was one of Hitler’s closest buddies, and was head of the Luftwaffe, among other things.
Incidentally, at about the same time, Milch had a falling out with Hugo Junkers, who was running another German aircraft company. Junkers had no good buddies like Messerschmitt’s, so Milch hounded him to an early death, with the Nazi government taking over his company and all of his factories.
Messerschmitt knew that strong measures were called for to break this Milch stranglehold, so in 1937, Messerschmitt fitted out a prototype Bf109 with a DB 601R racing engine. This modified airplane then broke the world speed record for land planes at 379.38 MPH. This Bf109, which we mention here, was the forerunner of the legendary WW II fighter, which we will discuss later.
Winning this race focused the world’s attention on Nazi Germany, and on Willy Messerschmitt in particular. It also put tremendous pressure on Milch to stop his vendetta against Messerschmitt.
So, Milch bowed to the inevitable, and on July 11, 1938, Messerschmitt was appointed chairman and managing director of Bayerische Flugzeugwerke and the company was renamed after him to Messerschmitt AG.
And while we are on the subject of racers, we should mention that about this time Messerschmitt built another plane. This was the Me209, a purpose built racer. It was loosely based on the Bf109 and had the same DB 601 engine. Highly modified, of course.
On Apr 26, 1939 this race plane set a world record for piston engine airplanes at 469.22 mph, which was never officially broken till Aug 16 1969, by a highly modified F8F Grumman Bearcat.
During WW II, Messerschmitt was a major German aircraft supplier, with around 30 % of all German aircraft built being of Messerschmitt design. As were about 60% of all German fighter types produced
The Messerschmitt Bf109 and Bf110 formed the vast majority of German fighter strength for the first half of the war, with almost 34,000 Bf109s being built.
Now, let us go into detail on some of the most famous Messerschmitt airplanes, starting with the Bf 108 and the Bf109’.
It was way back in 1933 when Messerschmitt decided to put together all his ideas on what a modern fighter should be. And this resuled in the design of Bf108 Typhoon. This airplane was basically a Proof of Concept for the Bf109, with most of the features of the later airplane. Retractable gear, stressed skin construction, closed cockpit, etc.
It even looked like the later Bf109, as you can see from this image. The Bf108, incidentally, is the lower airplane.
First flight for the Bf108 was the spring of 1934. The airplane was actually called a sport plane, as Germany had not yet totally dumped the Versailles treaty
And it turned out to be a great airplane. Everything that Messerschmitt had expected
Actually several hundred were built for the Luftwaffe, before and during the war, with production being transferred to France early in the War.
And after the war, there were even a couple of hundred built by The French Nord Aviation company as the Nord 1000 Pingouin. These airplanes were flown by the French Air Force into the fifties, and were later used to represent Messerschmitt Bf109s in several American war movies.
Yes, the French aircraft industry was busily building German warplanes, under license, for the Luftwaffe all during the war. And after the war, some of the upper management were actually tried and convicted as collaborators, and served jail time. Later when I was working with French aircraft manufacturers, and questioned their people about this, I would get denials, or a quick change of subject. No one once ever admitted working for the Luftwaffe.
An interesting but little known fact about the Bf108 is that the British RAF had between 4 and 12 of them in inventory, and actually operated them during the war. How they got them is unclear. Some say they bought them, others say they were impounded at the start of the war. Anyway, I know they had them, because I saw one.
And even more improbably, it is said that the US Air Attaché in Berlin bought a Bf108, in 1939, for $14,378, and had it designated as a US Army Air Force XC-44. Unfortunately, it was still in Germany in December of 1941 (when the US got into the war), and the Nazi government took it back.
Anyway, Messerschmitt was happy with the Bf108, and now he went on to design and build a real fighter, the legendary Bf109.
Essentially this design wrapped the smallest and lightest possible airplane around the biggest and most powerful engine available.
It first flew in 1935, and was an unqualified success. It was one of the best fighters of WW II, and it soldiered on long after the war.
Many good fighters were designed and built in the mid 1930’s. Like the Bf109, Spitfire, Hurricane, Zero, Wildcat, Curtis P36/P-40, and others. Most of these though, were phased out early in the War in favor of better designs. Or like the P-40 and the Zero, struggled on, although hopelessly outclassed. But the Bf109 just kept being modified and improved. And was still a formidable first line fighter at war’s end, (and even after the War, as we shall see). The Fw190, which came on the scene in 1941, was a newer and in some ways a somewhat higher performing airplane than the Messerschmitt, but the Bf109 always did maintain superior high altitude performance.
The British Spitfire was basically the same story. It also, just kept getting better and better.
There have been books written about the Bf109 and its wartime exploits. But I would like to just summarize some of the high points
The Bf109E, OR EMIL was the first significant production model, being first delivered in 1939.
It served with the Condor Legion in The Spanish Civil War. Along with some earlier Bf109Cs and Ds. The Condor guys were sort of like the American Flying Tigers. The Germans were not officially in the war, but they were there testing their airplanes. Anyway, the “Emil” turned out to be a great fighter, and it literally swept the skies clean of all opposition.
Now let’s fast forward to July through October 1940, when the Bf109E, or Emil, and the Spitfire starred in the Battle of Britain.
Pilots everywhere will probably be debating forever, which was the better airplane. The Spitfire could turn inside the 109, but the 109 was a bit faster. The 109 had fuel injection, while that early model Spitfire had a float carburetor, which sometimes starved out during violent maneuvers.
The Bf109 had 20 mm cannon, which could make a big hole, while the Spitfire machine guns shot .303 rifle cartridges. A little less powerful than an American .30/.06, but they threw out a lot of lead.
The Luftwaffe pilots had a lot of respect for the Spitfire, as the following story will show.
During the Battle of Britain, in a visit to the forward bases, Goering (Head of the Luftwaffe) asked his pilots what they needed to win the battle. One pilot said that he would like the Bf109 to be fitted with more powerful engines. But an ace named Adolph Galland replied: "I want to re-equip my squadron with Spitfires." It is said that Goering was speechless with rage.
We will hear more about Galland later
It might be interesting to look at both side’s losses during the battle.
It should be noted though, when looking at these statistics, that when the Germans lost an airplane over Britain, they also lost the crew. But the British crews, being over home country, often parachuted out and lived to fight another day. Or perhaps again the same day.
The battle was a clear win for the Brits, as they stopped the bombing of their cities, maintained air superiority, and forced Hitler to call off the invasion of England. And as Winston Churchill said, “ Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few”.
Shortly after the battle of Britain the G model came out. This was the Gustav, and the most produced model of all. And the Gustav, along with the Fw190 were the German first line fighters for the rest of the war. Although a K model did come out in the last few months.
Anyway more Bf109s were built than any other fighter, ever, with 33,984 units being built through war’s end.
Speaking of production, it is interesting to note that despite a concentrated effort against German aircraft plants by the US Eighth Air Force, German airplane production increased every year during the war until early 1945, as shown in the following table.
1940 5000+
1941 10000+
1942 15400
1943 24800
1944 39800
Even 5500 in 1945
Tank production numbers were similar
1940 1800
1941 3700
1942 6000
1943 11800
1944 19000
These numbers do lead one to wonder how effective the strategic bombing of Europe was during WW II.
Besides being built by Messerschmitt, Bf109s were produced by Arado, Erla, Focke-Wolf and Fieseler, in Germany. They were also built in Austria, and in Hungary, and by Skoda in the Czech republic and Hispano in Spain
I’m not going to bore you with all the specs on the Bf109. If interested you can look them up on the Internet. But here are the major ones.
Several hundred Bf109s were built after the war, both by Skoda, in the Czech republic, and Hispano, in Spain.
The original Daimler Benz engines were unavailable so other engines were fitted. The Skoda planes used Junkers Jumo inverted V12s similar to the original engine, but bigger and heavier. These were truly bad airplanes because the heavier Jumo engine unbalanced the airplane and altered its flight characteristics. Regardless, the Czech Air Force and the Israelis flew them, with some remaining in service through 1957. There are also unconfirmed reports that Brazil had a few.
Hispano in Spain also built Bf109’s after the war. This Spanish model was called the HA-1109, and several hundred were built, mostly fitted with Rolls Royce Merlin V12 engines. This was truly a great airplane, with production continuing into the late 1950s, and the airplane finally being phased out of Spanish service in 1968.
Incidentally, almost all Bf109s flying today are the Spanish version, including those shown in the Movie “Battle of Britain” and other war movies.
I have seen several of the Spanish produced planes, and they are not hard to spot. Remember, the German Bf109s used Daimler Benz inverted V engines, so the exhaust ports were toward the bottom of the engine, while the Rolls Royce Merlins used in the Spanish versions had the exhaust ports near the top, like Spitfires and P-51s. Or a V8 car engine. If one notes the location of the exhaust ports in the images below, one can clearly see the difference.
I kind of embarrassed some senior Messerschmitt guys one day, when I pointed out that the alleged Bf109G parked on the lawn in front of their headquarters building was really the Spanish version. They said that I was the first foreigner to notice this.
Me, third from left, in front of the mystery airplane, in Messerschmitt's front yard
Another interesting sidelight, is that the Spanish also built the German Heinkel 111 medium bomber for a while after the war. On the Air Show circuit there was once one of these Spanish 111s, painted in a German WW II color scheme and masquerading as a Luftwaffe bomber. In actuality, it was Franco’s personal airplane and never saw any combat service.
Unfortunately it crashed in 2003. But again, the Rolls Royce Merlins give it away.
Now lets take a look at a couple of German aces who flew Bf109s.
The first one we will discuss is Adolph Galland. He was one of the top aces of the Western Front, with 104 victories. He was grounded by Hitler personally after 70 victories, but managed to sneak in enough flying anyway to bag another 34 for a total of 104
He was awarded the Knight’s Cross with Oak Leaves Swords and Diamonds, which is comparable to our Medal of Honor. He was ultimately appointed Luftwaffe General of Fighters, and eventually promoted to General Leutnant, or Lieutenant General. He was, incidentally, the youngest t Lt. Gen in the war.
It should be noted though, that in World War II the Luftwaffe, like the German Army, did not have the rank of Brigadier General, so a German Lt. General was roughly equivalent to the US Major General.
He was a lot like our General Custer, of Civil War fame. Absolutely death defying in battle, and a real good politician, in the bargain. After the war, he helped build up the Argentine Air Force. And we’ll hear more about him later
Another ace was Erich Hartmann.
He claimed 352 victories, with 260 of them against fighters, and they were all on the Russian front. He claimed he never got shot down, and blamed all of his crashes on mechanical problems. His 352nd and last victory, incidentally, was on last day of the war.
He also received the Knight’s cross with oak leaves, swords and diamonds, given to him personally by Hitler. But it is said that Hartmann was roaring drunk at the time. Seems that he had imbibed too much while waiting for the big man. And, it is also told that somehow he had found Hitler’s hat, and was wearing it at the ceremony.
Needless to say, Hartmann didn’t make Lt. General by the war’s end. But he did manage to get promoted to Major. And later, to Colonel in the postwar Luftwaffe, He was one Hell of a fighter pilot, but definitely not a politician. More in the mold of Pappy Boyington or Chuck Yeager.
Now let’s switch gears and talk about a truly amazing Messerschmitt plane, the Me262, a twin engine, swept wing jet fighter. Its official name was the Swallow, but it was nicknamed the Sturmvogel, or Storm Bird in English, by its German pilots.
This airplane could fly 540 MPH at 20 thousand feet and 500 MPH at sea level. It had a ceiling of almost 40,000 feet, and was armed with four 30mm cannon in the nose. Some versions also had rockets mounted under the wings, and the fighter bomber variant carried 500 pound bombs.
One of the major problems with this airplane was reliability of the Junkers Jumo engines. They were supposed to last 40 to 50 hours, but in service it was more like four to twelve, But fortunately the airplane would fly fairly well on one engine.
This lack of reliability was mostly because the high temperature, high strength metal alloys that were required for jet engine manufacture were not available in wartime Germany. A note of interest, though, is that the Wright 1800 radial engines used on the early B-29s were not much more reliable.
After the war the US Air Force was attempting to test some captured ME 262s, but gave it up when they were blowing engines on almost every test flight. The tests though, did show that the Me262 had better performance than the then current USAAF jet fighter, the F-80.
Another problem with this airplane was that a pilot could inadvertently approach the speed of sound, creating compressibility problems which made the airplane uncontrollable. Of course, at that time, nobody on either side understood what became known as the “Sonic Barrier”.
The Me262 was designed in 1939 and 1940, but due to engine unavailability first flew under jet power in July of 1942. It entered operational service in May of 1944, and in short order there were almost 1500 built. So, contrary to what some believe, there was no shortage of German operational jet airplanes.
And in the right hands, it was an awesome weapon against the B17s and B-24s. While it could not turn with the American fighter escorts it had about a 100 MPH speed advantage. It also could fly a pursuit curve faster than the Sperry power turrets on the bombers could track,
Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, Hitler demanded that these awesome machines be used almost exclusively as fighter bombers, against ground targets, where their performance was mixed, rather than what they were designed for, a high altitude bomber interceptor,
This decision on Hitler’s part was not as crazy as it sounds, given the situation on the ground.
American and British forces had landed in Normandy, and were racing through France to the German border. Of course the Allies had almost total air supremacy, and Allied tactical air was everywhere. These Allied planes supported front line troops, but more importantly, shot up anything that moved behind the lines. Trucks, tanks, trains, or whatever. They even got Rommell in his staff car.
The Germans were terrified of these fighter bombers, which they called Jabos, (a contraction of the German word Jaeger/bomber), as they didn’t have any real good defense
This was really brought to my attention when in Germany after the War, I personally heard General Leutnant Fritz Bayerlein, one of the better German Panzer Generals, tell how during the American breakout at St Lo, the American Jabos pretty much destroyed his crack Panzer Lehr division, before those troops even got into action.
But now Hitler had this new Me262 jet fighter, which was superior to anything the Allies had. So Hitler decided to use the Me262 as a Jabo of his own, against the Americans. And raise Hell with their rear areas, for a change.
A good idea, but it did not work out well in practice. This was mainly because the long straight approach runs the Luftwaffe guys had to make with their Me262s made them vulnerable both to American fighters, and American ground fire. And there were lots of American fighters hanging around, just waiting for the Me262s
In the meantime, a few Me262 bomber interceptor groups were formed, the most famous being Kommando Nowotny. This outfit allegedly downed 19 Allied aircraft for six Me262s lost, before Nowotney was killed in Nov 1944.
Anyway, Adolph Galland, who we met earlier, and was now General der Jagdflieger, or General of the Fighters, kept trying to convince Goering and Hitler that the Me262 could be best used as a bomber destroyer. But, he got nowhere, and only succeeded in angering Hitler. Finally, when Galland persisted, Goering fired him as General of Fighters. But Galland did keep his General Leutnant rank.
Galland then built up his own Me262 group, Jaegerverband 44, and developed his own tactics. And he was able to bring in many of the most experienced and decorated Luftwaffe fighter pilots from other outfits to join this elite group.
Luftwaffe records show that this group shot down 47 allied planes in April and May of 1945, even though they never had more than six operational airplanes at any one time. Galland himself claimed 7 victories before being wounded.
Overall, there were 509 reasonably well verified kills of Allied planes, for Me262 losses of just over 100, equating to about a five to one kill ratio.
The ME 262 did need long runways and long approaches for landing. So the American fighters soon learned to hang around their strips, and beat up the Me262s when landing or taking off. The Germans countered this, in some degree, by decentralizing their fighter bases. One favorite being to pave over long stretches of Autobahn median, and use these improvised strips for Me262 operations.
In fact, when I was in Germany after the war, we were tasked with figuring out which stretches of Autobahn the Luftwaffe had actually used, and deciding if these would be practical emergency airstrips for American fighters.
After the War, Skoda built twelve Me262s for the Czech Air Force, naming it the S 92. Deliveries started in 1947, but this turned out to be an unsatisfactory plane, and all were retired by 1957.
But that’s not the end of the Me262 story.
An engineer named Bob Hammer, who I used to work with, has a company which is now building five near exact reproductions of Me262s, at Paine Field, near Everett WA.
All are powered by General Electric J85 engines and have additional safety features, such as upgraded brakes and strengthened landing gear.
Hammer and his people were unable to get their hands on enough original drawings to design the replica, but they did find a Me262 on the East Coast, which belonged to the US Navy. Improbably, they convinced the Navy to loan it to them, and they reverse engineered it.
I was convinced that these guys would never get anything off the ground, but they fooled me. To date, they have completed and delivered two flight worthy airplanes, and one static display model. Another flyable plane is in process, and Hammer says they will build one more when they find a buyer.
By the way, while researching this paper I had occasion to call Hammer’s outfit to check on some facts. But before I could explain what I needed, the young lady who answered the phone proceeded to try to sell me an airplane. But since I did not have $2.5 million readily available, I passed on that one.
Let’s now move on now to some other airplanes that Messerschmitt designed and built during World War II
The Bf110 was a twin engine heavy fighter, which was first delivered in 1938.
It never was very successful, actually having to be escorted by more agile fighters during the Battle of Britain. It was then redesigned as the Me10, which was an even worse airplane. Among other things, it was extremely unstable, and never entered production. But it did cost Messerschmitt a lot of points with the Luftwaffe top brass, and actually almost sunk the company. So they did another redesign, calling this one the Me410. Going to a new model number because the Me210 was so bad.
The Me410 was a better airplane, but still nothing exciting. It had limited success as a bomber destroyer, standing off and firing rockets into the B-17 formations. But when the B-17s started being escorted by Mustangs, the Mustang escorts made short work of the Me410, and the type was withdrawn from service, with production being totally phased out by mid 1944.
The Me163 comet was a very interesting airplane. It was first flown in Feb 1943, and became operational in Jan 1944.
It was a rocket powered interceptor with swept wings, and was good for eight to 10 minutes of powered flight. The idea being to launch the interceptor when the bomber stream was almost overhead, make a couple of passes, and then glide back to base.
Fuel was hydrazine and hydrogen peroxide, which when mixed together in the combustion chamber, reacted to provide thrust. There were a couple of problems though. The first being the instability of the fuel. If the two fuel components were mixed together accidentally, as in a crash, or sometimes accidentally on the ground, there would be a horrendous explosion. And sometimes, if something went wrong with the engine controls, the fuels would mix wrong and explode in the engine during flight. And to top everything off, if the fuel was not all expended in flight, there was the distinct possibility of an explosion on touchdown,
These problems understandably made the plane hard on pilots, and it was far from a favorite with them.
Also, the thing would fly 600 MPH, leading to compressibility problems as the AP approached the speed of sound. And as mentioned earlier, compressibility was not well understood then, and this led to more losses.
All in all, Me163s shot down seven American bombers. But many more Me163 pilots than that were killed in the process.
An interesting sidelight, is that the Germans furnished their Japanese allies with tooling, blueprints and a complete Me163 airplane. All this was transported by submarine, the airplane on one sub, and the tools and blueprints on another. But the sub with the tools and blueprints was lost, so the Japanese reverse engineered the airplane they got, and made a copy. Something must have gone wrong though, because this airplane crashed on takeoff, and the program was then abandoned.
No, the above pictured airplane is not a B-29. It is a German Messerschmitt Me264 Amerika. Design was started in 1937, and it first flew in 1942. This airplane had a 9500 mile range, and theoretically could fly from Germany to New York with a 6000 lb. bomb load, bomb New York, and then return. Much more range, incidentally than the B-29.
They actually built and flew three of them. And had the preliminary design for a turboprop derivative. Note the swept wings on the turboprop, which we will discuss later.
Fortunately, at the time, the Germans had their plate full with other things. The three airplanes that had been built were damaged in bombing raids, and that was the end of the program.
When the Germans were planning on invading England, they needed some way to air transport heavy equipment. Stuff like guns, tanks and so forth, in support of the paratroopers. So Messerschmitt came up with a design for a monster glider.
It had the floor space of a German railway flatcar, 1,100 sq. ft, and could hold 23 tons. The idea being that anything that would fit on a railroad flatcar could be loaded into a Giant. The thing was so big and heavy though, that it took three Bf110 fighters to get it into the air, and then to tow it, and you can imagine how unsafe that was.
So they built a special airplane for a tow plane. This unlikely piece of machinery was called a Heinkel 111z, and was actually two Heinkel 111 medium bomber fuselages joined together with a stub wing in between, and with an extra engine. Surprisingly, the thing actually worked, although they sometimes needed rocket assist to get the whole load off the ground. One can see the rocket pods on the underside of the wings in the image below.
About 150 Giants were built, and twelve Heinkel tugs, but they were never really put in service. The whole concept being too complicated, and a logistics nightmare.
But this led to the Me323, which was basically the Me321 glider with six radial engines hung on it.
Surprisingly, this wasn’t too bad a transport, and there were 213 built.
It was underpowered, giving it only a 136 MPH top speed, but it was the only large German transport aircraft. Able to lift ten to twelve tons, it could carry 130 troops or a fully operational 88mm cannon, it was used with some success to supply Rommell in North Africa. But there were not enough of them to do the job, and losses from allied fighters were high. In April 1943, for example, 21 out of a formation of 27 Me263s were shot down over the Mediterranean, despite having fighter escorts. And as might be expected, none survived the war.
Here is another Messerschmitt product, which was built after the war, when the Allies would not let them build airplanes. These actually were quite popular for a time, and a club for enthusiasts still exists.
I was going to explain how Messerschmitt DNA got into US commercial and military airplanes. So here goes.
The first example is swept wings
The Germans had been doing a lot of work on swept wings. The Me262 had a swept leading edge, and the Me163 Komet wing was fully swept. The advanced Amerika bomber, which we discussed earlier, had swept wings as well.
Immediately after the war, a team of high level US aircraft engineers, including a Boeing Vice President named George Schairer, visited the German aircraft plants under the auspices of the US Army. They borrowed, liberated, or stole, whichever term you prefer, all the Messerschmitt engineering they could lay hands on, including a lot of data on swept wings. In fact, it is said that they even dug some papers out of an old well, where the Messerschmitt engineers had hidden them.
Remember, at that point all US aircraft, including those under design, had straight wings. But Boeing engineers became sold on the swept wing concept, and Boeing used this Messerschmitt data when developing the swept wing B-47. As did North American for the F-86. And this basic wing design has been used ever since on jet transports and many military airplanes.
Variable sweep, or swing wing fighters, as well, trace back to Messerschmitt
Messerschmitt started design of a swing wing fighter in 1942, and started construction of a prototype in 1944. An effort that was called Project P1101.
This prototype was captured by the Americans, shipped to the US and studied by Bell. And then, Bell built two copies, called the X-5, from the same design.
Then in 1960 Boeing used the swing wing knowledge gained, on the X-5 program, along with Messerschmitt P1101 data, to design a new swing wing fighter. Although eventually built by another company, this design became the TFX, Tactical Fighter Experimental, which became the F-111.
Meanwhile Messerschmitt dusted off the P1101 plans, and began design studies for their own swing wing fighter. Boeing, having lost the TFX, joint ventured with Messerschmitt on this effort, and actually sent a small design team, led by my good friend Don Hufford, to help. The USAF, for reasons which are not clear, terminated this Boeing effort, in favor of Fairchild, but the entire joint venture was soon cancelled. But then British Aerospace, And Alenia of Italy, joined Messerschmitt in a joint swing wing design effort. By this time Messerschmitt was MBB, and the three companies joined to form Panavia, who actually designed and built this swing wing fighter, which first flew in 1979, and became the Tornado. Used by Britain, Germany and Italy, it’s one of the best ground attack aircraft made, and is still in service today.
So, the F-111 and the Tornado, sharing a common basic design, are similar airplanes, as the above images show.
