Messerschmitt Bf 109 (JumoJet)

History

As World War II (1939-1945) progressed, Germany's fortunes in the war deteriorated in 1943-1944. Allied bombing proved to be one of the main factors in Germany starting to shift its approach to defensive air combat -- an air battle centered on cannon- and missile-armed fighters and interceptors.

This has led to a number of designs aimed at countering the growing threat and avoiding elimination, and while turbojets are clearly the way forward, piston-powered fighters are here to stay at least for a while, and the genre has yet to peak.

Therefore, some kind of "bridge" fighter design was envisaged, where the existing airframe could be easily converted to jet-powered form by replacing the piston engine with a relatively simple turbojet. This led to a series of design studies around the concept by the usual German defense contractors, namely Focke-Wulf (manufacturer of the war-winning Fw 190) and Messerschmitt (developer of the classic Bf 109).

At Focke-Wulf this focused on the Fw 190, while at Messerschmitt this led to the Bf 109.

Engineers soon discovered that it was difficult to source parts from existing assembly lines simply because of wartime demands.

The one-seat cockpit adopts the heavy frame of the Bf 109 as usual and is placed in the absolute center of the fighter. This creates vision problems for pilots with long noses, low-mounted wings (with their engine pods underneath), and a raised fuselage spine behind the cockpit, all of which limit both ground and air flight critical visibility.

The tricycle landing gear is fully retractable, the nose bone folds back under the nose, and the main legs are pulled toward the fuselage centerline. All weapons are concentrated on the nose (like Me 262) and a combination of 4 x 30mm MK108 autocannons (like Me 262) or 1 x 20mm MG151 autocannon to 2 x 30mm MK108 autocannons - the idea is This weapon pack is replaced as needed based on supply and demand.

Overall, the fighter has a barrel length of 30.1 feet, a wingspan of 42.6 feet, and a height of 8.5 feet. The loaded weight will reach 10,500 lbs. Power comes from two Junkers Jumo 004B-1 air-breathing turbojets, each producing 1,985 pounds of dry thrust.

No performance data has been achieved as this jet Bf 109 form has never been manufactured (data on this page are author's estimates, based on Me 262). There seemed to be too many technical and cost issues to "simply convert" the existing piston-powered fighter form to turbojet propulsion, so various wartime design ideas around this idea eventually became a thing of the past.

Specification

Basic

Production

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Performance

Performance

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Changes