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"Landing gear... knew I forgot something."

And yes it is a 109. Not being all to familiar with them all I'm hazarding a guess it's a G6 but I'm bound to be proven wrong soon ^^

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Yeah, looks like a G6 or later to me - you can see the characteristic "bump" on the engine cowling caused by the extra room the larger 13 mm machineguns needed for housing.

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Yes - As the previous posters were already talking about 109 models, I was, of course, referring to the Messerschmitt Bf 109 G-6, with the "G6" comment. That, and typing the full name is rather windly to type out:p

"Dont wish to interfer with piloting of ship. But should pull up sharply."

- Rorschach

Maybe the landing gear just malfunctioned. It was a pretty common thing for WW2 era aircrafts.

The Messerschmitt Bf-109 (Or also known as the Me-109 to some people, it depends on the source) had an extremely narrow landing gear, much like the Supermarine Spitfire. This was one of the designs major flaws, for most accidents with this aircraft were landing gear. The landing gear was fragile on this airplane, because it was so narrow and tall. Now, say for an example, you can pretty much beat the crap out of a Grumman F6F Hellcat (Any model) landing gear, and it will still work. Taking into account that the landing gear was made to withstand the repeated landings on an aircraft carrier.
But with the Bf-109, it was commonplace for the landing gear to collapse.

The problem with the 109 landing gear stemmed from the lightweight construction philosophy of the aircraft - Having the landing gear attached to the fuselage allowed for considerably lighter wings to be used in the construction, as they didn't need to be able to support the brunt aircraft weight during take-off and landing.

However, by mounting the landing gear on the fuselage instead of the wings, they had to mount the gear at an angle (eg / \ instead of | |)to ensure a sufficiently wide enough wheel track (which still was excessively narrow), which naturally resulted in a lot more excessive stress being placed on the landing gear construction & lockdown mechanism when landing the craft compared to a normal straight 90 degree design. Moreover, the the strong slipstream from the propeller during takeoff put considerable more stress on the opposite landing gear, and it was not uncommon for it to eventually have it break the pivot lock mechanism before even getting off the field on older craft, or alternatively having it fail while coming in for a landing.

Also, many a rookie pilot trashed their plane on the ground owning to a combination of the high mounted angle offering poor forward visibilty when taxing the aircraft, the narrow wheel track, and the powerful wind gust from the engine combined with a relatively small vertical rudder.

Despite all its inherent problems though, it still was a hell of a plane, and is probably my favourite WW2 fighter aircraft from an atheistic perspective. Just something appealing about the sleek, thin, lines with a slight V-shape to the forward wing profile, and a reverse mounted V12.

Muey said:
from an atheistic perspective

I think you meant "aesthetic perspective", no?

As for favorites of the WWII European theater of aerial combat, I'd say the Spitfire for the first part of the war, then the P-51D Mustang in the latter part. The Spitfire is tops for aesthetics, though - it's just gorgeous.

Yes :v. Curse you, english language!

unsere gute alte me-109 schönes flugzeug!!!!

I like the way the pilot's looking at it, like he's saying to himself "Well, the commander's gonna have my ass for this..."

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