Saturday, 12 October 2019

Messerschmitt Me.509

Although the Messerschmitt Me.509 was related to the Me.309, not a lot of information survived the war. It was to be an all-metal fighter with a new fuselage featuring a pressurized cockpit which was placed well forward close to the nose, mimicking the cockpit configuration previously seen in the Bell P-39 Airacobra.
It was going to be powered by a single Daimler Benz 605B 12 cylinder engine with a expected power of 1455hp, that was integrated in the fuselage behind the cockpit. The engine was expected to drive a three-bladed reversible-pitch propeller by an extension shaft which passed beneath the cockpit.
The wing was tapered and had rounded wingtips which were mounted low on the fuselage. Some components from the Me.309 were going to be used, like the tricycle undercarriage and the vertical tail assembly, that was similar to the one used in the first prototype of the Me.309, the Me.309V1.
Armament wasn't decided upon, but most probably it was going to be armed with two 13 mm MG 131 machine guns and 20 mm MG 151/20 cannons, all of them placed in the wings, close to the fuselage. Apparently, just like the Me.309 the radiator was also extendable.
Even if there were real advantages with the new placement of the cockpit, as visibility was improved a lot, and the new engine weight placement, which was important since the Me.309's nose gear often collapsed due to the extra weight, the Me.509's design and development ended when  Messerschmitt put an end to the Me.309 program in mid-1943.
It's believed that, although no firm evidence exist, the Me.309/509's design information was licensed somehow to the Japanese (like it had happened with other designs like Bf.109, Heinkel He.100, Messerschmitt Me.163 or Me.410, among others) because some time later, in April 1945, the Japanese completed a somewhat similar design, the Yokosuka R2Y which had engine overheating problems.
We have decided to include some "what-if" variants like the tropicalized or the radar-equipped night fighter variants.











Sources:
1. http://www.luft46.com/mess/me509.html
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_509
3. https://me109.info (translated)

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