Bruce Dickenson from iron maiden does World Of Warplanes documentary video.

[Destraex]

True. I love Iron Maiden and Bruce (seen them at least twice and admire his piloting skill). But a lot of the time in this video he chose wording that painted the wrong picture. The 109 did not carry enough fuel to dogfight in the battle of britain... but the spitfire would I expect, have had the same problem over france. Not being able to escort bombers far enough. German pilots flying until they died probably had something to do with them being short of pilots late war, not because it was policy? The 109 was not VERY manoeuvrability compared to the aircraft it was commonly dogfighting. It was a boom n zoom aircraft. Not a turning fight aircraft. Aviation Fuel or Gasoline? Canons have lots of exploding SHELLS (not bullets) as well. Just not as much ammo usually. Why is a canon firing through the middle more up close and personal than machine guns? I don't think you just decided to be a pilot in ww2 on your own. Other than that, I am sure I could not do better. I hope Bruce gets into the groove and becomes as good as the chieftain for world of tanks. Good Luck Brice :) A great first video. But a little light on the technical detail and a lot of out of context content that probably should have had the video renamed BF or ME 109 E during the battle of britain. The variants changed so much over the course of the war. Did not mention the fuel injection system vs the spitfire or hurricane. How do pilots get "taken offline" ? :P

[Yskonyn]

Well, 'maneuverability' gets used badly often in these discussions in my opinion. It often is linked to turn rate alone by virtual pilots. Wrongly imho. Although turn rate is usually the deciding factor in who wins a dogfight ("Rate kills"), so its easy to see where it comes from.

There are several factors playing in dogfighting. Air density, airspeed, roll rate, wing loading are main aerodynamic factors. Thrust / Power to weight ratio is an important energy factor (chemical energy), as well as speed (kinetic energy) and altitude (potential energy).

Maneuverability is the umbrella under which all factors are considered in a given scenario with a few constants. Altitude band comes to mind.

Also, especially for WW2, discussions often involve aircraft type only without proper regard for timeline and variants of the war and the aircraft respectively.

The 109 was, in fact, regarded as VERY maneuverable in the early war. It retained its energy very well and has absolute amazing acceleration.
It was not a turning fighter, but a 'boom and zoom' fighter indeed, but that says little about its maneuverability as I hope to have made clear above. :)

Fun video by a guy who is clearly passionate about aviation, but I am not sure what WoWarplanes brings that Warthunder doesn't in a more complete package?
Perhaps thats why they needed to attract the rich and famous? 😉

[Destraex]

I agree. The technical explanation of manoeuvrability is just a series of tactical movements and how well they can be carried out.
But boom n zoom, as an online pilot, is not what I usually talk about when I think about how well an aircraft can move around. Because it is not really doing much in the way of changing aspect angles. It's just down and up in a fairly consistent curve. Sure, it's a series of tactical movements. But not a very complex one. Rather like saying a drag race means drag racers who go in a straight line are very manoeuvrable. They are not. That is the way I look at it. T
The question is would a 109 out-turn a spitfire in a dogfight? It can out dive it, we know that because of early fuel injection. But carrying out a dive and zoom is a tactic but not necessarily something that needs to be changed in motion much to carry out.

[Yskonyn]

Well I disagree with your drag race example.
If both pilots are capable handling their aircraft then they will both analyse the fight differently. The 109 pilot would keep his energy level high in order to execute 'hit and run' attacks, while a Spitfire or Hurricane pilot will try to force him down low and then into a turning fight.

At medium to high altitude the 109 is definately more maneuverable than the Spit or Hurricane, whereas down low, robbed of its energy advantage the Spit / Hurri is definately more maneuverable.
Its all a matter of how you portray the situation, which in our online dogfighting we always resort to the turning fight discussion.
That's not even close to how many fights were fought in the air.

[Destraex]

Well then. I agree that you are right technically. I also don't think your definition was what Bruce was meaning either. He seemed to come across at least to me, to be talking in the most basic of terms for most things in that video. I don't think he was being very technical.
So I don't think your definition matters in that respect.

What I do wish was that Bruce came across more like you do in this debate. i.e. using technical definitions rather than sweeping generalisations.

[Destraex]

BTW this inspired me to try the game and try war thunder again. I am getting long in the tooth and may prefer to play this these days as it is very simple.