Sunday, October 09, 2022

Air Zoo - That Looks Just Like A Messerschmitt

It looks at first glance just like a Messerschmitt BF-109.

 

So much so that this very aircraft even stood in for a BF-109 in the classic film Battle of Britain starring Michael Caine, Sir Laurence Olivier and many others:

It's not a BF-109, it's a Buchon HA-1112, a copy of the Messerschmitt BF-109 produced under license in Spain.

It is now back in Spanish Air Force Livery and on display at the museum, after originally being displayed in it's Luftwaffe paint job it wore during the film.

The Buchon had a different engine than the original due to German inability to supply sufficient Daimler Benz engines and instead used the Hispano-Suiza engine which gave the aircraft a major right turning tendency on takeoff as it has a counter-clockwise propeller rotation, compared to the Daimler-Benz's clockwise rotation that the airframew was designed to handle.  

This last variant of the Buchon uses a 1,600 hp Rolls-Royce Merlin 500-45 engine rather than the 1,300HP Hispano-Suiza and has two 20 mm Hispano-Suiza 404/408 cannons and the Buchons served in the Spanish Air Force until December 1965.

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