Battle of Britain at 80: 'Effective 'Emil'
The Bf 109E was the Luftwaﬀe’s principal ﬁghter during the Battle of Britain...
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Key Aero
The Bf 109E was the Luftwaﬀe’s principal ﬁghter during the Battle of Britain. In the fourth of our mini-series, Malcolm V Lowe details this famous warplane’s activities during 1940

Germany’s extensive rearmament in the 1930s brought Messerschmitt’s excellent Bf 109 into service. It was the only single-engined fighter to operate with the Luftwaffe’s frontline units during the early years of World War Two, and as such it played a highly important role in the Battle of Britain.

Designed in the years that followed the Nazi accession to power in Germany, which took place at the end of January 1933, the first Bf 109 flew on May 29, 1935. This was several months before the initial flight of the Hawker Hurricane in November 1935, and the Supermarine Spitfire, which made its debut on March 5 the next year.

The abbreviation ‘Bf’ stood for Bayerische Flugzeugwerke (BFW), the predecessor of Messerschmitt AG, which came into being during 1938. Willy Messerschmitt and his fellow designers at BFW were ahead of their time in designing a sleek, advanced monoplane fighter, that was more advanced than the then-current combat biplanes of many other countries.

The first production versions of the Bf 109 were powered by the…