American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

1
Reconstructing the features and performances of
historic airplanes
Rodrigo Martinez-Val
1
, Emilio Perez.
2
and Jose F. Palacin
3
Universidad Politecnica de Madrid
Madrid, Spain, 28040
The process of modelling the aerodynamics and performances of historic airplanes is
somehow similar to the conceptual and preliminary design phases of a new project with two
major advantages: 1) the configuration is known beforehand and 2) the airplane
airworthiness has already been proved. Unlike a new project it is unnecessary to outline and
assess many different alternatives. But the drag polar, most key performances, stability
features, etc, are frequently unknown or incomplete. In the present research work, two cases
are addressed: the Grand Raid of the Spanish Cuatro Vientos, and the rivalry between the
Supermarine Spitfire and the Messerschmitt Me-109. The legendary Spanish airplane, a
Brguet XIX Super TR, flew non-stop from Seville to Cuba (about 7500 km or 4100 nautical
miles, mostly over the seas) in around 40 hours, one of the last Grand Raids, before
disappearing in a relatively short stage between Havana and Mexico a few days later. On its
turn, the legendary English and German aircraft were for many years the protagonists of air
fight in the Western European front of Second World War. The modelling considered in this
paper takes well known expressions of Aerodynamics and Flight Mechanics to obtain
estimations of the drag polar and some relevant performances such as cruise conditions and
range for the Grand Raid, and time to climb, radius of gyration, etc for the fighters. This
approach, mixed up of historic considerations and quantitative analysis, is very well
appreciated by students for its pedagogic and motivating character.
I. Introduction
NLY a few decades after the first successful flight of the Wrights brothers, the 1920s and 1930s were years of
enormous advances in aviation. The Great War had ended and many enthusiasts could use the large surplus of
airplanes left behind. Aviation was becoming popular in many countries and aeronautics was establishing the
definitive scientific and technical ground required for the astonishing development it has had up to present.
1
This golden period corresponds to the epoch of the Grand Raids and various trophies and prices, like the
Schneiders Cup. The ambiance stimulated the search for fame, national glory, political impulse or the establishment
of new commercial routes. On the side of long routes, the North Atlantic track received the greatest attention, for
lying between the two areas of the world with higher economic and technical development. The geography and
meteorology produce some bias in favour of West-to-East flights between the East Coast of USA and Canada on one
side and Ireland or Great Britain on the other. A few can be named among many relevant achievements:
2
Vicecmdr. Read with Curtiss NC4 from Newfoundland to Azores, Lisbon and Plymouth, on May 1919;
Alcock and Brown, aboard a Vickers Vimy, flew for the first time non-stop between America and Europe in
June 1919;
Lindbergh, on the Spirit of St. Louis boosted aviation to the largest journal headlines with his solo from
New York to Paris in May 1927;
Von Hnefeld, Koehl, Spinder and Fitzmaurice carried out the first East-West flight from Berlin to Ireland
and to Labrador in April 1928 with Junkers W33L;
Costes and Bellonte, linked Paris and New York, in September 1930, in a Brguet XIX Super TR; and
1
Professor of Airplane Design, Dep. Vehiculos Aeroespaciales, ETSIA, AIAA Associate Fellow
2
Assoc. Prof. Airplane Design, Dep. Vehiculos Aeroespaciales, ETSIA, AIAA Member
3
Assist. Prof. Applied Physics, Dep. Appl. Phys. & Chem. Aeronautics, EUITA
O
45th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit
8 - 11 January 2007, Reno, Nevada
AIAA 2007-154
Copyright 2007 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Amelia Earhart, flew the second solo (first for a woman) from America to Europe, in May 1932 on a
Lockheed Vega.
On the side of combat airplanes, fighters in particular, the evolution was rather slow; and it was not uncommon
to see biplanes being used for this purpose well into the thirties. However, some competitions, like the Schneiders
Cup, boosted the development of new aerodynamic shapes which were the basis of the new combat aviation.
Specifically, the Supermarine Spitfire came in the wake of the great achievements in the aforementioned Cup. On
the German side, the limitations imposed to the Luftwaffe in the Versailles Treaty stopped any meaningful
development for about 15 years, but after Hitlers advent into power, the designers started a quick run to fill the gap.
For example, Prof. Messerschmitt took a good sport four seater named Bf 108 Taifun, to design the later well known
Bf 109.
Many features and performances of historic airplanes are unknown or lost because of war damage to archives,
incomplete files, etc. The present paper aims at reconstructing some relevant characteristics of three selected
aircraft. The approach used here is a fruitful mixture of History and Flight Mechanics which has proved to be
understandable, pedagogic and motivating for undergrads and grad students.
3
In the present research work two cases are considered: the Grand Raid of the Spanish Cuatro Vientos from
Seville to Havana and the rivalry between the Spitfire and the Me-109 at the Battle of Britain and subsequent
operations.
II. Planning the Cuatro Vientos Grand Raid
The airplane selected for the Spain-Cuba flight was, logically, a Brguet XIX sesquiplane specially prepared and
modified by CASA for the purpose.
4
As its precedent, the Brguet XIV, the XIX had been designed by Louis
Vuillierme. It was exhibited for the first time on November 1921 in the Aeronautics Salon of Paris, although its first
flight took place in March 1922.
5
The original version had an empty weight of 1387 kg, a maximum take-off weight
of 2500 kg, powered by various engines from 400 to 500 CV, which allowed it to reach about 215 km/h of
maximum speed, a ceiling above 7000 m and a range of some 800 km.
6
Many countries like France, Spain, Belgium,
Yugoslavia, China and Argentina, had this aircraft as basis for their air forces in the 20s and 30s.
A suitable route was selected among the eleven studied as the most favourable: Seville, Madeira Islands (of
Portugal), Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo and Cuba. A certain advantage of this route, which extended more than 6000
km over the waters, was the possibility of using Madeira and Puerto Rico as landing areas along the path (but these
areas were 3000 NM apart from each other) as well as the suitability of several Cuban airfields for landing, once
arrived there.
7
Interestingly, this route is the one almost exactly followed by current jets in their way from Western
Europe to the Caribbean region.
Due to the extremely long distance to be flown, the airplane required some modifications with respect to
ordinary Breguet XIX to increase the specific range, essentially by means of aerodynamic improvements.
7,8
CASAs
engineers worked side by side with aerodynamicists of the Cuatro Vientos wind tunnel, which resulted in an
enlargement of the wingspan, an increase in the wing gross area, fairing of the main landing gear and, finally, fairing
and closing the cockpit for both pilot and navigator (see Figure 1). Also various modifications were carried out in
the Hispano Suiza engine. Table 1 summarises the main data of the modified aircraft.
3,8
Table 1. Main data of Brguet XIX Cuatro Vientos
Engine Hispano Suiza
12Nb
Maximum power (HP) 720
Wingspan (m) 18.30
Length (m) 10.70
Wing area (m2) 59.97
MTOW (kg) 6375
Empty weight (kg) 1900
Wing loading (kg/m2) 106.4
Fuel capacity (l) 5325
Oil capacity (l) 250
Maximum speed (km/h) 230
Cruise speed (km/h) 190
Range (km) Estim. 8500
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The enormous fuel tank (bidn, as it was named) between the engine and the cockpit also posed important
problems, for it had to be part of the structure and had to transmit the stresses and forces from the engine to the rest
of the airframe. A quick discharge pump was installed; so the plane could float in the sea in case of ditching.
All controls and most flying instruments were duplicated, which was very important not only to share the
piloting workload in an extremely long flight, but also in the case of sudden sickness as it happened in the middle of
the raid. The plane incorporated engine indicators (RPM, oil and fuel manometers, oil and water thermometers, and
fuel quantity), flying indicators (anemometer, variometer, altimeter, artificial horizon, turn-and-bank, pitching angle,
and clock) and navigation instruments (compass, chronometers, sextants, etc). The cockpit could be open in flight to
allow the the use of astronomical instruments and the firing of smoke and luminous torches, thus providing
information on the winds and bearing shifting.
A two blade, fixed pitch propeller of 3.1 m diameter and a Hispano Suiza 12Nb engine, derived from the HS
12Lb, provided power and thrust to pull the aircraft in the mission. It is important to notice that, like in other long
distance flights, the fuel was a mixture of gasoline (80%) and benzol (20%), which provided the minimum specific
fuel consumption and a detonation free operation; crucial to avoid engine failures.
The total cost of the flight, including all previous studies, the airplane itself, spares sent to Cuba, etc, was
financed by the Spanish Ministry of War (official name on 1933). The airplane, numbered 195 in the Spanish
production line, had a cost of some 80.000 pesetas, engine apart, about double than a common Brguet XIX.
Finished on 15 April 1933, it flew more than 50 hours in May to check the flying qualities and for the adaptation of
the pilots to night flights.
III. Aerodynamics and performances of the Cuatro Vientos
As indicated earlier, modelling the aerodynamics and performances of historic airplanes is similar to the
preliminary design phases of a new project, with the main advantage of knowing beforehand the configuration and
that the airplane is airworthy. However, the drag polar and other relevant features are unknown or incomplete and
can only be estimated. For various reasons, not being the least important two World Wars and a dramatic Civil War
in the Spanish case, many plans and details have been lost; even of those airplanes proudly shown in national
museums. This happens for example with the Brguet XIX type: the Paris and Madrid Air Museums, among others,
exhibit well preserved and beautiful models, but the technical data available are very scarce indeed.
The first step is to identify the airfoil. This was carried out with the help of a few constructive plans and
photographs that depicted the airfoil shape with high precision. Later, by comparison with the geometric data of
many airfoils included in technical reports of the 1920s a perfect matching was found to the Halbronn 3, a relatively
thin airfoil (8%) developed in France and tested in the Eiffel wind tunnel on 1916. This airfoil had a rather
symmetric drag polar, negligible lift at zero angle of attack and a maximum lift over drag ratio near 20 at an angle of
attack of about 5 degrees.
9
The next step has been to estimate the drag polar of the complete airplane. A common drag polar with a parasitic
component and a parabolic term depending on the lift coefficient is used.
10,11
2
0 D D L
C C k C = + (1)
The first term in the right hand side is the sum of all contributions from the braced, wired wing, the
fuselage, empennage, landing gear and engine cowling. To obtain it, the friction coefficients have been computed at
the Reynolds number corresponding to 190 km/h and 1000 m, with transition from laminar to turbulent boundary
layer at 15% chord. All geometric data have been measured on production plans and three view drawings. The result
is C
D0
=0.0148, which gives an equivalent parasitic area (C
D0
times S) of 0.89 m
2
, just on the lower end of the 0.9 to
1.7 m
2
range typical of most biplanes of this period,
12
as it should be for a distance record breaking aircraft.
Interestingly, the increase in drag produced by the voluminous tank in the front fuselage is more than compensated
by the increase in wing area.
The lift dependent component was estimated according to the classical biplane theory plus a correction for
trim drag and viscous induced drag; this last known from the airfoil data. Numerically the estimated drag polar is
7
2
0.0148 0.101
D L
C C = + (2)
With this parabolic polar the estimated maximum lift over drag ratio is 12.93 (at C
L
=0.383), exactly
matching the reported figure of 13 found in the wind tunnel tests.
13
As another checking of the correctness of the
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guessed drag polar, the estimated maximum speed at 0.9 MTOW and 1000 m, with a propeller efficiency of 0.70 is
about 225 km/h, accurate enough for the present purpose.
Using again the biplane theory the lift curve slope is computed to be approximately 4.5 rad
-1
. According to
production plans and documents, the wing was fitted to the fuselage at an angle of incidence of about 4.5 , very
close to the one corresponding to maximum L/D, providing a lift coefficient of 0.35 at zero angle of attack of the
aircraft.
The main performance of a long distance flight is, precisely, the specific range. And also, in parallel, the
speed, altitude and attitude to obtain in each moment the maximum distance per unit mass of fuel burnt. The
distance travelled is obtained according the so-named Breguet range equation (Eq. 3):
i
f
W
h m
P W
L dW
R
gc D W
q q
=
}
(3)
Assuming that q
h
, q
m
, (propeller and mechanical efficiencies) and c
P
(specific fuel consumption) are
constant, the best range is obtained when, for any given weight W, L/D is maximum. This is equivalent to fly at
constant angle of attack: in this case at C
L
=0.383, or o
fus
=0.4 all along the flight. Available engine data show that,
although c
P
varied both with power and regime, the variation was moderate, even negligible, except during the last
part of the flight, when the power demanded was only about 1/3 that of the beginning.
IV. Flying conditions during the Grand Raid to Cuba
The flying conditions on June 9-10 1933 were defined by aerodynamicists and engineers.
7,8,13
The altitude
was limited by engine operation and cockpit temperature between 500 and 2000 m. Since after take-off the wing
loading was relatively high (106 kg/m
2
), the setting was established at around 200 km/h and 500 m, corresponding
to C
L
=0.58; far from optimum conditions but still at L/D=11.9. The prescribed subsequent evolution of speed,
altitude and engine regime was defined to reach the maximum specific range within the limitations of the engine
operating envelope, meteorological conditions, etc.
Figure 2 shows the route followed by the Cuatro Vientos. When the pilots, Barbern and Collar, flew
over Madeira they knew that they were ahead of schedule (5-10%) but also that they had burnt between 15 and 20%
too much fuel. They reacted by decreasing the power setting, adjusting regime and speed, but continued a little bit
too fast and a little bit too high. The flight was almost always faster than planned, arriving at Camagey in 40.4
hours, some 3 hours earlier than scheduled (i.e. 7%). The reason for that is not known. The error in the angle of
attack between the optimum and the one guessed in this reproduction is only about 1.5, and between the one
guessed and that prescribed by the Aerodynamics Laboratory only 0.5, very difficult to assess with the instruments
of that time.
The effect of this small speed off-set was worsened by the exigency of flying almost permanently at 1500
m for meteorological reasons, since for the drag polar and engine performance the best range would had required a
four step cruise, at 500, 1000, 1500 and 2000 m, each one for some 10 hours. To keep the appropriate dynamic
pressure, flying higher equalled to fly faster, thus mismatching the prescribed optimum cruise conditions at any
given time, with the corresponding effect in fuel consumption and the aircraft weight. The flatness of the L/D versus
C
L
curve allowed the pilots to reach Cuba, but not Havana, the desirable landing point. From Camagey to Havana
the distance is 500 km, requiring about 150 kg of fuel at the end of the journey, but the airplane had only some 80 kg
left on landing at Camagey.
8
Wind effects have been considered as a plausible cause for the aforementioned mismatching in the present
investigation but have to be discarded for they can not produce at the same time a faster flight (which is equivalent
to have a tailwind) and a less efficient flight (burning more fuel). The already cited explanation based on a small
mismatch in speed and altitude seems to be the most appropriate from the technical point of view. On the other
hand, a crack was found in the enormous fuel tank after landing at Havana. Could this be the cause for the
apparently extra fuel burnt? Very likely not, for a crack leaking fuel over so many hours, partly in turbulent weather,
would have produced a larger spill. The crack was probably produced in one of the two landings in Cuba: Camagey
or Havana; for the important stresses concentrated around the engine-tank-wings-fuselage joint.
7
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5
V. Air fighting in the Battle of Britain
The Second World War started with two blitzkriegs (lightning wars) carried out by the German Army: the
invasion of Poland in September 1939; and the conquest of France and the Benelux in May-June 1940. By mid June
1940 the military operations had ended in Western Europe.
14
The Nazi Government wanted a Peace Treaty with the
United Kingdom and, for some weeks, Britain was free of severe attacks. Only some of the important harbours in
the English Channel or the North Sea were bombed. It was the time for discrete diplomacy. But the British, under
the leadership of their Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, were resolved to restore borders and status quo in
Continental Europe. The naval raid to Marsa-al-Kabir (Algeria) to destroy the core of the French Navy and avoid it
being taken by the Germans and other less spectacular operations were clear signs of the British determination.
Hitler and his General Staff prepared operation Seelwe, the invasion of Britain. However, due to the absolute
naval supremacy of the United Kingdom, the invasion could only take place after selective bombing of harbours and
inland facilities and the destruction of the Royal Air Force.
At the end of July 1940 near 3000 aircraft (including about 900 Me-109), scattered from Norway to Bretagne,
were ready for Seelwe. But because of adverse meteorological conditions the air offensive was delayed up to
August 12 when several squadrons bombed radar facilities in the South of England. On August 13 hundreds of
aircraft attacked military objectives in the Southeast, but the results were poor. On the contrary, the Luftwaffe lost
near 50 aircraft for only 13 airplanes on the British side. The German tactics consisted on arranging squadrons of
bombers escorted by Me-109. But, because of its short range, the Me-109 could only fly a few miles into Britain,
leaving the bombers vulnerable to Hurricanes, RAFs second rank fighters. The Spitfires concentrated in avoiding
Me-109 penetration. Both airplanes exhibited similar performances as will be shown later, albeit with some
advantage for the British airplane. The ferrous determination and unbelievable skills of British pilots, authentic
heroes of the Battle of Britain, more than counterbalanced the numerical superiority of the Luftwaffe.
On the other hand, the character and energy of Lord Beaverbrook, Minister of the newly created Ministry of
Aeronautical Construction, and of Sir Hugh Dowding, Air Chief Marshal, were essential to have the RAF perfectly
prepared for the Battle of Britain. The Ministry succeeded in assigning top priority to fighter production, thus
delivering to the RAF many more aircraft than expected, mainly Spitfires; whereas the Air Chief Marshal organised
the squadrons in the most efficient way and attracted large numbers of young, well motivated pilots.
Till the end of October 1940 the Luftwaffe attempted either the destruction of the RAFs and the airplane
manufacturing facilities, or the weakening of the British moral strength. The Luftwaffe failed in both aims. In spite
of severe bombing and dramatic damages, Britain resisted mainly thanks to the air superiority.
14,15
The close rivalry
between Me-109 and Spitfire forced the respective design teams to continuously improve both aircraft. This
evolution will be described in the next chapter. Most data reported here refer to the initial protagonists of the Battle
of Britain; i.e. Spitfire Mk I and Me Bf 109E; but later versions will also be described.
VI. Comparative evolution of Me-109 and Spitfire
The Me-109 was designed by Prof. Wilhelm Messerschmitt, as a development of the successful Bf 108 Taifun. It
entered into service in 1937 as Me Bf 109B, equipped with a Jumo engine of 670 HP. Because of its clear
disadvantage with respect to the British counterparts, subsequent versions were gradually improved. The most
popular of them, the Me Bf 109E, appeared in 1939 equipped with a 1100 HP direct injection Daimler-Benz engine.
Although the total number of Me-109 produced is not known, it is estimated to pass 30000.
16
On the other side, the Supermarine Spitfire was developed by R.J. Mitchell from the Supermarine S6 that had
won the Schneider Trophy for hydroplanes over three successive years at mid 30s. The first Spitfire Mk I entered
into service in 1938 equipped with a Rolls Royce Merlin engine which delivered 900 HP. The airframe was
compact, light and with elliptic planform wings. The liquid-cooled engine, although adequate for high speed and
tight turns, had an ordinary carburettor; that obliged the airplane to dive before making vertical loops to have
positive g. This problem was later solved. Many versions were developed during the war, until denomination Mk
IX, with different engines, weapons and propellers, totaling near 25000 aircraft produced.
17
In the present investigation, the main objective is to obtain accurate estimates of the drag polar and some
relevant performances of the different versions of Spitfire and Me-109. To this end, the first step as in the former
study of the Cuatro Vientos airplane, a parabolic drag polar is assumed.10,11
2
2
0 0
L
D D L D
C
C C k C C
A t
= + = + (4)
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The induced drag efficiency factor, , depends mainly upon the circulation distribution and, secondarily, on the
airfoil drag polar and the trimming of the aircraft. The literature reports values between 0.75 and 0.9.
10,11,18,19
Since
the wing planform of the Spitfire was designed to minimise the induced drag, suitable values of for Spitfire and
Me-109 were assumed to be 0.87 and 0.85, respectively. Then C
D0
is computed from data of maximum speed and
available power. With published performances
16,17
the estimated parabolic drag polars are C
D
=0.0172+0.0652 C
L
2
for the Spitfire Mk I and C
D
=0.0214+0.0623 C
L
2
for the Me Bf 109E. The maximum lift-over-drag ratio is 14.9 for
the British airplane and 13.7 for the German aircraft. This supremacy in aerodynamic efficiency was kept during the
war in subsequent versions.
The Spitfire Mk I was fitted with NACA 2213 airfoil at the root and NACA 2209.4 at the tip, providing a
maximum lift coefficient of 1.35. In the Me Bf 109E the airfoils were NACA 2R1 14.2 and NACA 2R1 11.35 at the
root and tip, respectively, which yielded C
Lmax
=1.4. Taking into account the wing loading of both airplanes, their
stall speeds were 37.8 m/s (73.5 kts) for the Spitfire and 39.9 m/s (77.6 kts) for the Me-109.
Figures 3 to 6 present the maximum level speed and maximum rate of climb in terms of the altitude for the
Spitfire and Me-109 respectively. The curves show the progress achieved along the war. The maximum speed
increased from 153 to 200 m/s in the case of the Spitfire, and from 150 to 195 m/s in the Me-109, almost 50 m/s in
both aircraft. Analogously, the maximum rate of climb was permanently improved. For example, the Spitfire
increased 10 m/s at sea level in a period of four years. Interestingly the British improvements were always a step
further than that of their German rivals, which favoured its air superiority in all European and North African
operation theaters.
Manoeuvrability is a key point for air superiority. In the present work it is represented by the features of
sustained turns in the horizontal plane. The tightest sustained turns are performed at V
A
, close to stall. That means
20
1/ 3
2
max
0
2
A
L
D
P
V
C
S C
A
q

t
(
(
(
=
(
| |
+
(
|
\ .
(5)
where P is available power, stands for propeller-transmission combined efficiency (assumed to be 0.8 in all cases),
is air density and S is gross wing area. The corresponding load factor is computed from Equation 6:20
2
max
2
A L
V S C
n
W

= (6)
Within the limited accuracy of the methods used here, the sustained turn load factor found is 2.9 for the Siptfire
Mk I and 3.0 for the Me Bf 109E. The load factor of later versions of the Spitfire increased up to 3.2, whereas those
of the German aircraft were kept around 3.0.
In an analogous way, the minimum radius of gyration is obtained from Eq. 7:
20
2
min
2
1
A
V
r
g n
=

(7)
As indicated earlier, the Spitfire exhibited a smaller radius of gyration, 155 m against 172 m for the Me-109.
Interestingly, the results obtained with the present model show that no further improvements were achieved in this
variable during the later years of war in any of both airplanes.
Figure 7 shows the evolution in weight and power of the Spitfire and the Me-109. Heavier but most powerful,
the British aircraft was always ahead of its German rival.
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VII. Conclusions
History is a permanent source of inspiration for technical work. The approach used here, mixing up case studies
of historical relevance and equations derived from Aerodynamics and Flight Mechanics, is very well appreciated by
students for its pedagogic and motivating character.
On the other hand, this approach may throw some light on features and performances of historic airplanes that
are lost or inaccessible. This is the case of the Spanish Cuatro Vientos whose journey from Seville to Camagey,
Cuba, has been reproduced in technical details that were not known. Regarding the rivalry between the Spitfire and
the Me-109, the present research shows that although it is generally argued that the superiority of the British airplane
came from its Rolls Royce Merlin engine, its advanced aerodynamics played a similar role in achieving such
superiority.
Acknowledgments
The authors express their gratitude to Antonio Gonzalez-Betes for his important contributions to the study of the
Cuatro Vientos, including the search of technical details completely hidden in various places. The authors dedicate
this paper to their graduate students of the optional course on Quantification of the evolution of airplanes;
particularly to Messrs. Iaki Ascacibar, Iaki Armendariz, Francisco Herrada and Jose Miguel Encinas, who
provided much of the material used to analyse the rivalry between the Spitfire and the Me-109.
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Anderson, J. D., A History of Aerodynamics and Its Impact on Flying Machines, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
(UK), 1997.
2
Beaty, D., The Water Jump, Secker & Warburg, London (UK), 1976.
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Martinez-Val, R., Palacin, F.J., Alonso, J.J. and Lopez, O., Debating Aeronautics from History. A Doctorate Experience,
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Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit, Reno, Nevada, USA, AIAA Paper 2006-0331.
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Snchez Mndez, J., and Delgado Rub, J., Dornier Wal and Brguet XIX, Flying Together, EADS CASA, Madrid (E),
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Les avions de 1923, Revue General de L'Aronautique, Vol. 3, N 21, 1923, p. 120.
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Warleta, J., La serie Brguet XIX en Espaa, Aeroplano. Revista de Historia Aeronutica, N 1, 1983.
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Martnez-Val, R. and Gonzalez-Betes, A., Modelling the aerodynamics and performances of a historic airplane: the Spanish
Cuatro Vientos", 3rd International Conference on Advanced Engineering Design, Prague, Czech Republic, June 2003.
8
Gonzlez-Betes, A., Gloria y tragedia del vuelo Sevilla-Cuba-Mjico, Aeroplano. Revista de Historia Aeronutica, n 1,
1983.
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Aerodynamic Characteristics of Aerofoils, NACA Report 93, 1921.
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Torenbeek, E., Synthesis of Subsonic Airplane Design, Kluwer, Dordrecht (NL), 1982.
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Roskam, J., Airplane design. Volume 6: Preliminary Calculation of Aerodynamic, Thrust and Power Characteristics,
Roskam Aviation, Ottawa (KA, USA), 1987.
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Warner, E. P., Airplane Design: Performance, 2
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Edition, McGraw-Hill, New York (USA), 1936.
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Herrera, E., Barbern y Collar, Madrid Cientfico, 1934, p.197-199.
14
Cartier, R., La Segunda Guerra Mundial, Larousse-Paris Match-Planeta, Barcelona (E), 1966.
15
Legrand, J., Crnica de la aviacin, Plaza y Jans, Esplugues (E), 1992.
16
www.bf109.com
17
www.spitfiresociety.demon.co.uk/index.htm
18
Stinton, D., The anatomy of the aeroplane, 2
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Edition, Blackwell, Oxford (UK), 1998.
19
Whitford, R., Fundamentals of fighter design, Airlife, Shrewsbury (UK), 2000.
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Miele, A., Theory of flight paths, Addison-Wesley, Reading (Mass., USA), 1962.
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Figure 1. The Spanish Breguet XIX Super TR Cuatro Vientos.
Figure 2. The route of Cuatro Vientos grand raid from Seville to Camaguey, Cuba, and then to Havanna
and Mexico.
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Figure 3. Evolution of maximum level speed of Supermarine Spitfire.
Figure 4. Evolution of maximum rate of climb of Supermarine Spitfire.
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Figure 5. Evolution of maximum level speed of Messerschmitt Me109.
Figure 6. Evolution of maximum rate of climb of Messerschmitt Me109.
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Figure 7. Evolution of weight (solid lines) and power (dashed lines) of Spitfire and Me-109.
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