Just the opening verse made me not like this. The Me Bf 109 was a legendary fighter with over 35,000 produced and top fighter of all-time with over 15,000 kills by itself. LW pilots preferred the 109 over the Fw-190 and Me-262. It was cramped, lacked good rear visibility and was handicapped by the outward retracting main gear. But it's engine, the mighty DB 605 (from 1942-45) was excellent. It gave the final K-4 a speed of 452mph and a climb no Allied or Soviet fighter could match at 4835 fpm! This was higher climb than a Me-262! Your remarks about the MiG-21 are also misleading. Most produced jet ever at 12,000 used by over 40 nations with nearly 100 kills. A workhorse that is still around after 61 years! Updated versions can still be dangerous. The rest on your list are not important to me for comment, except that the US F/A-18 Hornets and Super Hornets are the finest multirole aircraft available right now and best US carrier aircraft.

We sang the original when I flew my glider pilot's licence back in the nineties. The original deals with various USAAF plane types and their vices (whether real or imagined) but certainly anyone would like to fly, say, P-47, P-51 or P-38. I attempted to be true to the spirit of the original. What comes to Bf 109, it served in FinnAF 1943-1954, and its lifespan was hopelessly over-prolonged in '50s. Bf 109 was a wartime disposable plane, not designed for a long lifespan. The engine was desinged to endure 23 hours (and produce maximum power) when it was to be scrapped: Finns re-used the engines and flew 200-300 hours. In early fifties both the airframes and engines began to be simply over-used and ready for scrap heap. Two Bf 109s exist in Finland as museum pieces. Ilmari Juutilainen scored 58 of his 94 kills with Bf 109, highest by any non-German ace.

Actually all the planes dealt in this song were (and are) well liked by their pilots. The only exception is Folland Gnat (FinnAF designation GN), which was very maintenance intensive, and suffered several problems because of sloppy maintenance (by conscript mechanics). Both Draken (DK) and MiG-21 (MG) were liked by their pilots, and they were considered roughly equal: on dogfights, it was usually the skills of the pilots which decided, not the plane performance. The FinnAF pilots love F-18 (HN): they consider it as a non-overcomputerized pilot's airplane. On Bf 109, its most nasty characters were vicious take-off and landing properties: it had a tendency to crank to port on take-off. One of the corners at Utti airfield (our DZ) is called "Mersukulma" (Messer corner) as several inexperienced pilots managed to crash their planes in that corner oin take-off.

Sorry to have to respond in a heavy-handed way, but your remarks on the Bf 109 are still misleading. The Bf 109 in the hands of a LW pilot was lethal right up until the last day. The plane had been in combat since the Spanish Civil War and made the most aces in history. The Finnish experience as disposable was a result of usage of various types of aircraft supplied by Britain, the US, captured Allied aircraft supplied by Germany, captured Soviet aircraft, and a few indigenous VL aircraft along with the German-supplied Messers-G. Translation of your remarks is that your pilots were inferior to German pilots operating the same machine. LW pilots had better training, had more experience, higher kills matched to higher skills, and the tenacity of Nazi ideology. The level of their skill in regards to your mention of crashes is superceded by the majority of LW pilots who landed on rough Finnish fields still performing 2 point landings and dropping the tail which the Finnish pilots seldom did and considered too dangerous. As for your pilot with 58 kills... meaningless. Hundreds of LW aces had scores over 58. They had scores in the 100s, 200s, and two in the 300s! And lastly, the VL attempt to improve the Me Bf 109G with the Pyorremyrsky in no way would have made a difference to a LW pilot in a standard G. It was aesthetically a bit nicer for your pilots but in combat would still be inferior to a G in LW hands and was inferior to the K-4. In fact, the K-4 was superior to the Mustang, Thunderbolt, and Lightning in performance and armament. Finland did wonders with its junk AF, but don't ever compare it to the Luftwaffe or compare Finnish pilots in Bf 109s to LW pilots in the same. The Me Bf 109 is the greatest fighter in history with the most kills and most aces made. And it must have had some merit as Finland retained it for a time postwar like France, Czechoslovakia, and Spain (plus Israel from Czech stock)!

Also, it's hard to be dismissive of the MiG-21 which beat US fighters over N Vietnam early in the war. Because of the MiG-21 kill ratio, new US programs started like Top Gun and Red Flag. The E-66 testbed also reached almost 114,000 ft while the MiG-21 Analog tested the wing shape for the Tu-144. The IAF has stated that their biggest adversary was the MiG-21. It makes a good weapons platform, so with updated radar, side intakes, redesigned cockpit, and new weapons could be extended for another decade or so for combat. Wait... who already did that? Pakistan with the JF-17 which costs a mere $25 million per unit vs $210 million for a F-35 which is still behind schedule. Not revolutionary, but evolutionary and still lethal...

Ilmari Juutilainen flew Bf 109G-6s MT-426 and MT-457 and Bf 109G-2s MT-212 and MT-222. His total score was 94 confirmed kills and possibly 32 more unconfirmed. The 58 mentioned before were only Me Bf 109 kills for the comparison to LW pilot Bf 109 kills. Just to be clear.

Been away for a couple of weeks selling fireworks for the 4th of July celebrations. I have always been interested in how budget conscious nations can keep long obsolete aircraft in service, such as the Dominican Republic which continued to operate P-51 Mustangs until 1984. I was interested in Susanna's comment that the Bf-109 was considered "disposable" with an expected engine lifetime of only a couple dozen hours. Finland, of course, did not have an infinite supply of spare engines. They also did not have the operational stresses the LW did. Somewhat like the Cubans with their ancient American cars. No parts supply, but also very high fuel prices and much shorter driving distances than experienced by the majority of American drivers.

Regarding the claimed stats of engine failures of all aircraft of WW2, there will always be discrepancies just like aircraft kill over claiming. The Bf 109's DB series of engines from 601 to 605 were plagued by over-complexity and added Hirth and TKL supercharger technical issues. The LW also used their engines harder for longer periods of time and the engine batches changed as the war progressed. Avg LW fighter engine life for all types was between 50-80 hrs. Avg Allied and Soviet was 200-300 hrs. Operating at high altitude, high temperature zones, and constant bad weather all caused problems. Many Allied two-engined aircraft lost engines in flight due to various issues . The P-38 is a good example. The He-177 engines were coupled, so what appeared as a two-engined bomber was in fact a four-engined bomber with massive overheating! But on the whole, German engines had the highest technology from the beginning with fuel injection, multi-stage superchargers, MW boost, and excellence in design. Both German prop and jet engines led to post war Allied and Soviet clones, then evolutionary advancements that the Germans already laid out by 1945. The Finnish Bf 109s and Me-410s AFAIK were not new builds sent from a factory during the war. They were of older batches. Germany also supplied enemy captured aircraft from Europe to Finland. Unacceptable types they would not incorporate into the LW. Only the Italian Fiat G.55 Centauro was to be built by Germany with DB engine upgrades and German weapons (thus becoming modified G.56 Ochse). But Italy switched sides, so no licensed production of a third piston prop fighter for the LW. Sadly, the decision to make the horrible Me Bf 110 instead of accepting either the excellent He-100D record-setter or the private Fw-187 Falke (Falcon) caused the LW much frustration during the BoB. Either could have made a solid third fighter for the LW. The Bf 110 was later turned into a good night fighter with IR and oblique guns... but it was no He-219!!!