Theodor Weissenberger's BF-109: Restoration of a Wreck Recovery at Pima Air and Space Museum

As popularly requested, a look at just one of the active restoration projects at Pima, its history, and some of the details of what an undertaking like this entails.
Photo sources and credits:
Example of air filter commons.wikime...
Example of horizontal supports: commons.wikime...
Follow the museum:
/ pimaairandspace
/ pimaair
/ pimaairspacemuseum
/ sofigaming
/ sofigaming
/ the_sofilein

[@powerjets3512]

Wow. This guy not only knows his plane, but equally impressive he explains it so well in such a logical fashion.

[@PBW891]

This guys recall and and mastery of obscure facts is quite impressive. In other words, he knows his shit.

[@michaelcoe9824]

He knows his Schmidt

[@anonymous8780]

@@michaelcoe9824 Schmitt*

[@michaelcoe9824]

@@anonymous8780 Shize!

[@davidwilburn6314]

@@michaelcoe9824 You mean ScheiBe!

[@havardhovdet9217]

For sure, but he should look up a current map, so he can get his references correct in regards to countries (ie Finland vs Russia...).

[@oldgoat142]

Sofi taking me on a virtual trip through an aviation museum is a delightful way to spend some time. 33 minutes of fun! You're a great content creator, Sofi. You ask a question, and allow the person to answer fully without interruption. I personally greatly appreciate it.

[@tomkershaw4384]

I could listen to this guy talk all day.

[@gregory196011]

I'm still a tank dork but, love all the Air craft of WWII. again sofi great job!

[@stephenkrall7609]

Sofi, this was really cool. It is great seeing all the old birds getting rebuilt as they can. it was quite an era to technology. Looking forward to the 262 video.

[@yes_head]

One of -- if not THE most -- refreshing and honest discussions about warbird restoration I've ever seen. Thanks.

[@combatvet1307]

Great Video, Sofi. Bf-109 has always been a unique plane to me. Thanks for the video!

[@Watson1]

What a lot of knowledge that gentleman has. Very well explained. Thank you

[@stefanfroschen3235]

A great presentation. I wish you much success in restoring the project! Many greetings from Germany!

[@AndrewBannister-nq8qo]

Thanks for this ! The 109 is my favorite warbird .

[@OlSgtLove]

Sofi , A excellent video on this 109 !!!! I have enjoyed your exploration into aircraft. I have always love Military aircraft. Very well done and the Gentleman is very well verse . I also love seeing you asking more questions and talking too. Great job Sofi . Take care .

[@MGB-learning]

Always an outstanding video and presentation. Thank you Sofilein.

[@bigsarge2085]

Fascinating.

Very nice Video. Good Info and brilliant Audio :)

[@ggginforlab]

Great communicator!

[@cheesenoodles8316]

I have been lucky enough to live by the POF since the 80s. Visited through the years and watch restorations progress. My first visit, maybe 2 hours at the ME262. Back then WWII vets were common to see.

[@StevenG222]

I admit, I tear up a bit when ww2 armor and aircraft doesnt get restored to working order, but I understand! The 109 is an awsome aircraft! As usual, I'm jealous of sofilein's adventures, but I truly appreciate sharing the videos!

[@DumbledoreMcCracken]

Please make more videos with this man. He is wonderful.

[@chrisward7085]

Congratulations on an informative and accurate view of aircraft restoration and of the specific challenges of restoration on a museum budget. Best wishes with the BF109F and everything else you take on.

[@Chiller11]

Fascinating look at a transitional Bf109. The differing design philosophies and the strengths and weaknesses of the Messerschmitt models are really interesting.

[@Mtlmshr]

A great explanation of why and how an aircraft is restored and the level of restoration that occurs! Thanks

[@TheKevintegra19]

Wow, great stuff, I learned so much about 109's in this video...!

[@babuzzard6470]

Greeting from Australia, great, informative vid, thanks so much.🇦🇺 the 109 was one of the first models I built as a kid, always been a favourite.

[@mypl510]

It is a must see museum for any aircraft fan! Can't wait to go back someday soon!

[@nriqueog]

What a great presentation.

[@mattfulmer4243]

Hi, Sofi. Love all your tank stuff, but it's really cool that you did an aircraft vid and you could not have picked a better subject.

[@darkredvan]

Great Video, Mr. Marchand is very knowledgeable about the Bf 109. Thanks for posting. 👍

[@samuraijaydee]

I Love that today we colaberate over these aircraft, rather than fight to the death with them.

[@daystatesniper01]

Really enjoyed this video , this guy knows his stuff

[@fatcat3211]

What a rare aircraft. Usually you see Spanish Buchons being restored.

[@whpruitt1]

Fascinating and informative. Great job, Sofi! Thanks!

[@Jimmyatsea]

Thanks for showing the Pima air museum. I visited them from Florida because of you. A great museum with lots of aircraft types that had been flown by the SAAF (my old team).

[@johnbrooks1269]

"American military history researcher" extraordinaire is the apt description for this lovely young lady. Sofilein I do so enjoy your videos and your dedication to the viewers. Pima ASM might benefit from a dedicated 3D printer. Sections that are hidden (under a cowling for instance) and once held parts subsequently lost could be replicated and exposed on demand. The manner in which you allow/encourage a museums spokesperson is rare and oh so excellent. Thanks for sharing. Cheers! 🤠

[@edstanislaw2273]

Outstanding work thanks

[@Sab2727]

Great video , glad to see theres still a passion for these old warbirds. Kudos to all on this restoration .

[@mikkoveijalainen7430]

Fascinating video. Thank you for sharing it with us Sofi.

[@trespire]

Great to see Sofi again. As an Ex F-4E (Kurnass) maintainer I'm happy you're touching on other aspects such as air power. Ground attack jets and fast propellor powered planes can have a huge punch, even with "smaller" 30 to 40mm caliber. It's the added ground speed that increases the kinetic punch at a square ratio ( K = ( m x V^2) / 4 ). (sorry for the equation) Late WW2 panes, when attacking in a dive were flying close to Mach-1. Todays jets still attack at the same speeds. The BF-109 was a force to reckon with, even for MBT and heavy armour.

[@Mageli]

Hi, from Finland 🖐

[@rc166honda]

Genuinely that was absolutely fascinating, many thanks for posting.

[@user-nn7mb4ip4l]

Love the Me 109,F6F Hellcat, P 47 D razor back!! ..Great video!!!!

[@stephendwyer6005]

Great video lots of facts with not going too much into the technical minutiae. i really enjoyed the video Sofi especially since i have 37 years in F-16 maintenance.

[@ianwilliams9068]

Keep up good work on restoration projects, aviation and armour...!!!

[@scottmalkinson6983]

My favourite WW2 Aircraft.

[@marknelson5929]

The Bf 109 E (Emil) never went into service with an engine mounted cannon in your intro. It was tested with them but vibration precluded its use. The cannon first saw use in your F model after the issues had been resolved. Alongside the altered tail unit you mentioned on the F model, this aircraft also had a completely new wing design which precluded internal wing mounted armament like in the E model. Lastly from the cockpit forward the whole cowling, spinner and oil cooler fairing was much more streamlined. Some say the F model was the best balance between weight and handling - creating a lovely aircraft to fly. As from the G model onwards, increased weight etc affected the handling. Good to see an F model being restored, they are relatively rare survivors.

[@bundy3132]

If you ever get a chance to get to Australia, check out the war museum in Canberra, they have a komet 163 , me262, me 109, lancaster bomber, parts of Von rictoffen's plane and uniform, the only surviving ww1 german tank mephisto etc + a hell of a lot more... all well cared for and well preserved, definately worth a look

[@gunterreihnhol6507]

Fantastisch!!

[@russellnixon9981]

Excellent presentation and great production, The RAF Lancaster heavy bomber Just Jane project is a similar example, they have to get parts of aluminium manufactured in the US and shipped to the UK all very expensive and takes ages.

[@wadejustanamerican1201]

Thanks for sharing. You always have the best interviews.

[@Sofilein]

Thanks, I appreciate that!

[@robertfrost1683]

Thanks Sofi for this !

[@buster5803]

Thanks for sharing this.😊

[@GhostOps21]

Great presentation on this 109! Love Pima, was the first Air/Space museum I went to with my Grandpa back when I was a young kid visiting them in Arizona. He bought me a fired .50 cal casing, that is still on my desk to this day. Thanks Sofi ,Mr. Marchand, and everyone at Pima! Hope to get back there some day.

[@kristoffermangila]

Lots of new birds on display at Pima, like the last Pan Am Boeing 747SP, which eventually served NASA as a flying observatory.

[@jasonferguson74]

Love what you do Sofi,

[@Abbeville_Kid]

Sofilein is checking out a 109… sign me up.

[@Lutz101]

Interesting. Thanks.

[@davidroberts2777]

Very cool stuff. I enjoy this type of content.

[@garynew9637]

This bloke knows his stuff!

[@Terry_Fritz]

Sofilien; you are an amazing presenter. You ask a question and then allow people to say what they want to tell us without trying to make it into 30 second sound bytes for the attention challenged by interrupting. I tip my hat to you. 🦘

[@thegodofhellfire]

this is the messerschmitt, it schmitts messers.

[@thkempe]

I think that some of the designer's ancestors did that (forging knives).

[@vonWeizhacker69]

what does a fokker do..?

[@thkempe]

​@@vonWeizhacker69 Anthony Fokker was a Dutchman. In contrast to Messerschmitt, his family name does not describe a profession. Fokker/Focker comes from the old first name Folkhard, which means Volk/folk + hart/hard. A similar traditional German name would be Volker, but people in Germany no longer use traditional names. Btw, the former president of the German Federal Republic whose picture you are using, is spelled Weizsäcker (wheat + sack).

[@vonWeizhacker69]

@@thkempe Thank you, very informative. I bet you're great at any party. ;)

[@Manta-82]

Thank you!! Loved the history lesson

[@outfield1988]

Awesome video ,thank you

[@aceshigh6499]

These aircraft are extremely challenging to land.

[@matthewpayne42]

So is the Spitfire.

[@Sofilein]

I drive on the ground so ngl all aircraft sound challenging to land, to me 😂

[@TheJustinJ]

The BF-109 landing gear is "splayed" at an angle. Just like rolling a tire that is leaning to one side, this causes it to turn. When both landing gear are splayed like this, they both try to steer -away- -from- *toward* the centerline. If you put more weight on one, it will swerve the other direction. When it swerves, then it leans harder yet on that side, and it swerves harder. This in addition to the fact the center of gravity (mass centroid) of the aircraft is behind the main landing gear. This exacerbates the swerving tendency, as the weight is located behind the tire contact patches and continues to diverge. With enough side-load, the gear snaps off. Ruining the propeller and engine. Damaging the airframe. Possibly injuring the pilot or even flipping over and lighting afire. I've heard that this was the most produced aircraft in history. And fully 1/3rd of the were destroyed in accidents. The Spitfire was EASY to land. Comparatively. Its landing gear is narrow, sure. But it does not diverge. All pilot accounts said the Spitfire was easy to land. And accident data shows it was at least 5x easier to land than the BF-109. A flight instructor of mine who had an opportunity to fly a spitfire, and a P-51. AND a BF-109 said the Spit was "easy" it "flew like a general aviation aircraft. Any pilot can fly it" to the P-51 "high wing-loading, sharp stall" to the Bf-109 "It's entirely a different animal. It cant be compared to Spitfire, or P-40" (another narrow gear plane of the era).

[@bramster-b9v]

Very interesting, good luck with the project.

[@daguard411]

Thank You!

[@briancox2721]

What our museum friend said about the cowling interchangeability still applies today. I was involved in a project about ten years ago to improve the as built shape of a body panel for the F-35. The previous supplier was so off that each one had to be modified, tweeked, shimmed, and forced to fit each aircraft. When we were done, the part was replaceable and interchangeable rated, meaning you could take a replacement panel off the shelf and it would fit without modification, and you could swap panels between aircraft without modification.

[@barryfenwick609]

great.

[@DumbledoreMcCracken]

Wonderful history

[@grimdesaye6534]

This was Awsome! Please Sofi, could you do another model build? Thank you for making History even more fun. God Bless you. 😊

[@user-em7lp1sb4k]

Man, this dude knows his shit very interesting video.

[@KevinMeeds]

At last, a realistic view regarding data plate 'restorations'.

[@Octopootie1]

Nice! The 109 is my favorite aircraft I look forward to this projects completion. Just one little autistic nitpick about the basic facts on the F-4 stated at the beginning. The armament was not unchanged from previous versions. One of the main changes of the F-4 from the F-2 was replacing the 15mm MG 151/15 nose cannon in the F-2, to the 20mm MG 151/20. The wing mounted 20mm cannons in the earlier "E" 109's used MG FF's, which had a slower RoF and muzzle velocity than the MG 151/20.

[@NS-ex6cm]

Her expression was priceless - "Humm...I have no idea of what this guy is talking about"

[@OlSgtLove]

Sofi , hope you will look into the B-17s ,B-24s , P-51 ,and the P-40 ,plus many more . Another idea would be to do a story on the Huey Helicopter that serve in Vietnam and into the Cold War Era ...Find a flying one and then take a ride .. know ALOT of Veterans would love that ...Take It Easy Sofi !!!! ❤

[@brealistic3542]

I am very glad your exploring your original aviation roots Sofi. Lots of great stuff to find out. My father actually wrote Alexander Lippish letters back and forth about a project he was doing. Ask some if your aviation friends who that was. 😉

[@mikec3253]

Thanks!

[@dagabbagool2600]

I have thousands of nerd hours piloting 109s across multiple WW2 combat flight sims and the Friedrich was always my favorite, by far. A good bit faster than the Emil, and a good bit lighter and more maneuverable than the Gustav. It's the perfect combination of speed, instantaneous and sustained turn rate, and climb rate. I've built my own ultralight and it's truly a bucket list dream to build, or really just fly any variant of the 109, real or reproduction. Maybe in 30 years it'll be possible to 3D print one!

[@scottwatrous]

I miss the Pima museum so much. And Arizona in general. Need to get back over there sometime.

[@user-bi6dd3xe9d]

Think of the Frigate Constitution, most of the original wood has been replaced, sometimes multiple times. It still is a real frigate. No expense is spared. It even has a dedicated federal live oak forest to keep the difficult to source wood coming.

[@Mitchell_Gant]

The F-4 is probably the pinnacle of the Bf-109s, and it also fought in the last glory days of the Luftwaffe. Weissenberger's story is also interesting, started out with the Bf-110 heavy fighter and was successful with it despite the bad reputation that plane gets. After the Eastern front, he fights over France in the post D-Day period, which campaigns are infamous for the Luftwaffe being almost nonexistent due to the enormous USAAF/RAF air superiority, nevertheless he does well against the american and british fighters and fighter-bombers here too.

[@mikequilty7710]

Love your content from The Pima Air Museum!

[@Sofilein]

Thank you! I love making it

[@happyhome41]

Wonderful video !

[@jimgiro211]

amazing plane(and video)and Theodor was an amazing pilot from the few that passed the 200+kills ''club''.and ofc the mighty E.Hartmann and G.Barkhorn the only 2 that passed the 300+kills

[@sumpterino]

Hell yeah Bröther, now you're cooking with C3-fuel 👌💯

[@marknelson5929]

Great presentation!

[@martinsaunders7925]

As a young boy the ragged snarl of a local spitfire would have me racing outside to watch it bank around the hill on which we lived. They flew them like they fought in them. With fast precision.

[@RattleSnakeScaleModeler]

seriously jealous... you got up close to 1 of my top 5 fav frames of the Luftwaffe . .. we gonna have to sit an chat when ya come back out to the museum. :)

[@stevechurch4728]

liked this, very good, can't wait to see more thanks.

[@Stray03]

I enjoy listening to people who are "overburdened" with knowledge on subjects (Why I like listening to museum volunteers, and some private collectors), they always take tangents on subjects adding that little bit of extra interesting information that otherwise would just be a copy paste history channel style explanation.

[@EricIrl]

I'd argue that the Buchons are indeed 109s. Yes, they weren't built by Messerschmitt and they don't have Daimler Bernz engines, but 109s built by Messerschmitt used a variety of engines too. The prototype flew with a Rolls Royce Kestrel. The A to D models had Junkers engines. And not all "Messerschmitt" 109s were built by Messerschmitt themselves. Quite a few were built by contractors, such as Erla. And the Buchon was built by Hispano Aviacion, not CASA.

[@TPath3]

Some error corrections: The F-Model was the first major overhaul of the design - a new Wing was designed with rounded tips and much improved aircooler installation - now automaticly regulated. The basic armament changed fundamentally from 2 x 7.8mm MG17 in the engine cowl + 2 x 20 mm MG/FF in the wings to a single although more potent MG151 either in the 20mm or 15mm configuration firing through the prop-hub and the 2 x 7.8mm MG17.in the cowl. The oiltank was moved from under the front cockpit cover (right behind and slightly below the instrument panel) to the place where the watertank had been in the prior versions behind prop-spinner, while the watertank was split into two and placed on each side of the crankcase - also the propblades were now changed in incidence via an automatic circuitry (with manual as an option). It's being said that you need around 1 million $ to get an airworthy airframe (wings, cockpit, tail) - without an engine and all the other stuff - of which there is plenty. To get it into a Flyer add another 1.5 Mio. atleast.

[@TuckFinn831]

Thanks for covering this bird! Tanks are cool but warbirds RULE ;)

[@georgestemple3310]

Another great video I love going out their just retired and live in tuscon been their twice was telling my son would love to work their

[@fw1421]

Great video Sofi. I’m glad you are getting into WWII aircraft. You should do a video comparing German Aces to Allied Aces. There’s a “HUGE” difference in kills. American fighter pilots kill tallies are in the 2 digits where as German tallies were in the hundreds. Eric Hartman’s kill tally is 352. American ace Richard Bong,only 40 kills. Amazing difference.

[@chickenfishhybrid44]

Germans were also in the war longer.. not to mention flying on the Eastern front. If American pilots flew against Soviets in the same time and place, I imagine they would have much higher numbers as well.

[@chickenfishhybrid44]

Eric Hartman flew 1,404 combat missions and shot down 345 Soviet and 7 American planes. From what I could find, it looks like Richard Bong flew around 200 combat missions and shot down 40 Japanese planes.

[@davidfreiboth1360]

The primary reason for the "inboard" landing gear was to facilitate transportation by trucks over the road network. With the wings off the width of the unit easily towed bahind a truck. This turned out to be a solution looking for a problem as this form of gransporation was rare although rail transportation was likely a bit easier.

[@robertmueller2023]

I have every book ever published about this aircraft. All digitized.

[@monofavoriten]

Very cool channel! Just discovered it and immediately subscribed🍻🤠

[@valleywoodstudio7345]

I remember as a kid being told by a restorer on HMS Victory in Portsmouth, that if a new part occupied the same space as the original (such as a piece of rotten wood cut out and replaced with new) it was deemed "authentic".

[@chriswisenot6888]

The Stuka he mentioned actually spent some time in the experimental aviation association museum, when the museum used to be near Milwaukee, I stood next to it! It’s now back in the Chicago museum

[@seanmalloy7249]

9:55 If I remember the situation correctly, the Bf109s could simply push over into a dive, and their fuel-injection system would keep fuel flowing to the engine; if a Spitfire or Hurricane tried the same maneuver, it would lift the float in the carburetor and starve the engine. To prevent this, Spitfire and Hurricane pilots would have to roll inverted so as to maintain positive G loads on the air frame as they followed the Bf109 down, and during the time it took them to roll inverted, they could lose sight of the German plane if it maneuvered appropriately.

[@maheralazzawi7814]

Good job