The Messerschmitt Bf 109 was a
German World War II fighter aircraft designed by Willy Messerschmitt
and Robert Lusser during the early to mid 1930s. It was one of the first
true modern fighters of the era, including such features as an
all-metal monocoque construction, a closed canopy, a retractable landing
gear, and was powered by liquid-cooled, inverted-V12 aero engines. The
109 first saw operational service during the Spanish Civil War and was
still in service at the dawn of the jet age at the end of World War II,
during which time it was the backbone of the Luftwaffe's fighter force.
From the end of 1941 the Bf 109 was supplemented, but never completely
replaced in service, by the radial engined Focke-Wulf Fw 190.
The aircraft was given several nicknames by its operators and opponents,
generally derived from the name of the manufacturer (Messer, Mersu,
Messzer etc.), or the external appearance of the aircraft the G-6
variant was nicknamed by Luftwaffe personnel as Die Beule ("the
bump/bulge") because of the cowling's characteristic covers for the
breeches of the later Bf 109G's synchronized 13 mm (.51 in) MG 131
machine guns, while Soviet aviators nicknamed it as "the skinny one" for
its sleek appearance. The names "Anton", "Berta", "Caesar", "Dora",
"Emil", "Friedrich", "Gustav" and "Kurfürst" were derived from the
variant's official letter designation (e.g. Bf 109G – "Gustav"), based
on the German phonetic alphabet of World War II, a practice that was
also used for other German aircraft designs.
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