Messerschmitt Bf 109
Fighter aircraftWikipedia
60
MENTIONS
32
EPISODES
19
PODCASTS
Search complete. 60 mentions across 32 episodes found for "Messerschmitt Bf 109".
Nov 4, 2026
Adam MakosGUEST
So Constantine Cantacuzino, I go into this.
Adam MakosGUEST
He's a fighter pilot fighting in a German fighter uniform and a German fighter plane flying a Messerschmitt 109 on the eastern front against the Russians.
speaker_0SOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Yeah.
Adam MakosGUEST
And your your your default instinct is bad guy, you know, wrong side.
Vincent AielloHOST
And so there is no celebration of that.
Vincent AielloHOST
But when you talk to, especially in a higher call, and you dive into... speaking with this Messerschmitt 109 pilot who spares this B-17 crew, you kind of get this perspective that it's not always simple labeling someone as your enemy.
Vincent AielloHOST
He didn't necessarily celebrate what the Nazis were doing.
Vincent AielloHOST
And I genuinely believe that people fighting on that side didn't fully understand or know that concentration camps weren't necessarily happening, that they weren't celebrating or supporting that.
45 MINS LATER
Adam MakosGUEST
We meet him in Chapter 5.
Adam MakosGUEST
So he's throughout the whole thing because he just brings this testosterone into the story.
Adam MakosGUEST
I mean, he is on the Eastern Front flying a German Messerschmitt 109 battling the Soviets.
Adam MakosGUEST
And we pick him up when he's battling Soviet Spitfire.
Adam MakosGUEST
In 1943, he appeals and he says, can I go back? They let him go back to the front line.
Adam MakosGUEST
And he's given a German fighter plane, a Messerschmitt 109, and he resumes his battle.
Adam MakosGUEST
So he's fighting Soviet Spitfires, dogfighting odds against one against five aircraft typically.
Adam MakosGUEST
Then the Americans come back to Romania in spring 1944.
Adam MakosGUEST
And the POW says, well, he had actually heard of Buzz.
Adam MakosGUEST
He knew that this guy was this legendary Romanian pilot.
Adam MakosGUEST
He said, wait, aren't you flying a Messerschmitt 109? And Buzz said, come here, I'll show you.
Adam MakosGUEST
If you take out the radio of the Messerschmitt 109, there's a small hatch in the fuselage.
speaker_48GUEST
I don't know what for.
speaker_48GUEST
No Messerschmitt Me 109 is going to get over here.
Dan SnowNARRATOR
While enemy planes wouldn't be bombing Chicago, the sting of war was felt in other ways.
Dan SnowNARRATOR
An average of seven to eight Chicagoans from every block served in the military.
Dan SnowNARRATOR
The first lightning ace was the intrepid Jack Ilfrey, Happy Jack.
Dan SnowNARRATOR
With a final score of eight enemy aircraft destroyed in the air, Jack completed two full tours with a total of 528 combat hours in 142 missions.
Dan SnowNARRATOR
In a dogfight over Berlin in May 1944, he was credited with two Messerschmitt 109s.
Dan SnowNARRATOR
Even though one of them had collided with his P-38, tearing a four and a half foot section off the right wing, Jack was still able to return to England Out of a total of 10,000 P-38s built, the fighter collections machine, painted in Jack's colours, is the oldest of only six Lightning still flying today.
Dan SnowNARRATOR
On his first tour, Jack had taken part in the invasion of North Africa, where another American aircraft brought havoc among Rommel's desert armies, the Curtiss P-40 Kitty Hawk.
David TwohigGUEST
So everybody's heard about the Merlin engine that powered the Spitfire and the Hurricane and all of those famous Allied World War II aircraft.
David TwohigGUEST
They're sort of, let's say their competitor in the air was the Messerschmitt 109.
David TwohigGUEST
And that ran a Daimler-Benz engine, which was direct fuel injected.
David TwohigGUEST
So that was...
Adam MakosGUEST
And instead of just sending him back, they said, well, you're going to be a squadron leader now.
Adam MakosGUEST
And you're flying the Messerschmitt 109.
Adam MakosGUEST
Because the Germans, for stealing all of Romania's oil, well, they technically paid them.
Adam MakosGUEST
They paid them an aircraft.
Adam MakosGUEST
20 Ju-88s here, 40 Messerschmitt 109s.
Adam MakosGUEST
Okay, here, we're going to give you weapons to use to fight for us.
Adam MakosGUEST
Kind of self-serving.
WhiteyHOST
So even a regular civilian at a model show can walk in there and go, oh, wow, that looks really realistic.
WhiteyHOST
Even though that ME-109 probably looks realistic too, it probably doesn't to the average lay person.
WhiteyHOST
Looking at the Facebook page that we have, or anyone's Facebook page, sometimes you see, you get those like friends, suggestions, things, uh, which I typically ignore.
WhiteyHOST
Uh, but there was a lady that kept recurring in my, on the one, I think it was on the model shack.
Brian PierceHOST
but it gave you a sense of absolute security in speed.
Brian PierceHOST
If a BF-109 tries to jump us from behind, we could simply open the throttles and leave them behind if we were at low altitude.
Brian PierceHOST
It was an aircraft for real professionals.
Brian PierceHOST
Close quotes.
Neil OliverHOST
They were the workhorses of the fighter squadrons.
Neil OliverHOST
And they're going head to head with the German equivalent Messerschmitts, Messerschmitt 109 and Messerschmitt 110s.
Neil OliverHOST
Every bit is good, really.
Neil OliverHOST
You know, on a good day, the best pilot in a Messerschmitt was going to best a Spitfire, just as the best pilot in a Spitfire would knock out the Messerschmitt.
22 more episodes mention Messerschmitt Bf 109.
Create an account to see the whole feed, search across every transcript, and follow the entities you care about.