Saw this on another site and saw something of interest …it is a photo of Gallands 109 in September 1940.
It is an E model, look at the prop hub on both aircraft…looks like an F or G model (sans cannon barrel)…
It was my impression that the E type had the open hub…could all of those BoB 109’s be wrong? Or was this somehing the ground crew plugged in to prevent FOD?
I believe there were some E models that did not have the cannon firing through the spinner. I don’t know the designation of these, though.
The vast majority of Emils did not have the engine-mounted cannon. A few were manufactured with the armament and saw service with a gruppe or two, but those airframes that did have the big gun usually saw them removed in short order, mainly due to bad vibration problems.
I believe that the spinner seen in that photo was first introduced on the Bf 109E-7… possibly the E-4. In any case, some earlier aircraft seem to have had the spinners retrofitted and it was nothing special or unusual.
Fade to Black…
Steve is correct. In fact both the Hasegawa & Tamiya 1/48 kits provide both spinners as options.
Regards, Rick