Stephan,
There is an article in the latest Flypast (which has a special feature on the BF109) and one section has an interview with John Romain on flying the 109E-7 (ex Ed Russell) & the Buchon his company operates. (….seems Mike J beat me to it!)
I have read many current day pilot reports on flying the Buchon, and a couple of detailed articles by Dave Southwood on flying the genuine G2 ‘Black 6’ operated by the IWM from 1991-97, (He first flew the Buchon when one was operated by Charles Church in the late 80’s).
It would seem that consensus is that they fly similar, except that according to Dave Southwood, the directional stability in the Buchon is worse than that of the G2 (which is not very good!), and it’s a LOT noisier! (In fact, the Buchon has the reputation of being the noisiest cockpit of all the WWII fighters).
There are a few things that John Romain mentions about the Buchon in the FP article when comparing the earlier E with the Buchon (which was based on the later G-2 airframe).
One is that the redesigned radiator flaps of the F & later series, cause a lot of drag when fully open, and in his words “act like a dive brake”. He also notes that whilst you can take off in a 3-point attitude in the E, in the Buchon you have to eventually get the tail up, otherwise “you’ll drop the left wing”.
That said, he mentions that the E is nicer then the later models, as did former ‘Black 6’ and current Warbird pilot Charlie Brown when he flight tested the same aircraft after it’s restoration, so I guess a direct comparison with the Buchon should be with the G series.
I do have a copy of an article by the late Mark Hanna somewhere on flying the Buchon they operated (G-BOML) until his tragic death in it in September 1999. (This article was published again in another magazine, but re-written slightly for an account of flying the ex Buchon modified to a G-10, which was operated by them in the mid 90s).
I can send the former to you if you like.
Cheers
Paul
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