When it comes to military aircraft, it is pretty much standard procedure to start design of an aircraft's replacement once that aircraft reaches unit service. It is also standard that the new design have performance that exceeds its predecessor. This often means changes not only in the airframe, but in the engine that powers that airframe. It has happened that the lack of development of the promised power plant has doomed what was a promising design. Every nation that designs and builds combat aircraft has had this happen. There are three ways of dealing with this. One is to use another engine. Another is to delay introduction of the airframe. Yet another is to cancel the entire program. What is true of engines is also true of airframes and in this particular case, it was a combination of both.

The Me-309 was supposed to be a replacement for the then long serving Bf-109. The 109 had reached the early G model during most of the development of the Me-309 and the brass hats had a lot of hope for this new plane. However, despite lots of official interest, the owner of the company was somewhat reticent to put effort into the initial development of the aircraft, nor was he willing to start setting up tooling for the new fighter. So he delayed everything. To be honest, Messerschmitt was already fully committed to its current projects, one of them being fixing the unsuitable Me-210 and developing it into the Me-410. On top of this, the engines being developed for the aircraft, the Daimler-Benz DB 603 and the Junkers Jumo 213 were running into development delays as well. Eventually both engines were sorted out, but not the Me-309, which never went beyond three prototypes.

If you read Tempest's earlier book on the Me-328, then the way this one flows is the same. The research of the authors is first rate and definitely shows as one reads the book. It includes drawings and probably every Me-309 photo that has survived the war. Not only that but it includes the history of the Me-209 record aircraft, that was supposed to be developed into a fighter. That didn't work out for a variety of reasons, neither did a Jumo 213 powered 109 derivative, also called the Me-209, which is also covered in this book. Overall, this edition covers everything you will ever want to know about the Me-309 as well as the often convoluted and contentious political background regarding the subject. It is a superb book and one that I can highly recommend to you.

October 2024

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