It is called a control horn - helps off set flight control load and may also contain weight for mass balance.
Dan
Screen at work too dark to make it out. Lightening the contrast, I can now see the opposite elevator against the snow.
Came across some interesting piloting info for the 109 :
Me-109 elevators
If anyone has contrary information or comments, let us know.
Me 109 had among WW 2 fighters the lightest elevators
at high speed, from the beginning to the end of war.
They were so effective that the pilot could easily
overstress the airframe (pull more than 8G turns). In
fact in 1944 the elevator travel was reduced exactly
because of that. More so, at high speed dive pull out,
pilots were advised to use elevator trim with care,
stop at every notch of the wheel, and not to force it,
because this bent the tail surfaces. Remember, the
elevator trim of German planes was very different than
of Allied planes, and much more effective. Elevator
trim moved the whole elevator not just a small tab on
it. Having a small tab for trim is ok if you're not
passing 400-500km/h, but once you're moving in
transonic regime they are terribly inefficient, today
ALL transonic planes use movable elevators for trim.
For instance in a dive, a regular WW 2 fighter needed
to be literally pushed in the dive, because of its
natural tendency to nose up and pull out of the dive -
the pilot had to keep the stick pushed forward to the
max in a high speed dive. German fighter pilots never
did that, they just had to adjust the trim for dive
and leave the stick in neutral position. This is good
because it eases the pilot effort, but it also means
that stick is less effective on pull out – hence the
Allied myth with the heavy controls, they did not know
how fly this kind of plane. It was enough to return
the trim in “tail heavy” configuration and pilot
regains control of the plane. Even more so, if the
speed is too high, he can still use elevator trim to
adjust the effort in the stick, so much that he could
initiate a 7G pull-out with NO pull on the stick.
There is a high speed dive test that shows exactly
this. I can post it if needed.
About the ailerons. Yes, Me 109E had heavy ailerons at
high speed, because before the war it was thought that
fighting will be low speeds (you could still find
biplanes as fighters at that time), these kind of
ailerons that were very good at low speeds and very
bad at high speeds, this was the norm for all pre-war
fighters. But ailerons were modified for Me 109F (and
later models), they were considerably reduced in size.
This meant that they were heavier at lower speeds than
those of Me 109E, but much lighter at high speeds.
This happened for American planes too. Nowadays pilots
often comment how unpleasant are Mustang’s ailerons
compared with those of P-40, but they are basically
talking about low speed (air show speeds) – if they
would do high speed dives with Fw-190 on their tail,
taking accurate shots, there is not doubt that they
would chose Mustang for its light(er) controls at high
speeds. Fw-190 did have better aileron control than
all planes, small chord stiff wing (Fw-190 wing had 2
spars for a very small chord), with control rods
instead of cables (rods have no elasticity) translated
in excellent aileron control at low and medium speeds.
But at high speeds Fw-190 roll rate is nothing special
compared with other late war fighters, including Me
109 (F and later).
As for Fw 190 being a better dogfighter than Me 109,
that’s certainly not the case. Only certain Fw 190
had performance comparable with that of Me 109 models
produced in the same time frame. Fw 190 was a heavier
airplane and better suited for more roles than Me 109,
but dogfighting was not one of them. It was also
better suited to Western Front, whereas Me 109 to
Eastern Front, and they were used this way. That Fw
190 was a more expensive plane to manufacture is not
the reason why it was produced in smaller numbers than
Me 109. Me 109 was required on Eastern Front, and
since Eastern Front was the place that saw most of the
activity of Luftwaffe fighters until mid 1944, it
also meant that it was produced in larger numbers. The
Me 109 was produced in many other factories than those
of Focke Wulf. In fact both fighters were produced in
much larger numbers than what Luftwaffe was able to
use in 1944, because of its shortage of pilots and
fuel.
