Pure fighter par excellence, shared with the Focke Wulf 190 the first line of the Luftwaffe throughout the second world war. Continuously updated and upgraded, it represented an irreplaceable element in the Luftwaffe's arsenal, staying in line with the Battle of England until the last day of war.
The Messerschmitt Bf 109 is the best-known German WWII fighter.
He served between 1937 and 1945 and was confronted with an incredible series of increasingly aggressive opponents, who were faced with continuous changes and improvements, far exceeding the limits of the original project; in the end he doubled the weight and tripled the original power, whose inevitable price was a decidedly reduced autonomy compared to the first series. It was an extremely versatile aircraft: its latest versions even included a high-altitude fighter with a pressurized cabin.
It was produced after the war in Czechoslovakia and Spain, and a total of about 35,000 were built: one of the greatest productions of all time.
In books and magazines it is also sometimes called Me 109, from the contraction of the manufacturer's name.
The abbreviation Bf indicates instead the name of the production factory (Bayerische Flugzeugwerke AG) which in July 1938 changed its name to Messerschmitt AG.
The planes designed from then on assumed the name Me, while those designed previously (including variants) continued to be called Bf. limits of the original project; eventually he came to double.