Favorite WWII Plane?

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B25 Mitchell. It not only took off from an aircraft carrier and bombed Tokyo, it got my dad through Burma and back home.
 
Revhendo said:
I'll go with the P-40. Woefully outclassed in both theatres at the outbreak of the war but deadly in the hands of a skilled pilot. Take a look at the kill ratio of the AVG in China against the Japanese Zero....
WWII bomber pilots get nothing but respect from me. If you think about what they were doing and the fact that most of the "old men" of the squadrons were in their early twenties. How many twenty year olds would you trust today with the keys to the Liberator?
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the P-40 is one of the most beautiful air craft I have ever seen, I had the good fortune of seeing one up close and in flight at an air show at the N.J.M.P last summer
 
grumpuscreature said:
B25 Mitchell. It not only took off from an aircraft carrier and bombed Tokyo, it got my dad through Burma and back home.
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As I drove into work today there was a B-25 flying around the factory. Looked like a test flight because they were lowering and raising the landing gear. It was painted up in invasion stripes and had nose art but was too far to tell what it was. Great planes.
 
Caddguy said:
No..I think what you are thinking of is the Me-163...it was the little rocket plane that would zoom up over the bomber formations then glide down while shooting at the bombers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_163


The main issue with the 262 was that the BMW-004 engines were only good for 10 hours of flight before having to be overhauled. The metals were just not up to the RPMs that they were creating and lots of cracking would be created in the turbines.
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You are correct! I was thinking of the last ditch rocket plane.

caferacerx said:
I think your thinking of the ME-163 rocket powered fighter very fast but only around 6 1/2 minutes of fuel
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Yep, but the 262 still didn't have the range of the P-51 or P-38.

grumpuscreature said:
B25 Mitchell. It not only took off from an aircraft carrier and bombed Tokyo, it got my dad through Burma and back home.
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Bad *** and still considered the "Hot Rod" of bombers! Hell yes, LeMay got them to take off freakin carrier! Amazing..... If you can, thank your Dad...
 
caferacerx said:
if I had all the money in the world it would be
P-40
F4U
ME-109
DC-3
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P38....Just cool any way you look at it.
P51....The Merlin engine...Part of why I named my dog Merlin.
F4U...The Corsair, my Dad said there was no more beautiful protecting Marines in the South Pacific.
P40...Gotta love the shark!
ME-109.....Fuel injected and some were fitted with nitrous...
 
Caddguy said:
As I drove into work today there was a B-25 flying around the factory. Looked like a test flight because they were lowering and raising the landing gear. It was painted up in invasion stripes and had nose art but was too far to tell what it was. Great planes.
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Yep it flew over the shop 5-6 times today, I wish I had had a better camera with my instead of my crappy cell phone.

Thats what we call low and dirty

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The Germans definitely had some awesome airplanes. If they had the metalergy to make their jets more reliable and they used them as fighters and not just to shoot down bombers they would have held on a lot longer. I like the FW190d with the inverted V12. They were real fast and not hard to fly. Some of the late planes like the Sea Fury, Bearcat and Tigercat, A26 and the ME262 that did not see much action are real cool. If the Geremans had built longer range bombers and got more advanced fighters into production it would have been much harder to defeat them.
 
It has to be the venerable B-17. I absolutely LOVE a machine that can take extremely heavy punishment and abuse, and still get you home. Have you ever seen footage of these stout bombers landing with huge chunks missing and perforated with bullet holes? I'll bet the crews all fell in love with those planes real quick.
 
Airplane technology was advancing at an amazing pace in those days. A perfact example is the B17. Boeing used their own money to design and build it because it was too different and the government did not want to fund the project. The number of changes they made adding a tail gunner, chin and belly turrets and more powerfull engines were quick to follow.
 
corsair and p-51 mustang. A guy i know has both plus a few other wwii planes. such amazing planes.

If i wasn't so focused on becoming a ferrari mechanic, i would've followed where my grandpa(wwii pilot) left off by being a pilot.
 
A guy in PA. had a P51, a Corsair and an AT6. I was at New Garden airport and the Corsair flew there and landed. It was cool to get up close and check it out He sold all of them and bought an F86 Sabre. Must be nice.
 
My vote is the HORTON flying wing.
The US goverment tested some of the planes after the war and desided the aircraft was of little use because they couldn't track it on radar.

Whip

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HORTON-P1.JPG
 
Not knowledgeable about WWII planes, BUT, I help out an elderly neighbor that I knew flew planes. In the past few years we have talked about his flying.

He is 87 years old, grew up with foster parents who were weathy farmers. He became interested in planes at about age 12. I believe he told me he got his pilots lisence around age 16. He was pilot in WWII flying B 17. Just last week I ask him if there was a name on his plane. It was "Evelon FIRST KISS" after a girlfriend. He was in his in his early 20's and captain of the plane, most of the crew were older than him, but called him POPS.

I ask him if he flew any other planes during the war and he said because of his size, he was about 6'5", he was too big to fly the fighter planes.

I'm more interested in what he did than any other time in my life.

There are few left to tell their stories. he has been ask to talk at different events and always refused. One day he said "I don't know why I'm telling you this, I have not talked about it in years"

When Amilia came out i ask if he knew 1st hand who she was and what she was doing, He said that it was on the radio and newspapers. My wife took a DVD over and the night before she went they had a special on her on PBS, so Taped it for him to be able to see.

I have known him basicly all my life that I have good memory, my dad and him were good friends, but it has only been since my dad died that I have sat and talked to him alot. He was a crazy womanizer, always had a motorcycle and tell dirty jokes all the time. Now I get to see the other side of the WWII pilot that has alot of stored memories of some very bad times.

If you know any elderly pilots, just how they got started. It my surprise you.
 
I like the B-24J

I became friends with Ernie Haar a few years ago, who was a pilot
in WWII. Here he is and the plane he flew. I also made him a model of it.

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The model I made for him:

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Ernie told me he was on a bombing run over Normandy France while
my Dad was going ashore. Small world.

Ernie is now over 90 years old and is still going strong.
 
71dustar said:
corsair and p-51 mustang. A guy i know has both plus a few other wwii planes. such amazing planes.

If i wasn't so focused on becoming a ferrari mechanic, i would've followed where my grandpa(wwii pilot) left off by being a pilot.
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What plane did he fly Jon?
 
Revhendo said:
If you think about what they were doing and the fact that most of the "old men" of the squadrons were in their early twenties. How many twenty year olds would you trust today with the keys to the Liberator?
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My Grandpa mentioned that the "qualified" pilots mostly came right off the farm. They had more experience with heavy machinery, which made them more qualified to pilot than the others. He told me that the crews learned most of their skills on the flight to Europe. His crew went south into South America, then crossed over to Africa, then back up.

Yea, I am not sure how many 20 year old kids would qualify today.

Thanks,
OldMoparsRule!
 
I was always fascinated by Hell Divers, but my favorite would be the Bearcat. That thing was as close to a muscle car as they could be.
This summer I will get the gang out to the Heritage warplane museum, and get you some pics. They let us out on the runway, and take pics of our cars beside our favorite bird.
They have a Lancaster that flies over our house periodicaly. it is very eerie.
They have an old C-47 (DC-3) that flies over also, engines smoking and all. That thing is very cool.
 
I'll confine my comments to just the single or twin engined warcraft and not include those introduced just prior to the end of WW2.

I can't really have one favorite since so many had so very much going for them.

P-40 AVG Flying Tiger; heavy armour and when used with greater dive speed deadly to the Zero.

P-39 Airacobra; mid-engine with 37mm cannon firing thru prop'hub with other MG's. Awesome ground support.

P-47 Thunderbolt ( Jug ) Heavy, fast, armed and armoured to the max. Brought it's pilots home with 6' of wing shot off and another had several cly's of it's radial engine shot out.

P-38 Lightning; responsible for taking out Yamamoto after max range flight and minimal on target time. Charles Lindburg flew combat missions in 38 but was un-official.

F 6 F Hellcat; replaced the Wildcat much to surprise to many Zero pilots and had greatest total of Navy kills.

B-25 Mitchell; besides attacking Japan from a carrier had many versions of which was one with a 75mm cannon in the nose.

B-26 ( Douglas, though Martin A-26 was also deadly ) good bomb load and massive gun platform.

FW-190; fast and deadly to Bomber Command ( too bad it wasn't ours )

SBD Dauntless and TBF/TBM Avenger; backbone attack aircraft of the Navy mid to late in the war.

C-47; the deuce and a half and five ton of the air.

Of course the P-51 and F 4 U.

ALL TIME FAVORITE : The men who crewed all the allied aircraft !
 
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