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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Topic Author's Original Post - May 16, 2011 - 01:49pm PT
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Best 20 bucks I've spent in a while - Planes of Fame airshow at Chino.
Mitsubishi Zero - a nice little plane that didn't pack much of a punch,
didn't offer its pilot any protection, and wasn't that fast. This is the only flyable example.
When these behemoths got into the party Tojo was toast! Burnt toast!
The plane that Jimmy Doolittle used to tell Tojo "you ain't seen nuthin yet!"
B-25
P-40 Warhawks were a pre-war design that didn't do well against the Zero at first.
The Flying Tigers made them famous and did figure out how to fight the Zero.
Just don't get into a turning fight with them and you'll be fine.
The P-47 Thunderbolt and a Focke-Wolfe 190. The FW 190 was better than the
ME 109 but when the 'Bolt appeared the party was over! Way faster, way more
heavily armed, and way more armored so its pilot could fly another day even
if he was unlucky.
The ultimate purveyor of airborne whoopazz - P-51 Mustang
It brought firepower, maneuverability, speed, and serious range to the party.
Oh, yeah, and drop-dead gorgeous looks, too! (always important)
When Hermann Goering walked out of his office and saw Mustangs over Berlin
he is reputed to have said "The war is over." Pretty much, dude. Your dumbfuk
boss shouldn't have fukked with the Rooskies neither.
P-38 Lightning - used by our two top aces and the recon model in which
Antoine de St Exupery went down in the Med.
Of the P-38, Doolittle said that it was "the sweetest-flying plane in the sky". Who would argue with him?
The P-38 was credited with destroying more Japanese aircraft than any other USAAF fighter.
That other thing? F-15E Strike Eagle. They say it's pretty good.
Slight thread drift - Mig 15 and F-86. A guy who has flown both says the
Mig flies nice, like a Chevy. The F-86 flies like a Caddy and packed more punch.
More thread drift for which I fully expect to be pardoned.
The Strike Eagle 'yankin' and bankin'. Oh, yeah, and puttin' the hammer down!
A little loud? Phukkin' A Ray! Dial it up!
Got a light?
Count 'em. A whole bunch o' whoopazz! The announcer figgered 60,000 horsepower!
Think that sounded sweet? Holy bejeebus!
PROUD!
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survival
Big Wall climber
A Token of My Extreme
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May 16, 2011 - 01:54pm PT
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Feckin sweet pix man, sweet.
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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May 16, 2011 - 01:55pm PT
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and why the jihadis don't, either
just read "Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors"...a great book about the last major naval engagement of ww2 and the last major naval battle in history
a terribly outnumbered and outgunned american contingent of escort carriers and their destroyers takes on a huge japanese fleet...the narration is enthralling and brought me to tears more than once
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Dolomite
climber
Anchorage
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May 16, 2011 - 02:04pm PT
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Very cool pics. Hope you had a chance to get some flapjacks at Flo's Airport Cafe.
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dirt claud
Social climber
san diego,ca
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May 16, 2011 - 03:43pm PT
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Hitlers decision to use ME-262s as bombers instead of fighters when they first came off the production line was one of the biggest mistakes he made in the war. Had the ME-262 been able to go after the B-17 and B-24 bombers, who's to say how things might have turned out. Adolf Galland (luftwaffe ace) was quoted saying that had the ME-262 been used as a fighter just a year prior, it could have turned the air war around in their favor.
Not to say that these planes didn't kick ass, I love the sound of a p-47 roaring by. From the WW2 history I have studied though, it appears that just a few bad decisions by Hitler caused the war to be won by the allies, or at least made it easier to win. Good thing for the rest of the world that Hitler was stubborn about his decisions.
I had a chance to check out and go inside a B-17 and B-24 about a month ago. There was a ww2 vet there who had been a pilot in a B-17 and was part of a crew who had flown 35 missions. He had not been back into a B-17 since the end of the war. While chatting with him he started to feel dizzy and some thought he was a having a stroke. Luckily he ended up being ok, I imagine that being back in a B-17 after 65+ years and remembering the experiences and lost friends just tripped him out too much.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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May 16, 2011 - 04:10pm PT
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Very cool stuff.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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May 16, 2011 - 05:07pm PT
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Some of the planes my dad flew in training and in the war. One in four students in his Corpus Christie NAS flight school died during training including two successive roommates. He and his buddy hated seaplanes as they typically anchored out an you had to wait for a ride in - said it took too long from landing-to-martini. Retired after years in DC10s and 747s.
This last was the Navy's experimental version of the B-17 outfitted with radar as part of 'Project Cadillac II' with MIT Lincoln Labs - the original ancestor of all modern AWACS squadrons.
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Gene
climber
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May 16, 2011 - 06:33pm PT
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Yeah, timing counts.
True. Accidently or not. Midway. June 1942.
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slabbo
Trad climber
fort garland, colo
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May 16, 2011 - 07:14pm PT
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Commander of the 1st fighter wing , about F-22's
" We can go anywhere we want and command the airspace for as long as we want"
Kinda like Task force 38 (my dad) in '44
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okie
Trad climber
San Leandro, Ca
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May 16, 2011 - 07:49pm PT
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"P51 Mustang, Cadillac of the sky!"
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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May 16, 2011 - 08:27pm PT
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Nice post Reilly-exciting machines and history.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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May 16, 2011 - 09:03pm PT
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The Zero didn't pack punch?
It had 20mm cannons.
How much punch do you need?
Hey bookworm, did you miss Woody's thread?
My buddy Bob shot down 3 MIGs with an F-86 in the last 3 months of Korea. Killed plenty of people on the ground too.
Said the trick with MIGs was to climb. They had poor climate control and the bubble would frost up leaving them blind.
He was an afficianado of the P-51. But it had a radiator. One shot could down it.
The P-47 on the other hand was air cooled. It would take a pilot home with a bunch of cylinders shot right off.
The Jug was a worldbeater.
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AJB
climber
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May 16, 2011 - 09:04pm PT
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Very nice photos...that's a great airshow. That White 14 Butcher Bird is I believe a ground up new built Fw 190 A-9 from the German company Flug Werk.
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Gary
climber
Desolation Basin, Calif.
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May 16, 2011 - 09:16pm PT
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My mom did wiring harnesses for P-47s at the Republic plant in Evansville, Ind.
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TYeary
Social climber
State of decay
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May 16, 2011 - 10:44pm PT
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Thanks Reilly. That was sweet!
TY
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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May 16, 2011 - 10:50pm PT
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The Japanese had by FAR the best trained pilots in the world at the beginning of WWII. They had the very best top candidates, and spent several years training them. A Jap pilot would kill dozens of American or British planes in the beginning. But their training was too extensive, and took too long. they couldn't keep up with attrition. American/British/allied pilots might not be as good, but there were a LOT of them.
The 'japs' also (and still do have) had a different culture. It would be lame to compare the two. The japs, like the Nasties, were whipped up into a nationalistic fervor. They had no problem enduring insane missions at insane odds.
The only reason we did the same is because we were attacked and fighting for our lives. They were fighting for motherland glory and pride. We just wanted it over.
And we 'ended it'. Sorry, dudes. Mess with the best, die like the rest.
I have no regrets saying that.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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May 16, 2011 - 11:07pm PT
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The japs had good pilots because they had already been at war for near 2 years before Hitler invaded Poland.
They were veterans.
That sort of changed in June '42.
We killed hundreds of their best pilots in one day at Midway.
And just so that this thread is not entirely OT;
back in the '60s my mom and her friend Bill Ullman hired a helicopter and buzzed Hughes' private apartment at the Landmark. He was pissed!
Bill's dad was James Ramsey Ullman.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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May 16, 2011 - 11:08pm PT
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Weird things, like climbing to the top of a flag pole and hanging on with one hand for long times, looking at images of fighter aircraft and bombers across a room, the size of a fly, and correctly identifing them. **Their pilots made ours look like amateurs for the first couple years.
They just couldn't turn them out fast enough in the end ...**
Yeah, all that Samurai/hardcore bullshit really helped them out. The bottom line is, yes, they were cruel badasses, but we were even more willing to win at all costs. We had red-necks flying planes in insane glory.
And they lost. End of f*#king story...
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