Agreed. Here are some more from my shelfssu wrote:That is also a good book.de officiis wrote:Good book, read it when I was a teenager. So is Samurai! by Saburo Sakai.
One good book where actually the fighter ace is a good writer too is the the Big Show by Pierre Clostermann, a French pilot that served in the RAF.
And of course, the the First and the Last by Adolf Galland is a must read.
Gunners on World War II bombers had only a microsecond to estimate an attacking fighter’s range, speed, path of attack, and bullet ballistics. During attacks that themselves lasted merely seconds, the gunner had to make those mental calculations, then align his weapons and sights, praying that the guns wouldn’t jam or the barrels melt. To teach bomber crews how to survive these aerial attacks, the Army Air Forces opened schools in isolated locales with favorable flying conditions.
I've got that one too, P-38; so underrated, if you want to get even more technical, try The Lockheed P-38 Lightning by Warren Bodie, although, only if you're up for a total fork tailed geek out.de officiis wrote:
Tells something that the American ace with the most credited kills flew a P-38. All with a P-38, btw.Smitty-48 wrote:I've got that one too, P-38; so underrated, if you want to get even more technical, try The Lockheed P-38 Lightning by Warren Bodie, although, only if you're up for a total fork tailed geek out.
P-38; the "F-15 Eagle" of its day, whereas the much more ballyhooed P-51, was the "Lawn Dart".
Not too many of these left around...On June 16th, 2017, a newly restored Ilyushin Il-2 Sturmovik took the skies over the Siberian Research Institute of Aviation (SibNIA) airfield in Novosibirsk, Russia. This WWII vintage attack aircraft is only the second of its type currently airworthy, with the other being Paul Allen’s Ilyushin II-2M3 based with the Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum in Everett, Washington.
The Yakovlev Yak-3 (Russian: Я́ковлев Як-3) was a World War II Soviet fighter aircraft. Robust and easy to maintain, it was very much liked by pilots and ground crew alike.[1] It was one of the smallest and lightest major combat fighters fielded by any combatant during the war. Its high power-to-weight ratio gave it excellent performance.[2] It proved a formidable dogfighter. Marcel Albert, World War II French ace, who flew the Yak in USSR with the Normandie-Niémen Group, considered it a superior aircraft when compared to the P-51D Mustang and the Supermarine Spitfire.[3] After the war ended, it was flown by the Yugoslav and Polish Air Forces.[1]
Wow this looks good. Thanks for the tip sir.Hastur wrote:
Incredible true story. Some of the stuff that happened in the pacific theater is just so otherworldly awesome. So much was achieved with so little resources.
Not WWII equipment, but surely one of the greatest tributes to a WW2 plane was the Russian the Iljushin-102 Project from 1982, which lost to the Sukhoi Frogfoot. But heck, talk about true retro aircraft! True modernized Il-2, with tail gun and all...de officiis wrote:
Newly-Restored Ilyushin Il-2 Sturmovik Flies in Russia
Not too many of these left around...On June 16th, 2017, a newly restored Ilyushin Il-2 Sturmovik took the skies over the Siberian Research Institute of Aviation (SibNIA) airfield in Novosibirsk, Russia. This WWII vintage attack aircraft is only the second of its type currently airworthy, with the other being Paul Allen’s Ilyushin II-2M3 based with the Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum in Everett, Washington.
When it came to their specialties, the people working on the Blackbird were the best in the company, perhaps in the country or even the world. The last word in reconnaissance airplanes, the SR-71 was capable of flying faster than Mach 3 and above 85,000 feet. In fact, the SR-71 flew so fast that even in the cold of those rarefied heights, the friction of the air heated its titanium skin to 550 degrees Fahrenheit.