Interesting Article for WWII Aircraft Buffs

[SteelCurtain]

The P-39 Airacobra!
I did my senior thesis on that damned bird. I can hardly look at it, now! Wow. I modeled that thing millimeter by iterative millimeter in MATLAB. Fuck. Engine behind the pilot, driveshaft through the pilot's legs, 37-mm cannon through the middle of the prop hub.

Discovered before I read about it that it was statically unstable. Stall=flat spin in the simulator. That's what happens when the CG is that far back.

Fuck I hated that plane by the end of the semester!

[Minimalist]

Be happy you didn't have to fly it against a Zero.

[SteelCurtain]

I did.

In a simulator. I won. But that was through sheer talent and spatial awareness.

But the point stands.

[TheoneandonlytrueGod]

http://www.air-and-space.com/afftcho%202...0b%20m.jpg

That thing flew into McClellan AFBA outside Sacramento, CA. I watched it coming in and going out and it didn't fly it floated; the landing speed couldn't have been much over walking speed (at least that was the way it looked).

As I understand it it was used to ferry all sorts of aircraft parts from Texas to McClellan, then Anchorage and finally the far east and back on a weekly basis.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Chuck is right, most of those planes weren't overlooked at all. Anyone who's read up on aviation of the era knows all of those, and I'd say the only sleepers there were the La-5 and the Italian models. Every other type has had its importance already recognized.

I have been fascinated with the B-36 Peacemaker since I first saw it at the Air Force Museum as a boy. It was a year too late to see action in WWII and was rendered obsolete almost immediately because of jet fighters. I would love to have seen this thing fly, mostly because I love the heavy drone of large turboprops.

Next to a B-29:

We had a static display B-36 at Chanute AFB when I was in training for firefighting ... my girl and I had a couple of picnics in the shade of the wing. Fucking monster of a plane.

[Thumpalumpacus]

P-47 ftw!.  There are stories, from both sides, of german pilots (even in  later model 190s) going bingo ammo lightin em up - without bringing them down......p-40 doesn't get much love either, but the engine block on the p-40 saved many a pilots life,  and was probably one of the only planes ever built in which a HO wasn't the worst idea a pilot could have.

Bob Johnson tells of soaking up 200 hits with a Jug in his biography. He also talks about a mock dogfight with a Spitfire where he uses the Jug's astounding zoom-climb to advantage.

And yeah, the 'Hawk was much maligned, but point the nose down on the fucker and see who could keep up ...

[Drich]

I have been fascinated with the B-36 Peacemaker since I first saw it at the Air Force Museum as a boy. It was a year too late to see action in WWII and was rendered obsolete almost immediately because of jet fighters. I would love to have seen this thing fly, mostly because I love the heavy drone of large turboprops.

Next to a B-29:

that pic is missing the 4 jet engines the later ones had at the end of the wings... They must have had to have 2 refueling planes always connected to this thing just to keep it aloft.

[TheRocketSurgeon]

Under-rated aircraft, in the post-war recollection? The Lockheed P-38 Lightning. Important in both theatres during the early and middle "crunch years" of the European long-range bomber campaigns, and in the long overseas flights in the Pacific, before the T-Bolts and Mustangs started getting longer legs.

[LastPoet]

The mosquito, twin engines and partially made of wood. Awesome plane.

[Minimalist]

Everybody experimented with a twin-engine fighter.  Even the Italians built the RO-57.