Wall Above My PC

[StarMetal]

Fellows, this is the wall above my computer desk. Three U.S. military burial flags are my father, wife's father, and my best best friends father. In order that would be Navy, Army Air Corp, and Marines.

Joe

[SharpsShooter]

Very nice display. I see you enjoy aircraft also.

[StarMetal]

Yeah, love those fighter planes. Go every chance I can get to see them. Great museum is in Dayton, Ohio. Wright Patterson Airfield is there. Saw alot of planes I thought I'd never get see like the Mig.

Joe

[SharpsShooter]

Never run across a Mig yet, but did have an opportunity to fly a 1943 Stearman for an hour a couple of years ago. It was a Blast! Open cockpit, bare essentials of instrumentation...just great

[NVcurmudgeon]

Joe, Your family comes from good stock, thanks to them all for their service.

[StarMetal]

Bill,

Thank you, Sir.

Joe

[StarMetal]

Never run across a Mig yet, but did have an opportunity to fly a 1943 Stearman for an hour a couple of years ago. It was a Blast! Open cockpit, bare essentials of instrumentation...just great

At an airshow in Ohio one year they had tickets for a free ride on one of the few, or maybe only, dual seat P51 and a STearman of some model, the famous yellow ones. I bought the P51 tickets but didn't win. They had the torpedo bomber there, the Avenger. God, those things are huge!!!! .....and My Lord...are they noisey.

Joe

[Herb in Pa]

Joe.........you also need to check out the Smithsonian Museum's exhibit at Dulles Airport. They got a lot of the WW2 warbirds both allied and axis. The Enola Gay is there as well as a Concorde, an SR71, and the shuttle Enterprise.

It's really quite an exhibit as they are all in one huge hanger.

[SharpsShooter]

Pratt & Whitney Wasp is a noisy varmit. It is amazing the size of the WWII fighters. I've seen the two seat P51 on the tube. That would be a ride to remember

[Jumptrap]

At an airshow in Ohio one year they had tickets for a free ride on one of the few, or maybe only, dual seat P51 and a STearman of some model, the famous yellow ones. I bought the P51 tickets but didn't win. They had the torpedo bomber there, the Avenger. God, those things are huge!!!! .....and My Lord...are they noisey.

Joe

The Avenger was the largest single engined plane of WW2. It could swallow a 21' torpedo in it's belly. i watched one at a local airshow many years ago. They are so slow, i don't know how any ever survived one attack run. Now, i fully understand why the 30's vintage Swordfish torp bombers were shot down like flies. They flew at half the Avengers speed!

I have ridden in a Stinson Gullwing while doing aerobatics..a fun ride. i have also flown in a Yak(olev) radial trainer...lots of fun. These planes had tiny engines compared to a Wasp R2800...but the raw power is evident...mash your ass in the upholstery like no 454 big block can....and keep it there. Imagine an engine producing enough torque at say 1800 rpms that it could flip the entire 10,000 pound plane over sideways on take off if not judiciously applied. I have often wondered why Detroit never used a radial.....yeah i know Tucker wanted too.

[StarMetal]

Jump,

I believe it was a Franklin (automobile) I saw at a car show when I lived in Ohio, that was an inline six air cooled engine. It had those big finned radial like jugs sticking straigh up and there was an air delivery hood over each cyclinder that got cool air blowed on it. Pretty interesting car indeed. I guess the VW Beetle was kinda like it except less cylinders and they were horizontal.

Yeah that Avenger was something indeed. I think you could damn near crawl inside the exhaust pipe. Plane totally blew my mine at how large it was for a single engine. Now the P51 Mustang, dang it was all engine with wings and a seat, stick the machineguns here and there. Another big plane for a figther is the P40 Curtis Flying Tiger. Massive plane. I had a good friend when I worked for the Post Office that was a WWII fighter pilot and he flew them all. The one he said he hated was the P39 Air Cobra. The engine is behind the pilot and a shaft run up front, between the pilots legs, to the prop. He said there was an industrial mess guard over the spinning shaft but it made him nervous he said thinking of his shoe laces getting wrapped up on that shaft. He said teh P38 Lightening was fast alright, but hard to pull out of a dive. He said he doesn't remember how many tree tops he clipped doing that and he said with his feet on the dash and pulling on that stick. Very very interesting man to talk to.

Joe

[StarMetal]

Herb,

That sounds like Wright Patterson out in Dayton, Ohio. They have a B29 and B17 and all these fighters from both sides and WWI and WWII in one hanger and in another all the more modern stuff like F16's and some big jumbo cargo plane. Amazing place.

I was aboard a B17. Man, they are small and jammed tight. Hell on the movies they look like they are on a Boey 727 or something. With my little belly I had a hard time getting through bombay going aft. The pilot and co-pilot practically are sitting next to each other that a newpaper would barely slide between them. The two fuselage gunners in the movie looks like they are about five feet apart. Ha, they are almost butt to butt and the belly ball turret has a protrusion and frame work inside the fuselage that is bigger then the turret itself. Pity the poor tailgunner if he has to get out of that plane in a hurry. Long very narrow tight crawl and getting around the tail wheel would be tought.

I was talking to one of the crew member, WWII vet, and asked what's those big tanks inside the wings by the landing gear openning. He said those are oil tanks, 40 gallons apiece. I said dang, why so big. He said kid (and I was like 50 or so) this ain't no Chevy engine, it burns oil. Yeah he's right, sounds more like a Ford har har har. Man oh man.

Joe

[Jumptrap]

Jump,

I had a good friend when I worked for the Post Office that was a WWII fighter pilot and he flew them all.

Joe

I find that amazing that he 'flew them all' as most pilots then and now, were trained and checked out in one type and sent to service. I understand that as types were replaced, they retrained in the new craft, but this just didn't happen all that much. If they were assigned to p38's they generally served the entire war flying them.....all of these planes had their own idiosyncrasis and they weren't mastered in 3 training flights and a solo. They spent close to a year stateside training in their assigned craft before shipping out....their lives depended on it. I had an uncle who went in in 1943 and never saw action until '45....his flight wing disbanded in Jan. 45 and they were forced into the infantry..he got to visit Okinawa on foot. Most of 43 and all of 44 spent in flight school....for nothing. The P38 being a mulit engine bird was a horse of a different color than the P51 or P47. Some wings left the 47's for 51's late in the war...but both aircraft were developed as long range escorts and flew until the last campaigns. The P40 is actually rather small as is the 51. Too bad they never tried a Merlin in the 40 airframe...i assume it's design too dated to improve upon. I knew a man named Koch (Coke) who flew F6 Hellcats off a carrier. he said they were heavy and almost docile...i asked how that could be and he said...******, they put 18 and 19 year old kids in them and turned us loose, how tough could they have been to fly? he said they were stabile, easy to fly and heavy on the controls, slow in turns and fast in dives. I think he got 2 japs during his duty. poor old Koch died a drunkard.

[SharpsShooter]

The P39 fired a 37mm cannon through the spinning shaft you speak of. Chuck Yeager flew them as a advanced trainer prior to going to England to Fly P51's doing escort service for the B17's of the 8th. He said the center of gravity on the P39 was so bad that spin practice was prohibited. They even had a song for it...

Don't give me a P39
With an engine that's mounted behind
It will tumble and roll
and dig a big hole
Don't give me a P39


Pardon the hijack of the thread, no disrespect to those the flags represent intended.

[StarMetal]

Jump,

I'll tell you that Flying Tiger is bigger then a P51. I was shocked when I saw my first P51. The only thing that MAKES them look big is that they have to sit up high to let that giant 4 blade prop clear the ground. Red, that's what we called my friend (he had red hair) knew every little detail about each those planes and how he come about to fly them all I don't know. He said one time he was up and a German got behind him and fired and he could hear the bullet hitting the fuselage and whizzing their way forward and then he said he heard CLINK CLINK CLINK and he yelled OUCH!!!! Three bullets poked their nosed throught the back of his seat, which thank God was armor plate that the plane mechanic just installed. He said he kissed him when he got back to base. He was up another time and was flying and just as it was too late their was a German BF109, the one that has that 30 mm canon throught the prop hub, at 11 oclock high making his dive at him. He said he fired that cannon and the shell went through both sides of the canopy spraying shattered plexiglass in his face and then hit the thickest part of the starboard wing and blewup taking out the three machines leaving a gapping five foot hole in the wing. He said he wondered why it didn't blow up when it hit the canopy and wasn't sure what kind of fuse they use. Anyways that big hole slowed his plane down alot as the German flew in behind him to finish him off, but he couldn't slow down enough. Red said the German put his flaps down, put the landing gear down and even cut the prop, but still overflew him right into his gunsight as he still had three 50's in the port wing. He got him. I asked if he parachuted out and Red got a sad look on his face and said "No, I hit his fuel tanks and he exploded." He knew too much about all those planes he flew not to have flown them. He told me how many gallons of fuel it took to get a P51 off the ground but I forget. It's alot. He said if you laid on the gun trigger they were empty in like 30 seconds or so. He said you went up, fired, and came back for fuel and ammo. He said with the belly tank you could cruise quite a while. He said the P51 was a sweet plane, his favorite. I don't think he flew the Corsair and can't remember if he flew a P47 Thunderbolt. Of course the Corsair was Navy and Marines, so he wouldn't have flown it. He was Army Air Corp. One thing he never thought about and I asked him was did he ever wonder about all those empty 50 fifty casing falling out of the bottom of the wings killing someone or damaging stuff. He said " You know, I never thought of that but dang those things are heavy and falling from that height they would be lethal" Yeah I'd say so and 450 round per gun times six.

Joe

[castalott]

2 Merlins in a P38 was supposely tried in 42? 43? ..but the engines were desperately needed in other airframes....So it was 'no go' Read the the book.."The Fork Tailed Devil'

How would you like to be a Japanese pilot at the end of the war? Each time you went aloft, you could 'bump' into ( f4f, f6f, f8f, p51, p38, f4u, or even one of those little naval 'spitfires' ( called them seafires???) off a brit carrier...) Not to mention the 'Blackwidow & nightfighter stuff that used radar to aim the guns). Each one had to be fought in a different way....Choose wrong and he would not make it.

I know a guy who had a couple of victories in europe. He loved the p51..also flew the p38 and the p47...

That was the greatest generation with the exception of the founding fathers....God Bless Them..Every one....

[StarMetal]

The P39 fired a 37mm cannon through the spinning shaft you speak of. Chuck Yeager flew them as a advanced trainer prior to going to England to Fly P51's doing escort service for the B17's of the 8th. He said the center of gravity on the P39 was so bad that spin practice was prohibited. They even had a song for it...

Don't give me a P39
With an engine that's mounted behind
It will tumble and roll
and dig a big hole
Don't give me a P39


Pardon the hijack of the thread, no disrespect to those the flags represent intended.

Actually from what I read, the P39 was one heck of a plane, although the americans didn't really like it. We gave alot of them to the Ruskies in a lend lease and they loved them. My father in law was involved in a secret mission to Russia in which they were delivering spare fighter plane parts, which they had stored inside their bombay, and to train the Ruskies how to service B17's and some fighter planes. The operation was called "Frantic Joe". Unfortunately his B17 never made it past Hungry. Number two inboard engine caught fire and exploded. Only four men made it out of the plane. He was one. Got captured and spent 18 months in a German POW camp. When he was captured he was found by a German and an Austrian soldier. The Austrian was going to kill him and the German busted the Austrian in the face with his rifle buttplate and said "We don't kill captured American fly boys". He saved my father in laws life. I have pictured of the camp he was in, the trains that transported him, copies of the Frantic Joe mission. His plane when they transferred him for the mission was the Reluctant Dragon. The plane he was on they didn't name as it came from another crew and when the other crew had it, it was Shirley My Girly" His first B17 was the Birmingham Blitzkreig, it got shot down. He wasn't on it as he was a Master Sargeant Chief Mechanic and they don't fly with the plane. The reason he flew on the Russian mission is a crew member got sick and they replaced him with my father in law. Great luck huh? My mother in law got a visti from the Army telling her that her husband went down over Dreshen Hungary and they don't know if he's alive or not. She didn't find out till 18 months later. She by the way was in the Womens Air Corp.

Joe

[StarMetal]

2 Merlins in a P38 was supposely tried in 42? 43? ..but the engines were desperately needed in other airframes....So it was 'no go' Read the the book.."The Fork Tailed Devil'

How would you like to be a Japanese pilot at the end of the war? Each time you went aloft, you could 'bump' into ( f4f, f6f, f8f, p51, p38, f4u, or even one of those little naval 'spitfires' ( called them seafires???) off a brit carrier...) Not to mention the 'Blackwidow & nightfighter stuff that used radar to aim the guns). Each one had to be fought in a different way....Choose wrong and he would not make it.

I know a guy who had a couple of victories in europe. He loved the p51..also flew the p38 and the p47...

That was the greatest generation with the exception of the founding fathers....God Bless Them..Every one....

One thing about the Jap Zero is that in a dive it couldn't make a turn, I forget if it was left or right, or it would break up. The americans knew this and being you knew which way it was going to turn you could shoot it down easier.

My friends Dad, the Marine that the one flag belongs too, told us when aboard ship those Japs would come in and he said the Navy filled the sky with bullets so thick that you would have thought a fly couldn't make it threw but alot of those Japs did.

Joe

[SharpsShooter]

Yeager tells the same thing regarding the Russians using the P39 via lend lease. I believe he was comparing it to more advanced fighters stability characteristics. The cockpit door opened like a right side car door and in an unrecoverable right hand spin, it would be impossible to hit the silk due to G forces holding the door shut.

[bruce drake]

Bill,

Great display. Keep showing them of and never tire of telling the stories of your families service.

Someone mentioned that the P40 showed have had a Merlin installed. The P40Fs and P40Ls (both saw service in the Aleutians and New Guinea theatres) were powered by Merlin 28 engines (Allison licensed the Rolls-Royce engines as part of their deal to provide Kittyhawk IIs (Export Warhawks) to the Brits for their North africa and Burma theatres. Although they were a good 90mph slower than the Mustangs at 25,000 feet the extra weight made them faster in the dive. The Mustang's laminar flow wing gave them a much more fuel-efficient and manueverable flight.

These P40Fs and P40Ls when powered by the Merlin 28s (Same engine as in the Canadian-built Hurricane. Allison renamed it the Model V-1610-1) had a top speed of 364mph at 20,000 feet. These Warhawks were armed with six 50cal machineguns in the wings with a center shackle point for either a 75gallon auxillary fuel tank or they could carry from a single 100-600lb bomb there. They also had two additional wing racks for six light frag bombs (three per side).

Compare this to the Supermarine Spitfire Model V(A-C) who used a bigger Rolls-Royce engine (Merlin 45) which only provided 3mph more speed (367mph) at 20000 feet and was armed with two 20mm cannon and four .303 caliber machineguns.

Used properly, the Warhawk was a very dangerous aircraft. There are reports of many Aces coming from the South African Air Force (British Commonwealth at the time)equipped Kittyhawk IIs meeting Rommels's best head-on (ME-109s and FW-190As) and coming out on top in the skies over Tobruk, Benghazi, etc...

Besides, my Grandfather flew a A20 Havoc Attack bomber with the 15th Air Force, and I've had a special love of WWII aircraft since I was little kid so I hope this helps out the discussion of these men of the Greatest Generation.

Bruce