Very cool USAAF Spitfire video

Originally posted by nwtrucker
The look on that pilot's face when he watched the film is what I will remember most about this......

Thanks for the video.

Yeah, me too. That was just great!! Wow!

Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul
Found another account of the 31st Fighter Group on the WW2 Aircraft performance page - this is the USAAF group that flew Spitfires in the Med from 1942-1944.

It is felt that with the present load on the enemy shops and the possible shortage of the high quality steel necessary for the boiler tubes, that a locomotive that has been holed by .50 cal. machine gun fire will be out of service from 3 weeks to 6 months depending on the location with reference to repair facilities. In some cases the locomotive explodes ; if it does not explode, often the escaping steam blows the fire out of the fire box into the cab. The repetition of these attacks has definitely made the profession of locomotive engineer unpopular in that part of Europe within range of the Mustangs.

(my italics

)

This is a great video about Mustangs in the RAF. It is period newsreel footage introducing the plane to the British public. They compare it in appearance to the Me 109. The last half of the video deals with using it for ground attack and at the very end there is gun camera footage from the Mustang of FO Grant (a Canadian in the RAF) who shot up 12 locomotives on one sortie.

I hope I'm not derailing , pardon the pun. I love the Spitfire and all the WW2 fighters. There is sort of an international theme to the thread, people using other people's equipment.

Originally posted by LABTECH767
reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul

 

technically except for the engine's the US had better plane's

Depends what you mean by "better planes"the obvious example is the P 51 airframe mated with the Rolls Royce Merlin,but apart from that(in the European theatre) Britain did have a number of aircraft types that could certainly out perform their USAAF counterparts,for example the Avro Lancaster could ultimately carry a 22,000 pound bomb load,not even the B-29 could match that In fact the Lancaster was slated to carry the fat man and little boy nuclear weapons in the event that the B-29 was not ready for these missions.

The De Havilland Mosquito is another example,in it's bomber guise,it could fly faster than most of the contemporary German day and night fighters,there was no direct USAAF counterpart to the Mosquito.
But whatever the comparative merits of USAAF and RAF WW2 aircraft,a hell of a lot of brave guys who flew these aircraft ensured that Germany could not sustain it's fighting capabilities due to the frequency of the day and night allied bombing raids.

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


Reminds me of a family WWII story.

My dad was bombardier on the lead B-17 for the 8th Army Air Force's 360th Bomber Squadron, the Hell's Angels (and yeah, I think the bikers got their name from the squadron). This was in the first months of U.S. involvement when the daylight raids were suffering 35%+ casualties (my father had flown missions with the RAF - volunteered from Canada before he was 18 - then when the U.S. declared war he did 25 missions with the U.S. - silver star, etc.).

After the bombs were dropped in France they were heading back to England. His B-17 had been shot to pieces with 3 of the 4 motors out. There were injuries on board and frozen blood everywhere. They had fallen back out of sight of the main group. One of their friends' planes had stayed with them to help fight off the heavy fighter attacks. The escorting plane got hit too bad and had to speed ahead as they started over the Channel.

Dad's plane was all alone and just over the English Channel with 12 or so Me109's and Focke Wolfs lining up for the rookies to practice their strafing on their crippled B-17. The crew were pretty much saying their good-byes when over the German radio they were monitoring they heard "Achtung! Spitfire!" And the German fighters peeled out and fled for France.

Two Spitfires screamed past and dipped their wings as they took off after the 12 German fighters. My father and his crew made it home. The Germans had a healthy respect for that plane. My dad loved them, too.

Originally posted by nake13

Originally posted by LABTECH767
reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul

 

technically except for the engine's the US had better plane's

Depends what you mean by "better planes"the obvious example is the P 51 airframe mated with the Rolls Royce Merlin,but apart from that(in the European theatre) Britain did have a number of aircraft types that could certainly out perform their USAAF counterparts,for example the Avro Lancaster could ultimately carry a 22,000 pound bomb load,not even the B-29 could match that

Actually it could - it was slated to carry 2 10 tonners in experiments after the war - externally of course!!

In fact the Lancaster was slated to carry the fat man and little boy nuclear weapons in the event that the B-29 was not ready for these missions.

Aircraft lifting capability is a fairly simple function of lift - which in turn depends upon wing design and horsepower - there is little or no "magic" in it at all. Even the Spitfire's elliptical wing was known as the optimal design before the war - but being made of curves it was harder to build than the more common straight-edged approximations.

And of course you have many other considerations into what makes a "good aircraft" - FAA aircraft pre-war were expected to operated far from land, hence the Firefly and Fulmar emphasized range and had a navigator - they only expected to fight long range patrol a/c - USN a/c were always expected to have to fight against land-based fighters, so were appropriately designed.

As discussed above, the Spitfire COULD have had the same range as the Mustang - but why bother with the hassles of redesigning and the disruption it would cause to production when it is not required?

A/c such as the Wellington, Hampden, Blenheim, even the Firefly were all as advanced as anything the US was producing at the same time - the US was fortunate that it did not have to go to war with the types it had in service in 1939 - the P-35, B-18, A-18 and the P-26 - of which there were still 28 in service in the Philippines on Dec 7 1941!!

They would have been shot out of the sky as were similar aircraft in various airforces around Europe in 1939-41.

Various allied aircraft were superb - the Mosquito has been mentioned - but less known in het west is the Yak-3 - arguably THE most maneuverable (and certainly the smallest!) allied fighter of the late war, the La-5FN and La-7. the Il-2 Sturmovik and Pe-2 are better known, and the P-39 and P-63 were apparently able to be flown by eth Soviets more competently than they could be by the western allies (a little tongue in check - it was a different type of air war!)

There were lots of very very good a/c in WW2 - jingoistic nationalism about them is just pathetic.

And let's not forget that the Mustang was actually designed to a BRITISH requirement!!

Finally made time to watch OP's video. Thank you ATG! The expressions on that gentlemens face were priceless. S/F

reply to post by Lysergic



Not a bad video, personally i find this one a little better though?

reply to post by Aloysius the Gaul


that was fantastic thanks

and his reaction to the vid was priceless

you have to admire that gentleman

s+f

again thanks

Originally posted by solidshot
reply to post by Lysergic

 

Not a bad video, personally i find this one a little better though?

Why did they put shots of Hurricanes in eth middle of that???

But yeah - interesting music & nice footage, even if from a movie