ramcfarland

My Feedback: (44)

It was great to see Thunderbolts and the simulations are just that simulations...as some point out they are improving. To me the story they tell makes for quite an experience. as to the Me-109 being shown instead of the FW-190 is however un excusable and speaking of which "how many more times will historians show us SBDs attacking Pearl Harlor

warbird-RCU

My Feedback: (261)

Are you really serious? I had a great uncle who flew a B-17 in WWII and was shot down and killed in action. Also my Grandfather was WWII infantry, lost is leg with a landmine. I am thrilled to see the History Channel do such a fabulous job of recreating all the battles in the sky of WWII. Yes, there are going to be flaws and mistakes in retelling history. I know my uncle and my grandfather would be thrilled to see these CGI planes in action if they were still with us, regardless of which way the ailerons and rutters are turned. I don't think those kind of details are important when you look at the big picture. It's history, not flight school. Lets's just sit back and enjoy; minus the critics.

JohnMcGowan

My Feedback: (15)

Agreed, Warbird-RCU. I really like the history lesson that is to be learned and the aviation aspect of it all.
Did you guys notice last nights show when the when one of the Jugs got banging on the one of the 109's , the German pilot bailed, and as he did the horizontal stab knocked him into July 2007!! lol
Actually I heard somewhere, and someone correct me should I be wrong, when the Germans were to bail, they were to roll inverted, open the canopy and then fall out while upside down to keep being knocked out from the horizontal stab.
Anybody else heard of that before?
And also again, if Im not mistaken, and someone correct me again if Im giving wrong info, that US pilot Ken Dahlberg is the founder/owner of Miracle-Ear hearing instruments.
You just gotta love the P-47 and its designers for its toughness and the ability to bring our boys home most of the time when they were shot to s*it and back!!!
I have a look into the future- I know how the shows are going to end and who is going to win WW2!! lol
John

vertical grimmace

My Feedback: (1)

From what I have heard it was best to bail out of any aircraft inverted. The ME 109 may have been aided with gravity helping the canopy open. Aircraft such as the P-38 certainly would have been safer to bail out of inverted.

timothy thompson

My Feedback: (1)

p-38 pilots were told to roll off the wing i have the air corps training film. my dad flew p-47,s and the story of the german pilot running out of ammo is true and that plane landed intact!

timothy thompson

My Feedback: (1)

oberst you are correct they got the performance data backwards but did merntion prop cuffs and wide paddle blades. have you seen the co. that is building new 262 jets! they have 10 done and they are faa certified

LuftwaffeOberst

LOL! Hmmm... but it was SBDs that attacked Pearl Harbor! The History channel said so! [sm=lol.gif] The Luftwaffe bailed out anyway they could, they had no specific way they had too.

I spoke to Walter Shuck a few times, and he told me that the last time he was shot down, he was jumped by a squad of P-51's while attacking a group of B-17's... he slid the canopy back on his Me-262 and just bailed. He was injured and he stayed out of the final days of the war.

Walter credits the pilot of the P-51 that shot him down, because he knew if he kept fighting he would have been killed, and he was tired of killing. He talks about the war only to his close friends, family and his Vet Club he belongs to. He'll talk your ear off when you talk to him about flying... but if it's about the war or the Nazi's, well... forget about it when it comes to the general public.

My wife and I are good friends with Walter and his son, so I will answer some questions from time to time if we discussed the issue in question.

Sometimes I watch the History Channel just out of entertainment... not for just strickly education. I believe they could work on getting there facts correct sometimes before showing a episode.

However I do like the History Channel over all, and some shows I find very interesting... like the " Ice Road Truckers."


Luftwaffe Oberst
Radio Aero Modelers Club
AMA District II
Pulaski, NY

LuftwaffeOberst

YES!! And they are so [8D]. They are coming out with the reproduced Fw-190 and Me-109 soon to be FAA Certified as well. $600,000 will get you one of these birds. DROOLLLLLLLLLL...

I wouldn't want the 109... for starters I'm 6'4 and wouldn't fit. Plus the 109 is a pain to land with that narrow undercarrage and high torque from the engine. I would keep it on the grass... like the J-3 Cub I used to fly.


Luftwaffe Oberst
Radio Aero Modelers Club
AMA District II
Pulaski, NY

timothy thompson

My Feedback: (1)

the oskopsh crash was caused by the replica p-51 being too close the first on suffered minimal damage and piot ok the green was was not real it was a reproduction, vant help but wonder if money won over experience. its all too sad

Oosiksmith

My Feedback: (1)

Not a replica:

http://www.mustangsmustangs.com/p-51...44-73518.shtml

http://www.warbirdregistry.org/p51re...1-4473518.html

Most warbirds flying today aren't using all original parts. Planes have to be rebuilt. This was a real one as far as the FAA and warbird people are concerned. Damn shame the pilot didn't make it.

Not sure how much time you've spent around planes and aviation, but there was nothing "minimal" about the damage to the lead P-51 either.

http://www.aero-tv.net/index.cfm?vid...b-6f3b0f149c4d

Tim

Edwin

My Feedback: (2)

I've really enjoyed watching Dogfights. A guy in the club flys mostly axis planes and I fly mostly allied. So we put some of what we observed to the test in some of our own dog fights. Ya know, some of those menuvers really work pretty good. He flys a DO335 (~60" ws) and I was flying a H9 P40 with an OS91fs. He had speed on me and I think our menuverability was pretty comparable. I might have had a little edge on him in tight turns, hard to tell. But that barrol roll over the top worked more than once for me to go from hunted to hunter. All the spectators loved it and we both had a great time. We're gonna do that some more.
Edwin

timothy thompson

My Feedback: (1)

by minimal i mean mostly intact new prop engine and tail are needed and lots of hard work. she will fly again

Oosiksmith

My Feedback: (1)

T T sent me the following in a PM:

"didnt the replica that crashed have an allison and swing a 3 blade? I am sure he built a a-36 otherwise known as a p-51A precious metal is hightly modified ,it wasnt the same plane."

I don't even know where to start with everything he's said wrong here. Anyone else want to waste the effort?

Tim

timothy thompson

My Feedback: (1)

they shut down the other thread after i reported verbal abuse . you gave me links to the original precious metal not the one in the crash. isnt that what i said?????

Kelsey_B

In the P-47 episode, did I hear correctly that the unit discussed switched from P-51's to P-47's? Does anyone know why, or did I just get confused?

RCVFR

My Feedback: (7)

I think it was the specific pilot that swtched from a P51 to P47.

F106A

My Feedback: (2)

Hi,
If you get a chance, find the book "Thunderbolt" written by Robert S. Johnson, it tells the tale of that mission.
Johnson had a problem in that he was very aggresive and broke formation several times to go after German aircraft. The fact that he shot down several probably saved him from really getting into trouble with the brass. On this mission he was assigned tail end charlie as a punishment and told in no uncertain terms that if he broke formation, he'd really be in trouble. Also, this was the one and only time that Johnson didn't wear his goggels, hence the problem seeing when his plane, named "Half Pint", was shot up.
Johnson saw the germans way out and radioed the flight several times, but either they didn't hear him or ignored him, and since he couldn't break formation, the germans clobbered him.
Johnson said that the only reason he was able to survive was the fact that Mier was out of cannon shells. Had he fired with the cannon instead of the machine guns, even the P-47 could not take that type of punishment.
A few nitpicks:, according to WWII P-47 pilots I've talked to over the years, the P-47 was never called the Jug by the pilots, it was called the T-bolt. Also, the gunsight shown is the K-14 gyro, which wasn't used until the end of 1944, the early P-47's and P-51's had the N-9 sight.
Anyway, the series is great and I really enjoy the shows.
BRG,
Jon

Whistling Death

Americans take out the Luftwaffe tonight. Battle 360 is on right now aboout the air battles at Midway.

bigtim

My Feedback: (13)

just watched it tonight very entertaining.
its funny all the history knockers supposed self proclaimed experts disecting all the details, when the actual surviving pilots are telling there stories as they saw it, giving there versions of the events that they survived, and are portayed fairly close, as well as being recreated in vivid color,theres always somebody who is going to dispute some detail,but in general its a good quality show and has a high entertainment value,I hope it continues.

deatonbt

I don't know if the episode refers to the 354th Fighter Group. Kelley Gross of the 354th believed that they converted from P-51s to P-47s so that the last Fighter Group of the 8th Air Force, the 56th, could be outfitted with P-51s. ref. "Air Combat - An Oral History of Fighter Pilots" by Robert F. Dorr ISBN 978-0-425-21741-2

kahloq

The show itself is good, great looking detail, BUT one sided and very biased. Yes they use real wartime vets and their stories, but they pick and choose which ones to tell giving an overall story that is very lopsided.
Not once has the show depicted an America fighter being shot down by a German plane. They made only one reference to a P-47 being shot down, but didnt show it.
The only other American plane shown actually shown shot down was a P-51 over japan. The Wildcat episode did show a few Japanese shooting at them, and some damage, which was at least partially accurate.
I know we all love our planes and such, but it is far from accurate showing only US or British planes shooting down AXIS aircraft without showing the opposite. Its not 1943, propaganda documentary time.
Get mad if you want, but you all know its the truth. The show makes the Luftwaffe look like a complete bunch of bafoons.

Whistling Death

Thats a bit presumptuous. There were many American pilots that made the Gemans look like bafoons.

But really, what American wants to watch any US fighters getting shot out of the air every week?

I am sure the writers would rather have a few people pissed off about Germans not getting credit for being superb pilots as opposed to noone watching the show.

I don't have a problem watching American boys kicking the s**t out of the Germans, North Koreans, North Viemanese or the Communists.

I know there were many air battles where the Americans got spanked but I could care less about watching that.

Maybe we can get Clint Eastwood to make "Letters from Duesseldorf", a documentry about german pilots shooting American and British boys out of the air and then you can be happy.

vertical grimmace

My Feedback: (1)

I think Goering was the bafoon. This may be an example of "to the victor go the spoils". We won the war and it is an american show, so of course it would be biased that way. There were many factors as to why each side had it's successes but the bottom line is what the Germans were doing was wrong. Thankfully they were defeated, but they sure did make some cool airplanes!

kahloq

You are very correct. I agree totally that what the Germans were doing was wrong. Yes its an American show and a good one, but, it lacks credibility as a result of that bias, thats all.

BBWoen, Im afraid its you that is a little presumptous. I never stated the program should show American pilots getting shot down every week, what I said was, in effect, show the truth and dont hide the fact that the we lost a great deal of pilots. Had they shown just one fighter plane being downed by a Luftwaffe pilot, it would have at least showed they were not trying to hide this. Not showing one american plane getting shot down by a German plane may well feed those that dont want to admit we can ever be harmed, but its a revisionist look at history. A decent example, though somewhat Hollywood in presentation, was the movie Pearl Harbor. Great movie for Americans to watch.....and they did show Allied pilots getting shot down. Why? Because A), it added to the drama of what was happening, and B), it was accurate to portray that some of our boys never made it home. <--- this part here is what inspires ppl to fight harder, not the "we can never lose portrayal".

As far as your comment that some American pilots made some of the German pilots look like bafoons is rediculously stupid. Obviously there were times that veteran American Piltots came up against less then well trained German piltos because thats mostly what was left at the end of the war. Now, turn it around, and admit that the top scoring Ace for the US had 40 kills, and then compare that to Adolf Galland or even Eric Hartmann with 359 kills.....7 of which were P-51's. German pilots never got a break from combat service as did Allied pilots, so its only logical that after 4 years, there wouldnt be that many veteran German pilots still alive or not captured.
As Vertical Grimace said, I am glad we won. The fact remains the show is unbalanced and anyone with an affinity for the actual history has a right to point this out.

rrudytoo

My Feedback: (27)

kahlog,

I recall an episode on Dogfights concerning the last aerial engagement of Werner Voss in one of the early Dr I's. He took on several of Britain's best pilots by himself and put bullets into each of their planes. Yes, Voss did get killed in this engagement but the program mentioned several times his skill, courage and bravery. Then, there was the episode on Kamikaze's. If deliberately diving your plane into an American ship causing the ship's destruction along with that of its crew, then, I guess, one could call that a "victory". A Japanese victory. Feel just a little better?

Think about an episode's title. "Zero Killer", for example. Would it make much sense to show Hellcats being shot out of the sky left and right by Japanese pilots with a program title like that? Besides, Hellcats and their pilots did, in fact, dominate the skies over the Pacific. However, the program did mention the failings of the F4F Wildcat and its inferiority to the Zero and did so with a Wildcat being shotdown in flames. That had to ease your mind. I guess the show you wish to see might be entitled "The Bloody 100th". That B-17 group of the US 8th Air Force suffered terrible losses over the European continent. If it would make you feel better, kahlog, write the program's producer and see if he'd show some good American blood being shed. I guess this is something you need to see.

Semper Fi,

Al

PS: BBOwen, I love the remark, "Letters from Duesseldorf". That's great!