Which WWII fighter would you fly?

That and we they stopped using Hellcats in the Pacific theater and switched to F4’s and P-38’s removed from strafing missions. They had one of the little rocket powered death missles there from the Japanese when they went full on Kamakazi…can you imagine strapping up in basically a warhead that had flight controls for you to fly right into a ship.

They had some cool facts about the WWI stuff…it was interesting that the guide pointed out that during WWI, the war was fought about 75% in France and they suffered huge casualites. So when WWII came around they were still a generation removed for men able to serve in the army, so they didn’t really have one…kinda puts in jeers against then being a push over in WWII in perspective.

I would have to go with the Me 262, but the P38 is a close second.

You guys and your american planes!

What was wrong with the Spitfire, anyway?

As for the Battle of Britain kill ratio being equal, if it was the Luftwaffe would have won easily. As I recall, wasn’t it more like 3:1 in favour of the Brits in the end?

I suppose the British pilots bailing out over home-soil helped though…

When push comes to shove, if you’ll forgive the expression, it was the relative production scales that most affected fighter supremacy. The US were just able to produce far, far more planes and pilots than anyone else.

I reckon.

The Spitfire was nice, but the Hurricane was the plane that fought the majority of Battle of Britain. The Spitfire had a flaw with the canopy being sunk flush with teh back of teh plane, which lead to angle of attack advantages to the German’s, it was teh same issue with teh P-40, which lead to the bubble canopy’s of the later fighters rolled out like the P-51 and the later models of the Spitfire to correct that problem.

The Brits would have been wiped out if the German luftwaffe would have used more commen sense with the blitz on bombing Berlin. It was the decision to not increase fuel capacity on the Me109’s that lead to the bombers being easy targets for teh Hurricanes and Spitfires. Overall though the Spitfire was teh model for teh P-51, without looking it up didn’t we use the engine for it on the Mustang?

But the P-38 looked the cutest. And it was black. (I think it was….maybe dark green?)

The P-38 was either dull olive or polished silver depending on where it was based…

I only fly Stukas regardless of how many got shot down. :lol: :wink:

In WWII, you could have been a pilot of a blimp and got play…

Hell, in WW2 you could have been working a supply depot and still pull some A$$ also…

True story…was thinking about that after I posted, all accept Gomer Pyle maybe…

Hek Stuka….you probably got MORE play in a supply depot then as a pilot…especially if you were in a supply depot in say, New York? wink

The Mustang was the best fighter out there, until the Krauts developed jets. id love to fly a mustang.

@Craig:

There is a story about Kurt Tank flying a protoytpe from one place to another when he was jumped by a couple of P-51. He had installed a special injection system on this plane and as the American planes were lining him up, he flicked the switch and left them in his dust!

@marine36:

The Mustang was the best fighter out there, until the Krauts developed jets. id love to fly a mustang.

Seems like the FW 190 was better than the Mustang.

Depends on the time. If you mean during WW2, I pick a mustang for the simple fact that we won the war, hence I have a better chance of living. If you mean purely for fun, I would have to go with the ME262 or the Komet. The 262 because I think it out distanced other tech to an extreme that has not really been seen in war before or since (I am talking worldwide, not like the poles charging tanks with horses). The komet would be cool just because of the rapid climb. I bet most of those pilots could taste thier colons when that thing took off.

German tech during the war was unbelievable. It took us to the 80s to develop the stealth tech the germans had 40 years prior. And when we did develop it, we just stole thier idea.

@whoman69:

I always liked watching Baa Baa Blacksheep so I voted Corsair. I also like the look of the Flying Tigers P40s with the sharks teeth painted on.

good show. i would probably go with the mustang the sister (or brother) of the spitfire.

Arado 234 Jet Bomber so i can bomb UK and never get intercepted by lousy Spitfires. After the Meteor came out id have a run at the eastern front. The song “aces high” from the battle of Britian movie would be playing in the backround… on an endless loop

NOTA…
(None Of The Above)

I chooose the Heinkel He 100 fighter.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinkel_He_100
Projekt 1035 set at an astounding 700 km/h (435 mph). Keep in mind that fighters with this sort of performance didn’t appear on the battlefield until 1944.

To ease production the new design had considerably fewer parts than the 112, and those that remained contained fewer compound curves. P.1035 was made of 969 unique parts and was held together with 11,543 rivets, in comparison the 112 had 2,885 parts and 26,864 rivets. Otto Butter reported that the reduction in complexity and rivet count (along with the Butter brothers’s own explosive rivet system) saved an astonishing 1150 man hours per wing.

http://www.csd.uwo.ca/~pettypi/elevon/baugher_other/he100.html
On the 30th of March 1939 a prototype of the new Heinkel He 100 fighter design streaked into the record books at 746.6km/h — the new world absolute speed record. Surprisingly it took the record away from a plane with well over twice the horsepower, and beat it by over 40km/h. Heinkel built the world’s fastest plane, and it was suitable for use as a fighter (unlike many racing planes).In 1939 the He 100 was clearly the most advanced fighter in the world. It was even faster than the Fw 190, and wouldn’t be bested until the introduction of the F4U in 1943. Nevertheless the plane was not ordered into production…(politics.)

He 100D-0
Notable changes included a larger vertical tail in order to finally solve the stability issues, higher cockpit and larger canopy with excellent vision in all directions. The armament was reduced from the C model to one 20mm MG/FF-M in the engine V firing through the propeller spinner, and two 7.92mm MG17’s in the wings close to the fuselage.

He 100D-1
The final evolution enlarged the horizontal stabilizer.

The big change was the eventual abandonment of the surface cooling system, which proved to be too complex and failure prone. Instead an even larger version of the retractable radiator was installed, and this appeared to completely cure the problems. The radiator was inserted in a “plug” below the cockpit, and as a result the wings were widened slightly.

While the plane didn’t match it’s design goal of 700km/h once it was loaded down with weapons, the larger canopy and the radiator, it was still capable of speeds in the 400mph range. A low drag airframe is good for both speed and range, and as a result the He 100 had a combat radius between 900 and 1000km compared to the Bf109’s 600km. While not in the same league as the later escort fighters, this was at the time a superb range and may have offset the need for the Bf110 to some degree.

http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/LRG/he100.html
(670 kph/416mph)