Good point JDK

I have the following very sobering data …
For any given 100 aircrew in Bomber Command, 1939-1945, the stats were:
Killed on operations 51
Killed in crashes in England 9
Seriously injured 3
Prisoner of War 12
Evaded capture 1
Survived unharmed 24

I think around 55,000 served in Bomber Command during the war – so the absolute casualty numbers are substantial.

Sorry I can’t confirm the source – this is data I have held aside as my Uncle was one of the 51% and there will come a day when I write a book, or set up a website or whatever.

Also a point that is rarely conceded when looking back on the “supreme heavy bomber” of WWII is that for all it’s offensive capability the Lancaster was not a safe aircraft for its crew. Statistics will tell you that the rate of loss of Lancasters was less than its heavy counterparts (Stirling & Halifax). True – this primarliy came about because of its higher ceiling (operating altitude), Halifax III and VI excepted. But the rate of loss of Lancaster crew was another matter. If hit, the survival rate of it’s crew was significantly less than peers, I believe in the order of 1 out of the 7 crew on average (vs 2 or 3 for other RAF heavies and about 50% crew in the US daylight heavies). And the vast majority of Lancasters lost (some 3500 were lost out of 7000 built) took all 7 crew with them. This was because the Lanc’s fuselage, wonderfully efficient for load carrying, was extremely difficult to exit in adverse circumstances (main spar, hydraulic lines, few hatches not very near crew positions, parachutes stowed not worn, etc.).

Enough.

Wouldn’t want to have been in a U-boat though – the fatality rate there was in the 80% decile.

All the best for Saturday Ken … Don

Although arguably not strictly on topic – when in Florida you simply must take a drive down to the Kennedy Space Centre. When there take the bus tour (used to be $10 in the late 90’s) … you pass the shuttle launch pads and ultimately go through the most extraordinary experience in an old command centre buidling then pop out of there right under a Saturn 5. There’s another thread here about how big the Spruce Goose is – well you ain’t seen big till you’ve seen a Saturn 5! KSC and particularly the bus tour is a MUST.

Lockheed twins – well they all look the same to me … [I saw] a Lockheed ‘something’ … at Point Cook, near Melbourne … is this ringing any bells with the antipodeans?
Mark

Mark

I have recently returned to NZ having lived in Melbourne since 1997 and visited the Point Cook RAAF Museum on a number of occassions – there is a Lockheed PV-1 Ventura there (VH-SFF).

Here’s the link …

http://www.raafmuseum.com.au/raaf2/html/pv-1.htm

Top photos Gareth. That Memphis Belle paint job looks mighty fine – pity about the thing under its chin! Apologies for the pedantry but isn’t the ‘Belle an early B17F?

There’s always something you haven’t seen – I’m amazed at the looping gliders. And great pics all round.

When I was but a wee garden gnome, I had the same experience as young Hadyn – but mine was commercial flight on one of these …

http://www.kiwiaircraftimages.com/rapide.html

Found this thread using the much-maligned post April 2004 search function! Was looking for the Heinkel 219. So I’m taking the opportunity to resurrect it.

Much of what’s said above is of course (and entirely reasonably so) opinion. I wonder if there’s any way of arriving at an objective “answer” here – say along the lines of Neilly’s bomb tonnage per target arguments re. the Mossie.

Reflecting on fighters in their primary role (IMHO = intercepting and destroying or at least deterring enemy aircraft). I vaguely remember reading somewhere that the Hurricane had destroyed more (presumably enemy) aircraft than any other fighter in WWII. Is that cods or gospel – anyone know? And how that might pan out kills/sortie I don’t know.

Also I wonder whether the HE219 might win a kills/sortie ratio contest in night-fighters. It certainly started out on the right foot with 5 kills on the first sortie (pilot Werner Streib). Don’t know how it went after that – but it packed a hell of a punch. And unfortunately Allied night-fighters would likely get nowhere on this scale – not enough targets!

Apologies for the Lazarus act for those tired of this thread.

Good points Ray Jade – for those who can’t access the link I posted above (#12) the very next para states …

[quote] Stripped of naval equipment and fitted with a rack for a 66 Imp gal drop tank, 4 110-lb bombs, or a single 551-lb bomb, the planes were redesignated Bf 109T-2. It was concluded that the Bf 109T-2 would be ideal for operation from small, exposed airstrips such as those from which the Jagdflieger were forced to operate in Norway. Several units operated with the Bf 109T-2 in Norway. However, it never operated in its intended shipboard role. The short-field performance of the Bf 109T lead to surviving Norwegian-based Bf 109T-2s to be based on the tiny fortified island of Heligoland in 1943. The last of the Bf 109T-2s disappeared from the inventory at the end of 1944. [unquote]

So as you say, we have the “prototype” T-0’s, and the partly constructed/converted T-1’s redesignated as T-2’s. Arguably the naval equipment removed would have been the catapult points and arrester hook. The question about whether there ever were any folding wings remains open. Had they been built and then locked or bolted or …? Or were they never completed in the first instance?

All that said – I think we’re flogging a dead horse!