Here are the pics, as promised, from ‘Fred’ at Don’s hobbies of his model….he wants to know if you guys think its good enough to send in to the IPMS Journal for them to publish?

Mark

The B-17 was the loser in the contest no doubt due to poor bomb load/bomb bay arrangement….but for defensive armament and its superior ceiling (I’m told that altitude means life in bombing) I wonder if it would’nt have suffered greater casualties than it did…

Tie for me between the Lanc and the Lib…if it goes to looks the Lanc wins hands down, it is just a phenomenal looking machine, whereas the Lib just looks like a grumpy old grandfather sitting on the patio ready to chew your ass out for doing something wrong….but you can’t argue it carried a good bomb load and had great range and versatility…even the Navy used them as patrol bombers, much more so than the B-17 (as did Coastal Command)…hard one to pick there…

Mark

A good answer on the Zero…it really was done for all practical purposes by about mid-43…one might make a similar case for the Messerschmitt 109, they were just trying to upgrade an already aging airframe and keep it competitive (with some success) as a stop gap measure, but in the end both failed as allied fighters ALL got the upper edge on these designs….

I don’t know where to go with the Mustang, I realize what it did, how competitive it was, but I also know of its drawbacks…I would say it was the right LONG RANGE fighter for the times and a decent dogfighter, and that counts for a lot…I can’t all out say it was overrated…as much as I’d like to.

Mark

Nice stuff, like the new paint on PZ865 a LOT…where’s LF363?

Mark

Phantom took the words right out of my mouth…I was gonna mention the P-40Q but was beat to it….had there been a need for it we would have seen how it performed, and I think it would have performed admirably…

I am somewhat of a loss over Stormbird’s comments on the highest kill ratio aircraft from above…what plane does he refer to as being ‘squat, round, and unpopular with its pilots?’…I always had heard the highest kill to loss ration of the war was for the F6F, which was 19 to 1 and it was certainly loved by its pilots…

Mark

I would tend to agree…as I said in a post I put up a few weeks ago, i feel the three most underrated fighters of the war were the P-40, the Wildcat and the Hurricane, all superceded by ‘bigger and better’ fighters later in the war, but those bigger and betters owe a lot of the progress in the war to the earlier and less capable fighters that paved the way. I’m not such an advocate of the P-39, unique as it was, and maybe the Russians would have a problem with that, but I never personally felt it did THAT much in the war except tried to survive without being shot down in droves by Japanese and Russian fighters (British trials with it at squadron strength ended VERY quickly).

Cheers to the underachieving…or is that overachieving?…Three, the P-40, Wildcat and Hurricane..

Mark

Mucho apprecianado…looks like June 24-26 are my dates…kewl…

M

Anyone know how to get a schedule of her appearances? If she’s in Calif, maybe she’ll work her way east here to Colorado and we can see her if she stops….

Mark