Got to see the restored one fly into Oshkosh in 2003…kinda sad to see it on display at the NASM Udvar Hazy facility last summer, but it was all polished and shiny and safe and NOT in the bay in Seattle where it crashed before being restored AGAIN and flown cross country to it’s new home at the UH facility….so I guess it all had a happy ending….she is a magnificent monster of a plane, a civilized B-17….

M

Please….open and shut for me…Rolls Royce Merlin inline and Pratt and Whitney R-2800 radial…SOOOO easy….but others will disagree…

M

Harald, THANK YOU, I was gonna mention this….what happens if Naval fighters like the Hellcat and Corsair enter the escorting fray? The Hellcat had a range at 15,000 ft and 400 gallons of fuel of around 1100 miles and the Corsair at cruise and 536 gallons of fuel could go 2100 miles at 5,000 ft (obviously not the operating height of the bombers for either plane) but the RANGE was there in some cases….but it was a matter of them being allowed to operate in the European theatre by the Army and the Army taking both models of plane on charge with their service, or convincing the Marines/Navy to escort their bombers into Germany, which of course we know did’nt happen. As for thier ‘at altitude’ performance, The Hellcat was capable of mixing it up with German fighters (I seem to recall a post of long ago recalling that Hellcats actually shot down some Messers in one of the attacks up near Norway or somewhere) and P-47’s used to shy away from mock combats with Corsairs on the east coast of the US at medium to higher altitudes because the Corsair could take them, only at VERY high altitudes would the P-47 become the better plane…and since most air combats work their way DOWN from altitude, this played into the Navy fighters strengths…Both planes were introduced in 1943 (the Hellcat being the latest introduced of the Navy fighters in the war) so could have joined the fray after the start of standard production….

Other thoughts?

Mark

So many songs inspire emotional reactions in me at any one time…I could name a whole LIST that make me sad, happy, reflective, melancholy, on and on….three NAUTICAL songs bring about good memories of working on the sea in the Coast Guard and on a fishing boat in CA…Billy Joel’s ‘Downeaster Alexa’, John Denver’s ‘Calypso’, and Gordon Lightfoot’s ‘Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald’….Van Halen’s JUMP never fails to put me in a good mood no matter what, a good high energy song….my main man Bob Seger has penned a NUMBER of great songs that inspire emotional response, one called ‘Brave Strangers’ about losing one’s virginity….another called ‘The Famous Final Scene’ about a relationship ending…many many others by Seger and others…..far too many to list…

And sometimes, I want no emotional response at all…i just wanna crank it up LOUD and put on some Hard rock/heavy metal like G n R or more Van Halen or Deep Purple or something in those veins…is that wrong for a 41 year old? I don’t care if it is…LOL…

M

Actually saw a news story on the sunday night news on the event….HERE IN COLORADO….complete with footage of BM597 and the Irish Spitfire with Henshaw in the back and a flight of 5 going right to left….I was stunned that our local news would say anything at all! Nice to see that they did…really woke me up before I headed to bed!

M

No….technically I’m Welsh….no Hispanic blood whatsoever…

M

From ‘America’s Hundred thousand’ by Francis Dean, some random comments on the P-47:

Luftwaffe Gen. Adolf Galland, after flying the P-47, said he felt the cockpit was big enough to get up and walk around in.
Fifth air force personnel appraised the P-47 thusly: It was no good as a combat aircraft-it did not carry enough fuel, took up too much runway on takeoff (actually a P-47 will become airborne before a P-51!), it had no maneuverability, would not pull out of a dive, had a weak landing gear, and used an unreliable engine (the P & W R-2800).
One german pilot flew a captured P-47…he did’nt like it…..too big an airplane and a huge cockpit with everything out of reach.
Pilot comment: Not a dogfighter, best as a fighter bomber.
A pilot who flew a P-47D-16 model said it was 50 miles an hour slower than his previous P-47 model due to the large and cumbersome wing pylons for drop tanks/bombs that the factory mounted on it.

Mark

I liked it…and knew it was’nt accurate also….but it was a good movie.

Somewhere around here I have a pic of the modern day Wallace, the guy who wrote ‘Braveheart’ and then also ‘Pearl Harbor’….funny how those two films seem to bring out such emotional debate…

M