Recent content by bobbysocks

Rest in Peace brother and thank you.

In the Poltava Affair about the Frantic operations, when the pilots from the 357th were there they saw the Soviet pilots scramble and take off. They jumped in their P39s, started them up and immediately poured on the coals and took off. They didn't do any preflight checks, warm up, even see if...

By the looks of that site he may have flown his first missions flying on a pterodactyl....

Like Thorlifter I don't frequent the forum as much as I used to due to being busy with personal stuff ( hoping to change that ). I was just thinking of Erich the other day. I was thinking of something and remembered that Erich and I had talked about that very issue. It does sadden me but I...

I believe Bud was the last of the Yoxford Boys. I had the opportunity to meet him at my dad's last fighter group reunion in Sept 01, just days before 9-11. He was a class act and a very gracious man. Guys like him are in short supply these days. You are already missed , Bud. Had to add a...

From what I remember everything on the 51s was API and tracer. Tracers ran every 5th (?) round until you got within so many rounds of the end of the belt. Then it was every round or every other round was a tracer to warn you that you were running out of ammo. A lot of guys didn't want to use...

The 357th FG moved from Leiston U.K. to Neubiberg. I will look though some of the groups photos when I have a chance to see if it is in any of them. If it was airworthy they flew it. There was a 262 that they used to taxi around in and they did mock combat with captured planes.

Cool. Where did you dig these up? This scrapping site, was it on an airbase? A lot of the bases had scrap piles. Supposedly the Shangrila is in one.

HAHA. I have flown planes...nothing like a 51, 109.. mind you but Cessna, Piper, and Stensons. I have also flown sims since the 90s. When you are sitting on your couch or floor with a joystick in your hand flying a sim you are void of all the forces that pilots must face, fight, overcome. You...

Yeah...a little Bondo, some ackumpucy, and primer and she will be as good as new. Maybe some WD-40 to loosen the prop.

I was going through some of my dad's stuff and ran across this. It is a snapshot of the mindset and impressions of a 19 year old boy going far from home and learning what it really means to go to war.

Yeah, they had a spring inside but it was to help with the sound. if you went over a bump hard you would hear a loud crashing sound! I have to dig through my stuff it may be buried in my garage somewhere....along with some Cal Custom, Mr, Gasket, and Hurst shifter stuff...lol

You are forgetting the Russian AC. some of them were very basic....the PO2 and I-16. The I-16 had one ridiculous rate of roll. As for SMGs, the sten is fun to shoot. It has a low cyclic rate like 420 rpm iirc. It doesn't have much recoil. The M3 looks cool but has some goofy attributes. The...

This wasn't as uncommon as you might think. Aircraft identification was a never ending training endeavor. I know some of the 8th AF pilots had playing cards with silhouettes of enemy and friendly AC. Despite that it was easy to mistake one plane for another in the heat of battle or bad...

He could be pistol especially if you caught his ire but he was a good man at heart with a wealth of knowledge and stories. He will be missed. I have been MIA for a long time with different distractions....hope to make it back here more regularly.