Recent content by Johnny .45

I am always hearing stories about Ju 88s, usually over water, attacking or shooting down other aircraft, almost as if they were serving as quasi fighter aircraft. Did they just use their MG15s for this, fly close and let the gunners shoot at the other aircraft? Or did they use the forward MG15...

Seriously? Why would Britain want a bunch of totally obsolete fighters back after the war? The allies already didn't know what to do with all the equipment they had, it was going to cost them a ton of money to dispose of it all. They were bulldozing heaps of brand new aircraft into pits and...

Ah, thank you, that is exactly what I wanted to know.

Has anyone yet arrived at a conclusive decision on whether the G4M2 was fitted with bomb bay doors? I read a thread on J-aircraft a few years ago that surprisingly seemed to conclude that no one knew whether the G4M2 model had bomb bay doors or not. We know that the G4M1 did not, flying either...

Ah, thank you. That helps, but I believe that is actually the rear of the gondola, the C-Stand. I hadn't even thought of how you accessed that position. I assume it's similar to the B-Stand in the front though. You can tell (aside from the caption) because the glazing is different, more conical...

Hi all, don't know if this is the best place for this, but I'm looking for photos or drawings showing how the bombardier/co-pilot accessed the gondola compartment of the Fw200. One of those little mysteries that bug me forever. I've found a couple of model builds, one which appears to show a...

Maybe true, but they were not the only units. The 31st and 52nd Fighter Groups were sent to England without their P-39's, and were given Spitfires as an interim until their P-39's could be shipped in, or in the end, a better type of fighter. I'm pretty sure there was also at least one USAAF...

I know the US used Spitfires starting with the Mk V, many with the 4 x Browning/2 x Hispano "b" wing, and the later "C" wing fitted with the same armament. I assume that the US would have swapped the British .303 Brownings for their own .30 cal M1919 guns, as used on other American aircraft, but...

"C-35s"? I assume you mean "C-53s"? The XC-32 was an experimental twin based on the Lockheed Electra, used for experiments with cabin pressurization.

I'd like to go through here and make a statistical analysis about the number of each aircraft type represented here. It seems so far I've seen an amazingly high percentage of B-17s, Wellingtons and P-47s, with a few other types scattered about. I wonder what that says about the aircraft...

No-one with any brains suggests that the .303 is incapable of shooting down an aircraft. Any plane that ever flew could be shot down with a .303/.30/7.62mm gun, provided you brought enough ammo (or were a very good shot who knew just where to aim). The problem lays with putting enough rounds on...

Hmm. You'd think that a shell the size of an 88mm would have created a lot more fragmentation than that, even if the blast wasn't powerful enough to literally rip the plane into pieces (it ought to be). Ignoring the massive blast and saying that it diffused out the side of the aircraft, without...

Me too. Even if it was possible to fly it that way...basically no elevators or stabilizers, no vertical stabilizer or rudder at all, in a plane notoriously hard to fly. Making a deck landing in that condition, without any sign of a deployed arresting hook? I really doubt it. It'd be a miracle. I...

Wrong. It's a Mitsubishi G4M1. Engines are mounted under the wings. Shot down and found floating by the USN several hours later. I want to say at the Coral Sea, but that's just a vague idea.

No, that's a Spitfire that was hit with a cannon shell while parked on an airfield. It certainly never flew home in that condition!