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I agree everything you say.
I would add that my father would never have positioned himself as a 109 or Fw 190D 'expert' on the basis of the hours he flew in them at Gablingen after the war. He did have the ability to fly them against the late model 51D flown by very skilled pilots (Elder and Hovde) but who knows what actual condition both ships were in relative to overhauls and specs?
I wonder if he would even consider himself an 'expert' in Mustangs with over 600 hours in them including post war and Korea? He would have considered Bob Hoover as the 'measuring stick' for that standard.
Expert could be in the eye of the beholder..
IIRC your father said that the Fw-190 was slightly better in the horizontal than the P-51 ? If so it agrees completely with other aces have said and all the sensible stuff I've read on the subject. But seeing that you'd have to be accustomed to an a/c before you can get the max out of it your father must have been quite familiar with the Fw-190 ? How many hours did he fly it ?
Anyhow may he rest in peace with all the other aces out there
Okay all you turds that destroy beloved airplane threads with your unending banter about the illustrious Mr. Brown... here is your chance to piss and moan in relative comfort about whether Eric is a biased buffoon whose only support can be airplanes British or if Eric was so bloody brilliant in his analyses that his conclusions are irrefutable.
May you argue until your bladders burst. Just stay outta my threads.
I would have to believe someone like Willi R. would be able to extract more from the 190D, but reminded that dad also defeated the 190D flown by the other senior pilots in his 51D when they swapped out.
Did your father fly against senior German pilots post war ? Or did you mean senior -51 pilots who took the 190 out for a spin ?
I don't think they would understand or approve today and there aren't enough airplanes to bendMy father also taught the same guys how to fly the B-26 and A-20 - at least well enough to keep them alive on whiskey runs to Paris.
I don't think they would understand or approve today and there aren't enough airplanes to bend
When i listen to the guys from that era talk , a check out involved a 10-15 minute talk on the aircraft with a few minutes in the cockpit and away you go. met a gent named Kelly Walker he said his check out in the 262 was all of 15 minutes on the ground.You are 100% correct - and actually I would say that zero tolerance for peacetime mistakes started in 1947-1949.