Highest number of sorties for an airframe

[FLYBOYJ]

What sort of sortie would be 20 minutes - other than an aborted one?

Operating in a forward combat area (Henderson Field, Okinawa, Malta to name a few)

I think you are intermixing sortie with combat mission. They are not necessarily the same. A sortie can be any flight, for training, maintenance or a joyride. A combat mission is one where the aircraft goes into bad guy land.

If you are talking about sorties, the aircraft that would be at the top of the list would be trainers, slogging along day in and day out for years with good pilots and knuckleheads.

If you are talking about combat missions, that is quite different. Keep in mind that a lot of fighters of the era were not designed to be still flying today. A good example of this is the F4F Wildcat. I was chatting with a guy that worked on the one near here and the wing fold hinge doesn't have a grease fitting. They didn't bother adding the weight for one because they figured it would average about 25-30 hours before it would be lost!

The B-17 "Knockout Dropper" flew 75 missions with the 303rd BG and came through those missions nearly unscathed.

BINGO!

 

[evangilder]

Knockout Dropper was a B-17F (41-24605). The 75th mission took place on March 27, 1944 piloted by John Savage.

John N. Savage Crew

Jack Roller and his crew were the ones who named the aircraft and flew it to Molesworth, arriving on 21 October 1942. It hit the 50th mission tally a little over a year later on 16 November 1943. Four months later, it hit #75. It was shipped home after that. Sadly, it was scrapped at Stillwater, OK in July 1945.

 

[eagledad]

Hello!

How about P-38F-15 43-2112 "Sad Sack". it was In service with the 82 FG from December 1942 until the end of May 1944. (Actually, its last mission was May 29.) The airframe was credited with 183 missions and 16 kills. Certainly, this is not too shabby a record for a day fighter.

Eagledad

 

[drgondog]

If you want highest hours for an airframe - I suggest you only research a.) C-47 and maybe in second place b.) B-52's

My father was a close friend of Shower Shoes Johnson, CBI, CIA, Air America with well over 40,000 miles in the early 60s' KIA over Laos but he pointed out one Gooney to dad that he said he had over 4,000 hours in - that specific tail number.

 

[Juha]

My guess is a LW plane, for ex an early 109G first used in say JG 54 and then transferred to JG 5. Or a recon Ju 88D
Max flying time for FiAF Brewster B-239 was 955 h 45 min.

Juha

 

[Chris S]

My Dad flew this one, on 109 Squadron, on 3 of its latter missions:

February 17, 1945 to Cleve
March 11, 1945 to Essen,
and April 8, 1945 to Heligoland. If our correspondents are correct, this last was its 200th mission. There is a photo of it in 'Mosquito' by C M Sharp and M J F Bowyer after its 190th op, and my Dad on seeing the photo confirmed he flew it on its 200th. The Heligoland op was in daytime, and was principally aimed at the E-boat pens on the island using Lancasters with Tallboy bombs which were capable of penetrating the concrete roofs of the pens. The Mosquitos were there to mark the target, and a wing of rocket carrying Typhoons waited for the E-boats to make a run for it when the bombs started penetrating the pens, which they did. My Dad said his two enduring memories were of the shock-waves emanating from the bomb explosions rippling over the surface of the sea, and the language over the RT as the Typhoons strafed the E-boats!

 

[mhuxt]

Hi Chris,

The Imperial War Museum has a film of the Heligoland raid:

[RAIDS BY 2ND TAF AND BOMBER COMMAND] [Allocated] | Imperial War Museums

We Mossie fans would love to hear more tales of LR504 and her sisters...

 

[drgondog]

I recall a story by Les Minchew, 355th ace, career USAF, contractor/advison Air America during Laos and Vietnam.. the story was this. He was walking across field toward a Gooney Bird with a legendary Air America pilot who flew the Hump for two tours in WWII, flew for Nationalist China, absorbed in Air America in ~ 46-47 and flew, and flew.

Anyway, a replacement pilot just assigned struck up a conversation with Johnson. "Sir, I know you have a lot of time. Just out of curiosity - How much time do you have in those - pointing to an old C-47 across the way. Johnson paused to look at it and responded after a couple of seconds "About 4600 hours, maybe more". The young pilot looked at him - amazed - and blurted out "I thought you had a lot more time in the '47?.

To which Johnson replied " I thought you meant THAT one".

Johnson was KIA and has a star at Langley... alleged to have north of 70,000 hours in C-47/C46/C54.

 

[CobberKane]

Whichever individual machine did the most hours, sorties or whatever, I'd bet the house on one thing - it wasn't Russian!

 

[tyrodtom]

I recall a story by Les Minchew, 355th ace, career USAF, contractor/advison Air America during Laos and Vietnam.. the story was this. He was walking across field toward a Gooney Bird with a legendary Air America pilot who flew the Hump for two tours in WWII, flew for Nationalist China, absorbed in Air America in ~ 46-47 and flew, and flew.

Anyway, a replacement pilot just assigned struck up a conversation with Johnson. "Sir, I know you have a lot of time. Just out of curiosity - How much time do you have in those - pointing to an old C-47 across the way. Johnson paused to look at it and responded after a couple of seconds "About 4600 hours, maybe more". The young pilot looked at him - amazed - and blurted out "I thought you had a lot more time in the '47?.

To which Johnson replied " I thought you meant THAT one".

Johnson was KIA and has a star at Langley... alleged to have north of 70,000 hours in C-47/C46/C54.

70,000 hours, that's almost 8 years of straight flying.

 

[Jenisch]

When people view the fantastic number of airframes produced during the war, the airframe life and the consequent need of it's substitution in an overlooked thing, as well as the losses by accidents and the planes that went to cover losses of active units.