That's it buddy... You are definitely OFF my Christmas Card list...
grampi however, gets two cards...
PS You forgot Best Torpedo Bomber, Best Liaison, Best Recon and best BESTEST ever plane...
A Spitfire will get you to the coast of the Netherlands.
johnbr
model299
l'Omnivore Sobriquet out of curiosity, why did you vote for the He 111? AFAIK it's reputation is a mediocre early war bomber that got dated by mid-war but had to carry on, do you consider this middling rep already to be overly generous?I had not heard that, and so far am unable to confirm it. It would have required either that Eisenhower be a capable pilot, or that there was an F6F two-seater available. Can you give more details or a URL link?
avgeekery.com
I voted for the Me 262, the hype around it is just silly at times. Close second to me was the B-17 Flying Fortress, yes it could withstand and dish out a lot of punishment, but not enough to bomb unescorted in a sustained campaign.
Question to those who voted for the P-51, how many of you are P-47 fans?
Dave beat me to it. General Pete Quesada CO IX FC was the taxi driver.
Yes, but that doesn't make it invincible in the skies. Yet I get the impression that all too often, that is what a lot of people seem to think, that if only it had arrived in numbers a year or two earlier, bam, instant axis-win.
The issue is, that to my knowledge, few people make claims about the other heavy bombers (B-24, Lancaster, Halifax) that they were, well, "Flying Fortresses". Again, I get the impression that all too often, folks gush all over the ruggedness and defensive armament of the B-17 and kinda overlook that it still wasn't enough to bring enough back from unescorted raids.
That is kinda my issue with the Me 262 and the B-17, it is not that either aircraft was bad, just that neither was as awesome as it is all too often claimed.
The -262 wasn't invincible and it wasn't going to be an "instant win" if it was introduced two years earlier (I think the outcome of the war in Europe would have been the same) but it certainly would have prolonged the war.
I knew several people who flew B-24s and B-17s and in some cases they preferred the B-24. The Lancaster got it's place in the spotlight many times but at the end of the day just about any heavy bomber of the period, despite heavy armament was not going to succeed unescorted.
Well you have to define your definition of "bad" and "awesome." Both aircraft were history makers and changed the course of aviation warfare.
Pilots and crews perceptions were sometimes wrong. Many preferred the Halifax because it had more space and was easier to get out of. The statistics dont support that view and from Harris' point of view it was no contest, on a long distance raid he would need to send many more Halifaxes than Lancasters to drop the same load and they would suffer more losses.
During it's debut in 1935, Richard Williams of the Seattle Times exclaimed: "Why, it's a Flying Fortress!" because of it's many gun emplacements.
...and Boeing copyrighted the name ASAP. Or so the story goes.
