My WW2 photos/Vids album

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The last resort....
48 Gloster Gladiators were sent to Malta in a futile attempt to stop the Italian and German aircraft that were pounding the island. Within two weeks the squadron was down to just 3 aircraft. Nicknamed Hope, Faith & Charity. Hope & Charity were shotdown/destroyed on the ground. But Faith survived the ordeal and was taken off Malta back to England to be used as a propaganda tool. This pic shows Faith in 1940 (At combat readiness) and with a Bristol Blenheim engine and 3 bladed rotol prop custom fitted in the field for better climbing performance.
 
Crimea_River said:
This was a common practice in many air forces for tail draggers. The guy on the wing is spotting for the pilot during taxiing because the pilot can't see what's in front of him past the nose. It's not grandstanding and not "View attachment 495281".
Click to expand...

Thanks for that. I think next time i will add the word "joke" in brackets and big bold letters. I'll admit my s.o.h is a little dry at times but it's not like i thought he was there for fun. I understand what your saying, but it just seems rather odd. Not to mention a little, well impractical. I mean for one if he's there to aid in taxi and take off how and when does he leave the wing? And even if he's only helping as a taxi/direction aid, that doesnt really make sense either. Pilots would often zig zag/use the rudder to combat lack of vision from the high engine angle. And it's not like the 109 suffered worse vision compared to some aircraft. Not only that, the pilot is taking off from a field/grass runway. He must have been incredibly inexperienced to need a guy perched on his wing like that. Maybe there was a severe crosswind. That quite frankly would make more sense. Maybe it was a test run and the pilot was a trainee. But there's no way he was about to take off like that, it's just not logical or safe. Especially as the 109 had a tendency to roll over and crash back down on the runway upside down. Many trainee pilots were killed that way. But that was a control problem not a visual one.
 
Last edited:
As Andy mentioned, it was common practice, particularly on rough terrain and / or in dusty conditions, where straying off the 'safe' areas due to lack of visibility could be damaging.
In these sort of conditions 'fishtailing' the aircraft was not a good idea, hence the ground crew member acting as a guide.
As to when the ground crew chap got off, that would depend on the particular airfield and route to the runway area.
As an example, I did exactly this, sitting on the wing of Spitfire XIV 'G-FIRE', to guide Pete Thorn down a temporary grass taxi way, in a straight line, avoiding the known troughs or ridges, for around 800 yards, which also had the advantage of minimising temperature build-up in the radiators, as Pete was able to taxy at a decent rate.
I also had to guide a Fokker DR.1 along the same taxi way, 'wing walking' it (which also involved helping to turn the aircraft), to prevent it dipping into any of the undulations, and possibly experiencing a prop strike because of it - and I had a sore head afterwards, as the center main plane kept banging on top of my head !
 
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