Picture of the day. (2 Viewers)

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1944 - Air gunners attend a refresher class in aircraft recognition conducted by a Gunnery Instructor, Pilot Officer V A Reed, using wooden models, at No. 7 Air Gunners School, Stormy Down, Glamorgan.

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fastmongrel said:
View attachment 268449
Click to expand...

That's probably Wilhelm Meyerweissflog's Bf 109, W.Nr 5375, in which he was shot down over England (Monkton Farm, near Manston) on 5th September 1940.



Meyerweissflog was 51 years old at the time!

He had returned from leave on 4th September and the next day, seeing some other Bf 109s take off, he decide to make a freelance patrol himself. He took off and flew in the direction of England where he was intercepted, his aircraft suffering hits to the fuel tank and oil cooler. He made a forced landing and, when apprehended, had no idea where he was!

This aircraft used to be one of the options in the 1/24 scale Airfix kit.

Cheers

Steve
 
Been meaning to finish a diorama, with the 1/24th scale kit, originally built about 9 or 10 years ago, but received a couple of hitherto unpublished photos showing the damage to the aircraft, which messed things up a bit!
Until seeing those two pics, I hadn't realised that the empennage was twisted to starboard so much !
 


Prelude to tragedy...
Each loaded with two 1,000 lbs bombs, the Typhoons F3-T and F3-W of No. 438 Squadron RCAF, were taking off at Eindhoven when 'T' burst its port tyre and swung broadside on the runway. As 'W' taxies past, a groundcrewman arrived to assist the pilot of 'T' to taxy clear. Unfortunately the landing gear collapsed, causing the port bomb to fall off, exploding moments later and killing both men and blowing the Typhoon to pieces....

(Richard Ward in The Hawker Typhoon and Tempest by Mason)
 
That is rather poignant and very sad. A very special image considering that moments after it was taken, the subject matter was completely obliterated. Nice find.
 
Also gives a great example of how small Japanese armor was.

As technically capable as Japan was, their armor was sadly lacking. I know that Japan didn't really possess a need for armor in many of their operations, but there were many occasions where capable armor would have proven very useful.
 
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