Poor Aircraft, Best Pilot

[OGGleep]

This is a bit of a tangent, and I didn't want to siderail the "Best Pilot of WW2 thread".

I wanted to do a bit more reading on this aread, the Ground Actions in WW2 always held my interest. The Pilot thread gave me a wealth of Pilots to research, but I wanted to narrow it a bit first.

I was wondering if anyone could recommend Pilots who achieved the status to be considered, but did so in inferior planes. The sterotypical underdog story.

Thanks

 

[kool kitty89]

Well you could look at the Finns for a start.

But there were few a/c in normal service for any length of time that were truely poor. Most had advantages they could exploit to gain an advantage, and short of that they had other useful qualities. (ie. escape in a dive, absorb alot of damage)

There were a few cases where countreies were mainly using very outdated a/c, like China and Poland, and they didn't fair very well w/out outside help.

 

[Marcel]

Look at any of the Polish fliers in 1939.

 

[Njaco]

like Stanislaw Skalski who downed 5 German planes during the Battle of Poland including 2 Do 17s on 2 Sept. 1939 while flying a PZL P.11c fighter. Eventually flew Hurricanes and Spits and while in North Africa was part of the Polish fighters, nicknamed "Skalski's Circus". Ended the war with 22 victories.

 

[net_sailor]

Yes, Skalski was very good pilot, his credits on the Polish Capain was:
02.09.1939. 1 Do 17
02.09.1939. 1 Do 17
03.09.1939. 1/4 Hs 126 (downed together with three other collegues)
03.09.1939. 1 Hs 126
04.09.1939. 1 Ju 87
His final official accout states:
18 and 11/12 destroyed, 2 probable, 4 and 1/3 damaged