Stealing a Fw-190

[GreenKnight121]

Mikhail Devyatayev has managed to start two engines of He 111 from cold.
English Wiki article is short and does not include some interesting details. While already in the cockpit, Mikhail has found out that accumulators were removed. His comrades managed to find accumulators and bring them on the trolley. Then he could not take off as he did not know how to adjust the trimmers... Turned the airplane around and tried again. Some of his friends panicked, decided that he wanted to give up and threatened to shoot him... Failing to find correct trimmer settings he used brute force to pull the steering wheel as hard as possible and took off at last. He managed to set the trimmers right only later, in the flight.

Trimmers?

I used wrong word probably. Elevator trim control.

Also known as "trim tabs".

 

[FLYBOYJ]

Also known as "trim tabs".

Kind of thought that. Usually if it's on a wheel or crank you might be able to guess mid range by going full travel and then guessing where the middle is. Of course in the air you'll immediately feel the need for any trim adjustments.

 

[Barrett]

So did Bruce Carr... sort of...

http://www.avia-it.com/act/cera_una_volta/echi/CUV_echi_maggio_2011/Fact_or_Fiction.pdf

I got to know Bruce fairly well when I was secretary of the aces assn. Even then (1980s-90s) we knew that his tale was...a tale. Yet he kept telling the story even when other 354th FG guys were present. His version circulated by email for years, including after he died in 98. He did confide however that he was um concerned about explaining his $12,000 fuel bill to Mrs. Carr, as he'd been flying a Mustang again. Without benefit of an airman's certificate but obviously it worked!

 

[FalkeEins]

Make's me wonder if Oblt Arnim Faber was working for a competing British intel agency.

..don't think so, he was a deserter, simple as that

 

[pbehn]

..don't think so, he was a deserter, simple as that

I believe he got disorientated, its happened quite often, mistaking the Bristol channel for the English channel

 

[fubar57]

Faber wasn't the only one who got disoriented and landed in England by mistake. Fw 190A-4 (Wk. Nr. 5843), "Red 9" from 1.SKG 10, landed in error at Manston, Kent in the UK on 20 May 1943

 

[pbehn]

Faber wasn't the only one who got disoriented and landed in England by mistake. Fw 190A-4 (Wk. Nr. 5843), "Red 9" from 1.SKG 10, landed in error at Manston, Kent in the UK on 20 May 1943

I think there was something about a navigation beacon that day/night others tried to put down at Manston too.

 

[The Basket]

Had Shokaku and Zuikaku been there the question is whether they too would have attacked Midway or would they have kept in reserve for a carrier attack?

A major flaw at both Coral Sea and Midway is that the carriers did not deploy scouts. They did deploy scouts but only as a last resort and sparingly.

They relied on cruisers or land based planes. This to me is a total flaw in the doctrine and planing of the IJN. If u suspect enemy carriers in your area then I would be trying to get as many eyes in the sky as I could. Waiting for others was a disaster at Midway. Depending on Submarines and float planes from cruisers which you have no idea or direct control over is just not working.

Just because there are no reports from subs or scouts doesn't mean carriers are not 50 miles away.

How the Japanese could walk into a trap of that magnitude and fall for it is just crazy. They totally underestimated their enemy and simply didn't understand their enemy.

 

[fubar57]

Ummmmm........

 

[The Basket]

Had Shokaku and Zuikaku been there the question is whether they too would have attacked Midway or would they have kept in reserve for a carrier attack?

A major flaw at both Coral Sea and Midway is that the carriers did not deploy scouts. They did deploy scouts but only as a last resort and sparingly.

They relied on cruisers or land based planes. This to me is a total flaw in the doctrine and planing of the IJN. If u suspect enemy carriers in your area then I would be trying to get as many eyes in the sky as I could. Waiting for others was a disaster at Midway. Depending on Submarines and float planes from cruisers which you have no idea or direct control over is just not working.

Just because there are no reports from subs or scouts doesn't mean carriers are not 50 miles away.

How the Japanese could walk into a trap of that magnitude and fall for it is just crazy. They totally underestimated their enemy and simply didn't understand their enemy.

Oops wrong thread!

What I meant to say did anyone steal a Japanese carrier at Midway?

And the Fw-190 was actually code for Kaga.

I covered that nicely and no-one will realise my mistake.

 

[MIflyer]

Well, at Coral Sea some IJN aircraft tried to land on the USS Yorktown. An He-111 landed at an RAF base one night and the crew held a machine gun on the RAF crew who came out to help put the "Wellington" away and discovered they did not have a single gun amongst them. A Ju-88 night fighter took off from Paris one evening, the pilot misread his compass and flew to an RAF base and landed, the mistake not being discovered until he boarded the crew bus and the driver and he started comparing uniforms. And the pilot of that first FW-190 that landed intact at an RAF base had just shot down two Spitfire V's that tried to intercept him, so he had a strange way of indicating he wanted to defect. Getting lost and landing at the wrong base was not that unusual.