The scarcity of fighter to fighter FW-190A pilot combat accounts...

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Those baffles also serve as structural integrity support. Realize that as you go up in altitude pressure goes down, and descending causes the opposite. I have seen a centerline tank on the Eagle malfunction and not vent. It basically imploded on the plane. Pretty sure it got tossed.

We could do 660+ kts with one on the centerline and pull 9 Gs so they are strong. It was eye opening to see it.
 
MIflyer said:
And besides, they are not supposed to be yankin' and bankin' much with those tanks in place., But them's baffles, all right.
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McGuire's own guidelines for flying and fighting the P-38 specifically advised to not enter combat with tanks attached unless en extremis, and even then to jettison ASAP.

We can speculate why he ignored his own advice, but I won't.
 
If I didn't mention it before, or elsewhere:

Robin Olds was asked a couple of times which was better: the P-51D or the FW-190 (A?)
Robin said--correctly of course--that the only way to know was to put equally skilled pilots in each plane and have at it.
"I never met a 190 pilot who was as good as I was."
One potato, two potato.
"I met one who was better once, and was lucky to get away!"
 
I don't recall which pilot it was, but I read where he described fighting an FW-190D that clearly had a pilot who was familiar with the Mustang and knew what to do when fighting one. He knew just when to do a hard pull-up to spoil the Mustang attack.

And I recall another case in which a Mustang pilot was fighting a BF-109 and the German pilot did something unusually clever and constantly changed altitude at around 18,000 ft, causing the Mustang's high/low supercharger switch to cut in and out, resulting in the pilot constantly pulling back or advancing the throttle to keep from falling behind or getting ahead of the 109. Kind of like trying to drive a car right at the automatic transmission shift point. I wonder if that kind of thing was why the P-51's supercharger shift was changed from an altitude setting to ram air pressure.
 
Greg Boeser said:
Hubris.
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It could be that. It could be that he was trying to give the other pilots a little bit of leeway by engaging, himself. It could be that he found himself in a tight corner and tried something he or his plane couldn't do.

I think that his chasing Bong in the Ace Race with an approaching return home, and wanting to fly the full mission to get those three more kills, decided him to order the flight to keep tanks on. But I can't say.
 
Didn't the P-38 have a "busy" cockpit? I've read somewhere on the Forum mentioning the simpler engine management controls of the FW-190 to the P-38. Perhaps too many things to manage at too low an altitude, including the drop tanks?
 
GrauGeist said:
It could also be a case of "jagdfieber", where the intensity of the situation and the tremendous adrenalin rush caused him to forget that he still had tanks attached.
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No, he specifically ordered his flight to retain tanks going into his last combat, according to what I've read and watched. All did until the lowest-ranking also took hits - he dropped his tanks then in order to gain speed and GTFO.

ETA: The source where I originally read this online is apparently no longer working. I will look for another source. FWIW, Greg reports this too, but I don't consider him a reliable source.

ETA2: Interesting, if old, discussion here: What really killed Major Thomas B. McGuire
 
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I like Widewing's avatar.
 
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