The six most famous aircrafts of the WWII majors?

drgondog said:

I didn't rank my six by most important so the P-47 was not more important than the Mustang.

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Sorry, misinterpreted what you said before.

drgondog said:

Thor is right, however - the post was for 'most popular' not 'most important'.. the above would be my list to take the US to war - from Day 1 - and I would probably drop the P-47 for either the TBF or SB2C (because it was a very versatile carrier bomber - and why have carriers unless they can also destroy the other guy's surface navy)

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In Australia I would say the most popular WW2 aircraft would be the Spitfire, Mustang, Lancaster, B-17, Bf109 and Zero or Fw190.

Thanks alot guys. All info you provided is really apprepiated...

wuzak said:

That may make the P-47 more potent, but in no way makes it more important.

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Mustang was far more potent aircraft than the Thunderbolt!
It was a far better fighter and a competent in CAS !
Mustang May have had a coolant issue with groung fire!
The Thinderbolt had a hot turbo, huge Oil and oil storage system that would cause it to flame!

There was no magic the Thunderbolt had over the Mustang.
In Korea for all the so called durability.
The Thunderbolt would have been useless on the short Korean fields.
The Fully loaded N struggled to get in the air taking off from the Bomber strips at Iwo Jima.

The P38 and P47 were maintenance and Supply hogs compared to other US fighters.

Why the Mustang was chosen over the Thunderbolt...

Article:

Why the U.S. Air Force did not use the F-47 Thunderbolt in the Korean War

Article:

I know a LOT of people who cannot discern the differences between an F4F Wildcat and the F6F Hellcat, though we can all tell easily enough simply by where the wings join the fuselage. There are little things, but important, too. Most folks are NOT really too informed on such things. I am not one of "you knowledgeable folk" but I'm here a lot, and I read a lot of what you write.
If I had a guess, the most popular would be, in no particular order, Mustang, Spitfire, B-17, Bf-109, C-47s, and probably the Zero.
That takes care of the major combatants, and most of these choices were used by their allies, too. I'm ignoring the minor combatants, because the French and Italians were, as noted earlier, weren't in the war that long.
I picked the Mustang as " most important" because if it couldn't get there, it couldn't fight. The range of the P-47 limits it a lot. The P-38 had a lot of issues, too, superchargers blowing up, freezing pilots at higher altitudes, easy to spot and identify, etc.