What are your favorite WWII Aircraft?
I have several:
North American PD 51 Mustang
P- 38
B-17
B-29
Vought F4U Corsair
Republic P47 Thunderbolt
Super Marine Spitfire
Hawker Hurricane
Lancaster Bomber
Bf109
ME 262
Junkers JU 87
Focke Wolf FW 190
Mitsubishi A6M Zero
Soviet Yak-3
From Chuck Hawks http://www.chuckhawks.com/best_fighter_planes.htm.
I’m just listing my favorites, I’m sure that everyone will have a different opinion.
Mine are:
Lockheed P-38 Lightning
Grumman F3F
Bell P-59 Airacomet
Hawker Tempest
Mitsubishi Ki-67
Apologies if already posted though I’ve not found it elswhere on the site, here’s a short vid of an old girl back in the air.
I also like the P-51 the best. I prefer the 51-D, I think the bubble canopy is more advantageous as far as visibility. I wouldn’t want a Zero or a BF109 sneaking up on my tail.:shock: Also like the B-17, B-24, the Mosquito. Heck, I like pretty much everything on Your list.
Image of a B-17 I got to visit this past summer. It looks big on the outside, but it’s very cramped inside. I was able to go inside and look around and I was very surprised how small the area is!
This is the B-24. It’s the only one left that can still fly. It has a bigger payload than the B-17, but most airmen preferred the B-17 because it could withstand more damage.
P-63
F2B
P-38
P-51A and A-36
P-80
Fw-190
Ki-100
N1K2
Hawker Tempest V
Westland Whirlwind
La 5/7
Yak 9
B-32
Ju-88
B-26
A-26
Halifax
C-46
Tu-2
Actually, they preferred the B-17 because it flew higher. I think the grim “GI humor” of B-17 crews was the joke: “who needs fighter escorts when B-24’s are around” because the jagdwaffe often pounced the Liberators first…
Hi Guys, I was watching in the News that Canada actually has a mint condition LANCASTER bomber (only 2 in the world that are still flyable they said). And the Lancaster is being flown over to England in a few months and there is an auction for highest bid for those that would like to be a passenger. The cost is $25000 pounds which is like $48000 Canadian dollars roughly. Can you imagine this plane will take 18 hrs to fly to England and will have 3 day stop over. I have attached a really really COOL and informative linc for those that would like to read more about this remarkable plane and the current plans for the flight!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2621414/Final-transatlantic-Lancaster-bomber-flight-auctioned-eBay-25-000-one-way-ticket-Canada-England.html
I don’t know about you, but if I had the money I would be so ecstatic to fly in one of these planes(and clip of a few rounds from the machine gun of course). What bothers or troubles me is that we fought so hard to protect this great world of us, and all we have is 2 Lancasters left to show our children what our great or grand or fathers flown in. Apparently I read that Canada sold hundreds of these to England during the war. This troubles me because why would they sell them?. Canada had a duty to provide and should not profit from its commitment. Already I hear complaints in the newspapers that it is costing something like $800,000 per day for Canada to fly their aging planes over Europe to protest the Russia-Ukraine thing. the fact that England sacrificed so much during the war, I don’t think Canada should be charging England for the Lancasters it sold England. Anyways, Guys pls check out the Link because this will be in the papers in August., so heads up…you heard it from Herman Meister:)
I was based at RAF Conningsby from 2000 to 2004 where the ‘City of Lincoln’ was, amazing aircraft to fly in (managed to squeeze myself in the rear gunners turret) - unusual fact about it though is that it can not carry passengers as it is still registered as a bomber in the RAF.
At the time the Canadian Lanc was non airworthy having to go through some extensive restoration to keep her airworthy.
Just down the road though you have ‘Just Jane’ which is a Lanc that was restored to taxiing condition (great fun speeding down the runway in the bomb aimers position in a fast high power taxi), it is being restored to full airworthiness by a family run museum on their old airfield which sits on their farm.
- 18% of Bomber Command fatalities were Canadian. Unlike some countries, Canada’s commitment was very much more than just charging us for aircraft they manufactured. For instance, the fourth largest navy in the world in 1945 was the Royal Canadian Navy - they grew from 309 officers and 2967 men on a handful of ships to 95,000 officers and men by the end of the war.
- The British had far more ability to borrow money on advantageous terms than the Canadians did during WW2. While Canada lent the UK a huge amount of money during WW2 (on extremely generous terms) it was only a small country and at some point it needed hard currency for raw materials, etc. The best way to get them this would be for the UK to borrow it on the world market and then pay it to Canada - we could get better rates than they could.
Not to mention Canada’s major, but largely ignored or forgotten as it was well behind the lines yet immensely important in giving Britain the ability to fight its air war, contribution in training air crew for RAF service.
http://www.bombercommandmuseum.ca/bcatp.html
http://www.awm.gov.au/encyclopedia/raaf/eats/
But I thought the Lancaster was the meat and potatoes of the English RAF and that they built thousands of them in England and that Canada merely assisted in selling them by building several hundred of them. Or do you mean the Lanc AFTER the war? By the way since you were in the Lanc how many people do you think it could fit? I mean if someone today is going as a passenger so I hear, then i wonder how many it could fit for the price they are charging. Also, was it very noisey inside? I mean 18 hrs of flying, I wonder if Id get an earache inside as a passenger.
leccy said
I was based at RAF Conningsby from 2000 to 2004 where the ‘City of Lincoln’ was, amazing aircraft to fly in (managed to squeeze myself in the rear gunners turret) - unusual fact about it though is that it can not carry passengers as it is still registered as a bomber in the RAF.
At the time the Canadian Lanc was non airworthy having to go through some extensive restoration to keep her airworthy.
To a person of average comprehension, leccy’s statement that “at the time”, being 2000 to 2004, would suggest rather strongly that he was referring to, as you wondered, “the Lanc AFTER the war”.
I am, and perhaps others are, beginning to see why so many of your posts are those of a person whose thought processes are somewhat different to the rest of us.
I really love the American aircraft and as far as I know they could take stunning amounts of punishment ( some could take more then others). But I got to say that the p-47 Thunderbolt is in the top of my list. With the max speed at about 480mph it easily out flew its competitor the me-109 Messerschmitt. It original purpose was for escort bombers but when the p-51 D was introduce. The p-47 quickly became a fighter-bomber.
The Me109 was getting long in the tooth by the time the P47 arrived on the scene properly, the FW 190 is probably nearer being its contemporary competitor
Indeed that is true but then again it was one of the very few planes that could challenge the p-47. Do I stand corrected on that?