What is your pick of the WII Fighters

[Syriusly]

My favorite WWII fighters were POW's that fought to stay alive and managed to come back home heroes!

There are some amazing stories of pilots who were shot down and worked with the Resistance in France and the Pacific.

 

[deanrd]

My favorite WWII fighters were POW's that fought to stay alive and managed to come back home heroes!

There are some amazing stories of pilots who were shot down and worked with the Resistance in France and the Pacific.

True. It's a damned shame they were so terribly politicized during the last election.

 

[Daryl Hunt]

A case of one agency not communicating with another agency? They built a super strong fast gull wing utility fighter bomber as a carrier plane but the pilots had trouble landing on a carrier because the nose of the Corsair was too long and they couldn't judge their distance from the deck. Oil on the windshield was another problem. They gave the plane to the Marines who used it effectively on land based fields in the Pacific.

The models that were sent to the RAF caused some changes to the AC. They added the Malcom Hood, took of 8 inches off the wing span and raised the seat 7 inches. Making it much more safer for carrier landings. The later ones in production were produced with these mods. AFter that, the Navy adopted it to fly along with the F-6F. The F-4U later versions were actually better against the Zeroes by a margin. The F-4U-2 and above also were used in the Korean War effectively as ground attack AC.

 

[Bleipriester]

Bf/Me 109.

Although a pre-war design that entered service in 1937, it remained a superior fighter until 1945. No other plane was built in the numbers the Bf/Me 109 was.

 

[Daryl Hunt]

Bf/Me 109.

Although a pre-war design that entered service in 1937, it remained a superior fighter until 1945. No other plane was built in the numbers the Bf/Me 109 was.

The best was the ME-109F. The F was used in the greatest numbers and was introduced in 1940. The G got more than a bit fat. The 109 was in production until the end, yes but it curtailed the manufacture of some really good fighters to make that many. Hitler loved the 109 and no one dared to tell him any different.

 

[mhansen2]

I voted for the F4U Corsair, but in my mind of favorites, it runs a close second to the P-38 Lightning. I just love that twin boom design.

 

[Bleipriester]

Bf/Me 109.

Although a pre-war design that entered service in 1937, it remained a superior fighter until 1945. No other plane was built in the numbers the Bf/Me 109 was.

The best was the ME-109F. The F was used in the greatest numbers and was introduced in 1940. The G got more than a bit fat. The 109 was in production until the end, yes but it curtailed the manufacture of some really good fighters to make that many. Hitler loved the 109 and no one dared to tell him any different.

There were better engines for example. From about 600 HP in 1937 to 2000 in 1945. It was also possible to modify the plane with special kits so it was optimized for every given task.
The 109 was a necessity. Its mass production was up and running and the capacity was limited. Not even the Me 262 was granted priority above the 109, otherwise it would have been in series production in 1943. Nevertheless, the 109 was best prop fighter and the first of its kind. It don´t think Hitler was a fan of the 109. He was just an opponent of the jet engine and said the war will be one with conventional aircraft. Hitler was a fan of heavy tanks, instead. He did not like submarines and planes.

 

[harmonica]

....my favorite is the Hurricane
for some reason, whenever I see a Hurry, it brings back nostalgic memories of my reading of the air wars
the others do also, but not as much
...I've been reading WW2 for over 40 years--but no so much on the Ostfront
...I did have a model of a JU 87 with cannons and I have the book Stuka Pilot--but I'm not too familiar with aircraft of the Ostfront
..I've read more on the Pacific air battles/warfare--but I guess I read about the European air war before the Pacific

 

[AsherN]

P-51 because of overall performance. F4U because of looks.

 

[Daryl Hunt]

P-51 because of overall performance. F4U because of looks.

Two good enough reasons for you and that makes you as right as anyone else. I will admit I am jaded by the P-51 due to it being really only a pure fighter and really wasn't that good at anything else. But it was a great pure Fighter.

I also like the looks of the F-4U. When they came out with the -2 version, it was also a killing machine both in the air and on the ground. The Brits bought the -1 version for their carriers and found the same problems the US Navy did. So they modded it. The wings were clipped 8 inches, the seats were raised 7 inches and the Malcom Hood was added for head clearance. They liked their modded version. The -2 adopted these mods and it became a pretty good carrier plane on par with the F-6F. And it was tough as nails.

 

[martybegan]

Let's have a little fun. You can choose up to 6 choices. Please defend your choices. And this is for the entire WWII from about 1937 to October of 1945. I intentionally left off the ones that were made in low numbers as they really didn't have much of an affect over the war effort one way or the other. Plus, there may not seem to be a limit of what can be listed in here but I found out that limit, ran out of spaces for Aircraft.

Mustang as it was the plane that allowed the American Bombing Campaign to continue
Spitfire for its role in winning the Battle of Britain
Corsair for those purty gull wings
Zero for its dominance early in the war
Bf 109 for its ability to be upgraded over and over to stay relevant
Hellcat for its role in ending the "Zero Scourge"

 

[Daryl Hunt]

Let's have a little fun. You can choose up to 6 choices. Please defend your choices. And this is for the entire WWII from about 1937 to October of 1945. I intentionally left off the ones that were made in low numbers as they really didn't have much of an affect over the war effort one way or the other. Plus, there may not seem to be a limit of what can be listed in here but I found out that limit, ran out of spaces for Aircraft.

Mustang as it was the plane that allowed the American Bombing Campaign to continue
Spitfire for its role in winning the Battle of Britain
Corsair for those purty gull wings
Zero for its dominance early in the war
Bf 109 for its ability to be upgraded over and over to stay relevant
Hellcat for its role in ending the "Zero Scourge"

Let's take a look at a couple of these statement.

The Mustang didn't come into real service until early 1944. Up until then, it was the joint 47/38 that did the escorting. The change that was made was in Feb 1944 when they released the fighters to go ahead of the bombers and bounce the 109/190s while they were forming up in their cell. More bombers then got through because there were fewer Luftwaffe with the gas to get decent kills. The 109 was a very short ranged fighter so disrupt him and make him fight or try and chase down a faster fighter who just bagged a few of his buddies. The advent of the P-51B/C/D for the last leg of the escort flight allowed both the P-38 and the P-47 to raise all holy hell on the ground. AAF was finally using it's nogen for a change.

During the BoB, there were more fighters shot down by the Hurricanes and most of the bombers shot down were by the Hurricane. There were only a limited number of Spits. The Spit could fly with the 109, yes. But it's numbers weren't high enough yet. That, of course changed and Germany knew they would never get another chance with Britain's buildup during and after that time. But you can't take away the looks nor the distinctive sound of a Spit. Nothing sounds like it.

There were other birds that help out a bit along with the F-4F. Like the P-38 and the F-4U. I will admit that the F-6F was the right plane at the right time. The 38 could not operate from a carrier due to size and the F-4U-1 was a dangerous carrier bird to land. The F-6F is one killing machine just the way it came out of the factory.

And what can you say about the Zero. You are absolutely correct. The biggest downfall of a zero was learned later. It was lightly built and didn't have self sealing fuel tanks. A 38 needed to only hit with one of it's 20mm to turn it into a fireball. The most successful Zero Killers didn't dog fight with the Zero. They learned to keep their speeds to over 300 mph and slash and run. The only fighter that could out climb a zero was the P-38J and above. And nothing could dive with it. The poor heavily armored P-39 had serious issues with the Zero.

 

[SavannahMann]

We rolled out the Mustang from the design to in the air in just a few months. The Germans used to sit just out of range of our planes and shoot the hell out of them. Then the Mustang showed up and kept right on chasing them.. Surprise!!
Wonderful plane. Made with American parts, when America was great...

The engine was a license built copy of the Rolls Royce Merlin engine. It did not perform well at all with the American engine. Rolls-Royce Merlin - Wikipedia

North American P-51 Mustang - Wikipedia

All that you are bragging about was only possible when the British Engine was coupled with a plane the British payed to have developed. Learn some history instead of propaganda.

 

[Daryl Hunt]

We rolled out the Mustang from the design to in the air in just a few months. The Germans used to sit just out of range of our planes and shoot the hell out of them. Then the Mustang showed up and kept right on chasing them.. Surprise!!
Wonderful plane. Made with American parts, when America was great...

The engine was a license built copy of the Rolls Royce Merlin engine. It did not perform well at all with the American engine. Rolls-Royce Merlin - Wikipedia

North American P-51 Mustang - Wikipedia

All that you are bragging about was only possible when the British Engine was coupled with a plane the British payed to have developed. Learn some history instead of propaganda.

The P-51B/C/D high altitude bomber escorts were all Packard Powered. While the Brit version was good, it lacked high altitude performance at high altitude. The original Merlin was a 2 speed, single chamber Supercharger. The Packard used a two speed two chamber that operated better at high altitude. Yes, at first it had it's problems with the 87 octane. But the Packard Merlin had a higher compression ratio and had trouble with that fuel. The US provided a 100 octane that it was just crazy about. All of a sudden, even the British versions ran better. Even so, the 87 and 100 octane was not good in the Allison nor the PW of the P-47 and P-38 as they had even higher compression ratios. The used an octane booster to simulate the 150 octane. The problem with that mix was at really cold temps, the octane would separate from the fuel and settle to the bottom of the tanks. In the PW2800 it caused pinging and lower power. In the allison, it would cause all kinds of problems like overtemped and over pressured cylinder causing all kinds of problem including blowing the head gaskets and even causing the super charger to freeze up. And it stayed that way until it got down to either a lower altitude where the octane booster would recombine with the fuel. Or it just might just blow out your supercharger or head gaskets or suck valves. The Allison was a race horse with the correct fuel not using octane boosters. The crap fuel that Britain provided also affected the Merlin X which was the Packard Version but while it had a lower compression rate, it was still higher than the Brit Merlins that developed lower HP. Finally, the use started providing 150 Octane. It was hotter than what is used in private planes today which is 100 octane. Actually, the correct designation for the hot fuel was 100/150. There is a fuel that is limited in production today of 100/145 that is used in racing.

This is why where the US was the sole provider of fuels, the P-38 shined in the Pacific and the Med. And the Spit, Hurricane and P-40 could go head to head with the best of the Luftwaffe. But like the Luftwaffe Fighters, the Spit and Hurricane were short legged and the Kitty Hawk would do the longer ranged stuff until the P-38 came onto the scene.

What made the P-51B/C/D better? It had a better, more efficient wing for high altitudes over the others. It just wasn't the engine change that greatly improved them, it was the whole Aircraft redesign over the P-51A. And those were all Packard Merlin X engines made in the US.

The Brit Merlins had one huge problem, they were almost hand made. If two runs were made, some of the parts from one would not be able to fit on the next run. This worked at low production rates. But the Merlin was need on high output production levels. And this was something the US was the best in the world at. Mass Production. All parts of the Merlin X were interchangeable making it much easier to support in the field. You knew the parts were all going to fit. But they may not fit on the British version. While the Brit version was at first superior, it was a hand made engine. Not what was intended when producing thousands of engines in a very short time. The Packard Merlin X performed well and was mass produced until late 1945 when Rolls pulled the plug on the licensing. It affected the P/F-82s dramatically when they were forced to use the Allisons. But, overall, the Allison didn't hurt the performance since all the bugs had been worked out by the time the P-38J was introduced.

Under the lend lease program, the Brits used thousands of the Packard Merlin X engine including installing them in some Brit bombers.

You cherry picked your information. You didn't account that the Merlin X had a higher compression and needed at least 100 octane to operate. The Brit Merlin could use the 87 octane just fine. When that was corrected and Britain started putting out the 100 octane, things changed for the P-51 Merlin X. It was still problematic for the R2800 and the Allisons.

There is the history and I find that you are spreading propaganda big time over what actually happened. I imagine there is more than a bit of Nationalism in your opinionated opinion.

 

[Daryl Hunt]

We rolled out the Mustang from the design to in the air in just a few months. The Germans used to sit just out of range of our planes and shoot the hell out of them. Then the Mustang showed up and kept right on chasing them.. Surprise!!
Wonderful plane. Made with American parts, when America was great...

The engine was a license built copy of the Rolls Royce Merlin engine. It did not perform well at all with the American engine. Rolls-Royce Merlin - Wikipedia

North American P-51 Mustang - Wikipedia

All that you are bragging about was only possible when the British Engine was coupled with a plane the British payed to have developed. Learn some history instead of propaganda.

Actually, the Merlins used in Racing today use Allison Connecting rods as the Merlin didn't have such a bullet proof bottom end. In the Racing version of the Merlin, they use quite a few Allison parts. And the Merlin X was completely a US manufactured engine with American parts. You are from Britain, aren't you.

 

[SavannahMann]

We rolled out the Mustang from the design to in the air in just a few months. The Germans used to sit just out of range of our planes and shoot the hell out of them. Then the Mustang showed up and kept right on chasing them.. Surprise!!
Wonderful plane. Made with American parts, when America was great...

The engine was a license built copy of the Rolls Royce Merlin engine. It did not perform well at all with the American engine. Rolls-Royce Merlin - Wikipedia

North American P-51 Mustang - Wikipedia

All that you are bragging about was only possible when the British Engine was coupled with a plane the British payed to have developed. Learn some history instead of propaganda.

The P-51B/C/D high altitude bomber escorts were all Packard Powered. While the Brit version was good, it lacked high altitude performance at high altitude. The original Merlin was a 2 speed, single chamber Supercharger. The Packard used a two speed two chamber that operated better at high altitude. Yes, at first it had it's problems with the 87 octane. But the Packard Merlin had a higher compression ratio and had trouble with that fuel. The US provided a 100 octane that it was just crazy about. All of a sudden, even the British versions ran better. Even so, the 87 and 100 octane was not good in the Allison nor the PW of the P-47 and P-38 as they had even higher compression ratios. The used an octane booster to simulate the 150 octane. The problem with that mix was at really cold temps, the octane would separate from the fuel and settle to the bottom of the tanks. In the PW2800 it caused pinging and lower power. In the allison, it would cause all kinds of problems like overtemped and over pressured cylinder causing all kinds of problem including blowing the head gaskets and even causing the super charger to freeze up. And it stayed that way until it got down to either a lower altitude where the octane booster would recombine with the fuel. Or it just might just blow out your supercharger or head gaskets or suck valves. The Allison was a race horse with the correct fuel not using octane boosters. The crap fuel that Britain provided also affected the Merlin X which was the Packard Version but while it had a lower compression rate, it was still higher than the Brit Merlins that developed lower HP. Finally, the use started providing 150 Octane. It was hotter than what is used in private planes today which is 100 octane. Actually, the correct designation for the hot fuel was 100/150. There is a fuel that is limited in production today of 100/145 that is used in racing.

This is why where the US was the sole provider of fuels, the P-38 shined in the Pacific and the Med. And the Spit, Hurricane and P-40 could go head to head with the best of the Luftwaffe. But like the Luftwaffe Fighters, the Spit and Hurricane were short legged and the Kitty Hawk would do the longer ranged stuff until the P-38 came onto the scene.

What made the P-51B/C/D better? It had a better, more efficient wing for high altitudes over the others. It just wasn't the engine change that greatly improved them, it was the whole Aircraft redesign over the P-51A. And those were all Packard Merlin X engines made in the US.

The Brit Merlins had one huge problem, they were almost hand made. If two runs were made, some of the parts from one would not be able to fit on the next run. This worked at low production rates. But the Merlin was need on high output production levels. And this was something the US was the best in the world at. Mass Production. All parts of the Merlin X were interchangeable making it much easier to support in the field. You knew the parts were all going to fit. But they may not fit on the British version. While the Brit version was at first superior, it was a hand made engine. Not what was intended when producing thousands of engines in a very short time. The Packard Merlin X performed well and was mass produced until late 1945 when Rolls pulled the plug on the licensing. It affected the P/F-82s dramatically when they were forced to use the Allisons. But, overall, the Allison didn't hurt the performance since all the bugs had been worked out by the time the P-38J was introduced.

Under the lend lease program, the Brits used thousands of the Packard Merlin X engine including installing them in some Brit bombers.

You cherry picked your information. You didn't account that the Merlin X had a higher compression and needed at least 100 octane to operate. The Brit Merlin could use the 87 octane just fine. When that was corrected and Britain started putting out the 100 octane, things changed for the P-51 Merlin X. It was still problematic for the R2800 and the Allisons.

There is the history and I find that you are spreading propaganda big time over what actually happened. I imagine there is more than a bit of Nationalism in your opinionated opinion.

We have a few choices as to how we can continue. The first option is to admit that the Packard engine was a license built copy of the Rolls Royce engine. Since I doubt you will go with that route, we’ll have to take one of the other options all of which are going to be far more difficult to manage.

P-51 Mustang Specifications - MustangsMustangs.com

Option one. We can travel back in time and improve the Allison engine before it is put into production. Obviously the whole time travel thing is going to be a problem.

Option two. We can travel back in time with a lot of White Out and fix all the documents so they say that the Packard engine was nothing at all like the Rolls Royce Merlin Engine. Again, Time Travel is going to be a tricky endeavor.

Option three. We can form a commission on “good facts” which modifies all existing data to show what we want. This is going to be marginally easier than time travel, but smacks of totalitarian propaganda divisions, which is going to be kind of rejected by History Lovers.

I am an American. Born in Michigan. I served in the Army. One of my biggest pet peeves is how we love to rewrite history so America was the ones doing everything. The truth is that we didn’t do nearly what we pretend we are responsible for. A trait I picked up from my Father who would scowl and shake his head when someone would talk about something we did that he knew we were not responsible for. Then he would tell me. I’d go look it up, and find to my chagrin that he was right. My desire to prove the old man wrong was defeated time and time again. But in the meantime I learned that we Americans have a tendency to take credit for a lot of things that we didn’t do. We do it better, or bigger, but we didn’t invent it.

Yes, we sent refined gasoline including high octane gasoline to Britain. That was never denied. Why? It’s hard to bomb a refinery in Texas or Louisiana as opposed to Britain which was subject to air raids pretty much from 1940 on. So why build a refinery there, when refineries already exist in safer locations?

The problem is that so many people believe that American always equates to better. The truth is, we’re good at mass production, but not so good at invention. As proof of that, the other day I posted a long thread in science and tech showing that our rockets would not be flying today if not for the Russian Engines we are still buying. Their rocket motors are just flat assed great by comparison, producing at least 25% more thrust than our own. We can’t get our payloads to orbit aboard the Atlas without them.

The Modern Supercarrier. Do you know it would not work except for three British developments? The angled flight deck, the Steam Catapult, and the Optical Landing System. Without those three things, modern carriers would not exist. The American answer was to shoot planes off the front of the carrier with gunpowder as one example.

I could go on, but why bother?

 

[Daryl Hunt]

We rolled out the Mustang from the design to in the air in just a few months. The Germans used to sit just out of range of our planes and shoot the hell out of them. Then the Mustang showed up and kept right on chasing them.. Surprise!!
Wonderful plane. Made with American parts, when America was great...

The engine was a license built copy of the Rolls Royce Merlin engine. It did not perform well at all with the American engine. Rolls-Royce Merlin - Wikipedia

North American P-51 Mustang - Wikipedia

All that you are bragging about was only possible when the British Engine was coupled with a plane the British payed to have developed. Learn some history instead of propaganda.

The P-51B/C/D high altitude bomber escorts were all Packard Powered. While the Brit version was good, it lacked high altitude performance at high altitude. The original Merlin was a 2 speed, single chamber Supercharger. The Packard used a two speed two chamber that operated better at high altitude. Yes, at first it had it's problems with the 87 octane. But the Packard Merlin had a higher compression ratio and had trouble with that fuel. The US provided a 100 octane that it was just crazy about. All of a sudden, even the British versions ran better. Even so, the 87 and 100 octane was not good in the Allison nor the PW of the P-47 and P-38 as they had even higher compression ratios. The used an octane booster to simulate the 150 octane. The problem with that mix was at really cold temps, the octane would separate from the fuel and settle to the bottom of the tanks. In the PW2800 it caused pinging and lower power. In the allison, it would cause all kinds of problems like overtemped and over pressured cylinder causing all kinds of problem including blowing the head gaskets and even causing the super charger to freeze up. And it stayed that way until it got down to either a lower altitude where the octane booster would recombine with the fuel. Or it just might just blow out your supercharger or head gaskets or suck valves. The Allison was a race horse with the correct fuel not using octane boosters. The crap fuel that Britain provided also affected the Merlin X which was the Packard Version but while it had a lower compression rate, it was still higher than the Brit Merlins that developed lower HP. Finally, the use started providing 150 Octane. It was hotter than what is used in private planes today which is 100 octane. Actually, the correct designation for the hot fuel was 100/150. There is a fuel that is limited in production today of 100/145 that is used in racing.

This is why where the US was the sole provider of fuels, the P-38 shined in the Pacific and the Med. And the Spit, Hurricane and P-40 could go head to head with the best of the Luftwaffe. But like the Luftwaffe Fighters, the Spit and Hurricane were short legged and the Kitty Hawk would do the longer ranged stuff until the P-38 came onto the scene.

What made the P-51B/C/D better? It had a better, more efficient wing for high altitudes over the others. It just wasn't the engine change that greatly improved them, it was the whole Aircraft redesign over the P-51A. And those were all Packard Merlin X engines made in the US.

The Brit Merlins had one huge problem, they were almost hand made. If two runs were made, some of the parts from one would not be able to fit on the next run. This worked at low production rates. But the Merlin was need on high output production levels. And this was something the US was the best in the world at. Mass Production. All parts of the Merlin X were interchangeable making it much easier to support in the field. You knew the parts were all going to fit. But they may not fit on the British version. While the Brit version was at first superior, it was a hand made engine. Not what was intended when producing thousands of engines in a very short time. The Packard Merlin X performed well and was mass produced until late 1945 when Rolls pulled the plug on the licensing. It affected the P/F-82s dramatically when they were forced to use the Allisons. But, overall, the Allison didn't hurt the performance since all the bugs had been worked out by the time the P-38J was introduced.

Under the lend lease program, the Brits used thousands of the Packard Merlin X engine including installing them in some Brit bombers.

You cherry picked your information. You didn't account that the Merlin X had a higher compression and needed at least 100 octane to operate. The Brit Merlin could use the 87 octane just fine. When that was corrected and Britain started putting out the 100 octane, things changed for the P-51 Merlin X. It was still problematic for the R2800 and the Allisons.

There is the history and I find that you are spreading propaganda big time over what actually happened. I imagine there is more than a bit of Nationalism in your opinionated opinion.

We have a few choices as to how we can continue. The first option is to admit that the Packard engine was a license built copy of the Rolls Royce engine. Since I doubt you will go with that route, we’ll have to take one of the other options all of which are going to be far more difficult to manage.

P-51 Mustang Specifications - MustangsMustangs.com

Option one. We can travel back in time and improve the Allison engine before it is put into production. Obviously the whole time travel thing is going to be a problem.

Option two. We can travel back in time with a lot of White Out and fix all the documents so they say that the Packard engine was nothing at all like the Rolls Royce Merlin Engine. Again, Time Travel is going to be a tricky endeavor.

Option three. We can form a commission on “good facts” which modifies all existing data to show what we want. This is going to be marginally easier than time travel, but smacks of totalitarian propaganda divisions, which is going to be kind of rejected by History Lovers.

I am an American. Born in Michigan. I served in the Army. One of my biggest pet peeves is how we love to rewrite history so America was the ones doing everything. The truth is that we didn’t do nearly what we pretend we are responsible for. A trait I picked up from my Father who would scowl and shake his head when someone would talk about something we did that he knew we were not responsible for. Then he would tell me. I’d go look it up, and find to my chagrin that he was right. My desire to prove the old man wrong was defeated time and time again. But in the meantime I learned that we Americans have a tendency to take credit for a lot of things that we didn’t do. We do it better, or bigger, but we didn’t invent it.

Yes, we sent refined gasoline including high octane gasoline to Britain. That was never denied. Why? It’s hard to bomb a refinery in Texas or Louisiana as opposed to Britain which was subject to air raids pretty much from 1940 on. So why build a refinery there, when refineries already exist in safer locations?

The problem is that so many people believe that American always equates to better. The truth is, we’re good at mass production, but not so good at invention. As proof of that, the other day I posted a long thread in science and tech showing that our rockets would not be flying today if not for the Russian Engines we are still buying. Their rocket motors are just flat assed great by comparison, producing at least 25% more thrust than our own. We can’t get our payloads to orbit aboard the Atlas without them.

The Modern Supercarrier. Do you know it would not work except for three British developments? The angled flight deck, the Steam Catapult, and the Optical Landing System. Without those three things, modern carriers would not exist. The American answer was to shoot planes off the front of the carrier with gunpowder as one example.

I could go on, but why bother?

I already stated that it was a US Built but under a Brit License. Are you typing just to see yourself type? Remember the part where I said that late 1945, the Brits pulled the licensing and the P-82 had to change from the Packard Merlin to the Allison? Please pay attention and not argue to just argue.