World War II warbirds

[Ridgerunner]

Lets go to a AIR PARADE...

US Navy amphibious assault ship sails into Hawaii with flight deck loaded up with World War II warbirds

 

[Sunni Man]

I'm a huge warbirds fan. ...
Years ago I took a tour of the USS Lexington aircraft carrier of WWll fame docked at Corpus Christi, Texas.
It's now a floating museum and in the hanger bay has one example of every warbird that ever flew off its deck.

 

[Darkwind]

 

[Sunni Man]

I've attend a lot of air shows that featured warbirds from the U.S. and other countries. Without looking up at the sky, I can usually identify the plane from the sound of the engine.
To my ears the iconic P-51 Mustang with its Rolls-Royce designed two-speed two-stage-supercharged Merlin engine sounds the best of them all. It is considered by many to be the best WWll fighter ...

 

[Darkwind]

 

[Darkwind]

They seem so slow by today's standard. Hell, My King-air b350 is 3 times faster.


Oops......I take that back. The p-51 could top 437 mph. That is impressive.

 

[Ridgerunner]

It's amazing imo that those a/c going into Pearl were all privately owned... I mean this in the most sincere way, but I think of the old saying...

"The difference between men and boys, are the prices of their toys"...

Capitalism is a wonderful thing...

 

[Oddball]

 

[harmonica]

..I was on the LPH USS Inchon and the LHA USS Nassau --very similar to the Essex
...I always thought about what it was like to be on a WW2 carrier, so I got a little taste of it...I also was stationed on Oahu for 4 years -Marine Barracks Pearl Harbor which consisted of 5 companies ..most of them have been disbanded

...I've been reading about WW2 for over 40 years..so, great story here
...wow-Pearl Harbor and the USS Missouri for the 75th ending of WW2!
..I got to go on the USS New Jersey when it was at Pearl .....

 

[Dick Foster]

I've attend a lot of air shows that featured warbirds from the U.S. and other countries. Without looking up at the sky, I can usually identify the plane from the sound of the engine.
To my ears the iconic P-51 Mustang with its Rolls-Royce designed two-speed two-stage-supercharged Merlin engine sounds the best of them all. It is considered by many to be the best WWll fighter ...

To me it sure is. The P51 used Packard built Merlin engines licensed by Rolls. I think all the British planes got all the British built Merlins. Lord knows they put them in enough models of aircraft Hurricanes, Spitfires, Mosquitos, Lancasters etc. Without the Merlin engine Britian would have been practically earth bound.

 

[Sunni Man]

Another WWll warbird favorite of mine is the Navy/Marine F4U Corsair.
It was nicknamed the "Whistling Death" by the Japanese soldiers. Because when they heard that sound, they knew big trouble was heading their way. ...

 

[Ridgerunner]

My father-in-law was serving in the Army Air Corp at Wheeler Army Airfield out in Wahiawa on Dec. 7th, 1941... The man had some interesting stories for being a farm kid from Sullivan, Indiana... He chose to take his discharge and stay in Hawaii the rest of his life... He lived to be 95 and was very solid human being... I have not met to many like him...

Harmonica when was the last time you were at Pearl?

 

[Daryl Hunt]

Probably the most versitile fighter of WWII, the P-38 found a home in North Africa and the Pacific operating far from land.



The P-38 was flying Bomber Escort before there was a P-51 when it was outnumbered 11 to 1 to fighters attacking the bombers over Germany. It was also a time before the fighters were allowed to break away from the bomber formations and fly ahead and above them. The first Fighters to be seen over Berlin were the P-38s in 1943.

Training for the European Theater for the P-38 was dismal at best. New pilots trained on things like P-26s and T-6 single engines and were sent to Europe. Until 1944, there wasn't a two seater trainer available. It was get good real fast or die. In the Pacific, they took a different approach and actually trained their P-38 pilots well before they were sent into combat situations and just used new pilots on milk runs. The problem was, in Europe in 1942 and 1943, there weren't any real milk runs. Get real good fast or get real dead fast. But in the hands of a skilled Pilot, the P-38 could handle just about anything including the FW-190 and ME-109. And a Zero was just target practice. There were a lot of mistakes made in training, getting upgrades to the fields, bad fuel and more that cost thousands of P-38 Pilots lives.

 

[Picaro]

The P-51 evolved over time; it's interesting to compare its increases in range and thus its escort capability over the years of the war in Europe. It also did well as tactical ground support craft for Patton's offensives. Few fighter craft had that capability to excel at both air and ground combat.

My favorite WW II aircraft is the B-17.

 

[Ridgerunner]

A Historic Flyby Takes To The Skies Around Oahu

Your eyes are not deceiving you. That really is a bunch of vintage World War II era planes flying around this weekend to commemorate the ending of the war 75 years ago.

www.civilbeat.org

 

[Moonglow]

A couple of them have been doing maneuvers overhead where I live. When I Was a kid we would go see the confederate air force which is now the commemorative air force, which had WWI and WWII planes.

 

[konradv]

Another WWll warbird favorite of mine is the Navy/Marine F4U Corsair.
It was nicknamed the "Whistling Death" by the Japanese soldiers. Because when they heard that sound, they knew big trouble was heading their way. ...

My favorite too. Besides its excellent performance, it just looked cool.

 

[Sunni Man]

My favorite too. Besides its excellent performance, it just looked cool.

The F4U with its inverted gull wing design make it a very distinctive airplane.
It's a very large plane but the Pratt & Whitney 18 cylinder radial engine was a beast with the power to take the fighter to over 400 mph. ...

Vought F4U Corsair - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[ABikerSailor]

I'm a huge warbirds fan. ...
Years ago I took a tour of the USS Lexington aircraft carrier of WWll fame docked at Corpus Christi, Texas.
It's now a floating museum and in the hanger bay has one example of every warbird that ever flew off its deck.

The last recruiting conference that I attended for NRD San Antonio was held in Corpus Christi, and the really cool thing is that when we had our awards dinner, they managed to hold it onboard the USS LEXINGTON. That was a really cool experience, to be able to eat dinner onboard that museum. The girl I brought with me thought it was pretty excellent as well.