re: As a WWII fighter pilot, if you could pick your plane...

A friend of mine married a German girl. She had a photograph that her father took of a P-51 (?) buzzing the little German town where he lived. The Father was a young boy at the time. The plane looked to be about a couple hundred feet off the ground. He must have been shittin his draws.

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Like everything else Japanese, it's light, maneuverable and reliable

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And easy to kill.

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Sure is sexy, though. :)

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That she is. And she epitomizes the Japanese style of warfare, pure offense. The Zero sacrificed defensive measures almost universally standard in all modern fighters of the late 1930s early 40s like armor plating and self sealing fuel tanks in order to make the fighter as nimble and long ranged as possible. It was effective early on against the Wildcat and Brewster Buffalos. But as soon as American fighter pilots learned to not get into rolling, turning dogfights against the Zero, and instead use teamwork (Thach-weave maneuver) or diving hit and run or even better straight head-on attacks, the Zero quickly showed its shortcomings.

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Messerschmitt Me 262

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Imagine if Hitler had not been a complete idiot and not held up the development and deployment of he ME262 by insisting on making it a bomber.

I'd rather be in WWI and fly the same plane as the Red Baron

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Brewster Buffalos

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What a shite plane

The North American T-6 "Texan" was an advanced flight trainer that Pops 19 logged more hrs in than any other plane during his time at teach.

It's profile is so strikingly similar to an A6M it was used in "Tora! Tora! Tora!" and "Pearl Harbor" painted up to imitate Zeros.
Rumors of design plagerism of USAAF rejected submissions by Hughes and Vought have been largley debunked, but not totally.

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I'd rather be in WWI and fly the same plane as the Red Baron

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He only flew he Fokker Tri-Plane for the last bit of his career before he died. He did most of is work in the Albatros D.III



It was in this plane, which he had painted red, that he earned the name “Red Barron”.

One more interesting Red Baron tidbit. He was the first commander of Jagdgeschwader 1 Beter known famiously as the “Flying Circus” due to the varied and colorful paint schemes of its aircraft. But at the end of the war, this guy was it’s commander...



You may recognize him better here...

Your google skills are amazing.

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The stuka was obsolete at the start of the war. Was cannon fodder if allied fighters were around.

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Very true. But it flew on until the very end of the war. And the Germans turned it into one of the best tank busters of the war with the introduction of the JU87G.



It’s 3.7 CM guns chewed up Soviet Tank columns. Albeit as long as they had at least local air superiority.