[Ibmikey]

Field Marshall Herman Goering

 

[rooter]

when the first mustang few over berlin, that fat guy whose name i cant remember in charge of the german air force, turned to his aide and said, we just lost the war. when i was a little boy growing up in fargo n.dak, the air guard their flew them. i loved to watch them fly over fargo and i would watch them when ever they did. when i was stationed with the french in africa they flew corsaers (sp) the sea gull winged plane. they fought the algerians with them. liked them also. i really like the p38 double bodied one with twin propellers. that plane scared the crap out of the japanese and i think it was used in europe. they got that japanese admiral with that kind of plane.

P-38 Lightning: The Deadly World War II Plane That Fought Everywhere

https://nationalinterest.org/.../p-38-lightning-deadly-world-war-ii-plane-fought-every...
Oct 3, 2018 - Richard Bong: P-38 Fighter Ace The pilot who was most successful in the P-38 was Richard Bong, the United States' most accomplished fighter ace. Between December 27, 1942, and December 17, 1944, he shot down 40 Japanese planes, still a U.S. record.

 

[sharps4590]

Bong came back to the US as an instructor and test pilot and was killed. All those fights with the Japs and he dies in a test airplane.

It was Isoroku Yamamoto the team of P-38's shot down over Bougainville I believe.

 

[Catman1942]

if you ever go to the beautiful city of duluth minnisota, their is a huge bridge their named the bong bridge. he was a swede and a minnesota farmboy.

 

[Twicepop]

Thought you guys would like this picture I took a few years ago.

Now that I'm done drooling and slobbering over the items in the picture (mostly the Cobra). Is that a real deal P-51 or a replica? The reason I'm asking is back several years a guy I used to work with brought in kit airplane magazines and kit plane catalogs. In one of these they had a 4/5 or maybe it was a 7/8 scale P-51 Mustang kit that used either a Chevrolet 350 or a Ford 351 Cleveland engine as the power plant. The engines were pretty much stock except that they were rigged for fuel injection and dry sumped. I wondered that since it's parked among those other Fords that it was a Ford powered replica?

 

[Gun Geezer]

When I was a kid in high school in Chicago, in the 50's, I was one of the few guys from my elementary school to go to what would now be called an area vocational school, Lane Technical High School. In addition to traditional shop classes like woods, metals, electronics, auto's & mechanical drawing, they offered shops like foundry, forge, sheet metal, air-conditioning, model shop, printing, welding & aviation & others that slip my mind after all these years. I elected to take aviation shop.

We had many different configurations of piston engines which we were required to do specific operations on & others that were cut-aways for reference only including a turbo-jet. We also had several different types of running engines that we were able to practice tuning & adjusting the carbs on like Lycoming 7 & 9 cylinder radials that were used in military tanks with huge cast iron flywheels instead of propellers. We had a completely operational Piper Cub air frame which we stripped the fabric off of every year & replaced it. At the end of the year, the instructor taxied it down the football field getting it a few inches off the ground before returning it to the shop.

But the highlight of the semester was the Allyson inverted V-12 engine, liquid cooled, reportedly taken from a P-51 Mustang, mounted on a highly modified Model-A Ford chassis. It had a clubbed prop (chopped short to clear the ground) with a steel cage surrounding it & a bucket seat well offset so the driver could see around the huge engine which hung well over the front & rear of the chassis. The throttle lever had a steel bar welded across to limit its travel to less than 1/4 of its full open position. During the last week of school our instructor would drive it out to the football stadium & run it at 1/4 throttle from goal post to goal post. It would reach speeds of 60 or more mph's & with only the exhaust manifolds, was the loudest sound I've ever heard then or since. Even though it was solidly mounted, our instructor told us if the throttle was ever open fully, the 1500 H.P. behemoth would tear itself off the chassis while probably rendering the whole outfit airborne. I will never forget how the ground shook as it rolled by. I can only imagine the modern rules & regulations that would prohibit that today. Those were the good old days for sure!

 

[rooter]

Bong came back to the US as an instructor and test pilot and was killed. All those fights with the Japs and he dies in a test airplane.

It was Isoroku Yamamoto the team of P-38's shot down over Bougainville I believe.

Good Morning Sir....Richard Bong come to our Iowa school during the war in a war bond
drive...He was just a little person, very blond and fair...he told us of his Swedish parents
and where he lived in nearby Wisconsin. He come to our 6th grade room for we dozen or
so students had collected the most trivia for the war effort... I wrote a story
titled WARE HEROS AND OTHER GODS about war hero Richard Bong..It is down in my story section...Chief

 

[Kevin Rohrer]

My uncle flew them in Europe (552FS/26FBG/9thAF) along w/ the P47. He said the only weakness w/ the Mustang was that you had to keep the fuel in the (wing?) tanks balanced. He flew FO missions for his squadron in the Mustang, and all other mission-types in the Thunderbolt, a total of 110-missions w/ three aircraft kills (JU52, FW190, and a ME262).

 

[polishshooter]

At the risk of getting scolded again for resurrecting an old thread, maybe they will remember I was founder of this forum after I suggested it to Tac and they’ll cut me some slack...😉

The P-51 WAS the possibly the most important Allied plane of the European war, mainly due to its range. It was the only plane that could escort all the way there and back anywhere in the Reich, from England. (OK the P-38 could too, but the Allisons simply could not perform in dogfights at altitude)

Herman Goering said he knew the war was lost the first time he saw Allied Fighters over Berlin, and what he was looking at was Mustangs.

BUT the P-47 MAY have been the better fighter. It could outroll virtually any other fighter of the era. Gabreski quite possibly might have finished the war as top Ace, IF he didn’t bend his prop on some hill during a LOW😎 level strafing run late in the war and have to put it in and was captured.

A Mustang would NEVER do that...not only the vulnerable radiator that someone already pointed out, but that belly mounted intake picked up crap at very low altitude.

Yes they used it in Korea for CAS, but only because they didn’t have a radial powered fighter. They should’ve brought back the “Jug” for that, or used Corsairs like the Marines and Navy. They learned and used the Skyraider (they got from the Navy!) in Vietnam...

Quite probably if we could’ve figured out how to squeeze another 5-600 miles of range out of a Jug, and most certainly if we didn’t try the Merlin (It wasn’t much better than the P-40 with the Allison) we would’ve known the Mustang as the little used A-36....😉

 

[ysacres]

At the risk of getting scolded again for resurrecting an old thread, maybe they will remember I was founder of this forum after I suggested it to Tac and they’ll cut me some slack...😉

Your 6 months older than I am, You have seniority Sir. the floor is yours.

 

[Ibmikey]

I love WWII aviation and for many years ran the show and race circuit becoming friends with several of the Aces of that war including a warm relationship with Pappy Boyington ( he either liked you or paid one no attention ). I remember Bob Love would take off the runway in his Mustang and do a four point roll just as soon as his wingtips would clear the ground....awesome!

 

[Nor Cal Mikie]

Please delete. Double post.

 

[William Griffin]

Numerous trips to Dayton Air Show in 80s and 90s.....for me the P-51's were Always the highlight for me....been 10 yrs since I've seen one in person ☹

 

[ysacres]

including a warm relationship with Pappy Boyington

FIL has a signed copy of his book.