Table of contents for July - August 2022 in Flight Journal

There is something fundamentally different about the Spitfire compared to American fighters that transcends the elegance of its elliptical wings and beautiful lines. It’s the powerful old black and white photos of bombed-out buildings and British citizens cowering in bomb shelters that the very sight of a Spitfire brings to mind. Americans have never known that kind of threat or seen firsthand aerial combat in the skies above our cities and towns. Spitfire Mk Vb AB910, operated by the RAF Battle of Britain’s Memorial Flight, was one such defender of the homeland. What makes this survivor even more special is that it saw service throughout a significant part of WW II and is still airworthy today. In our feature story “Combat Veteran,” former RAF jet fighter pilot Clive Rowley tells…

The A-Model F-35 The now combat-tested F-35A has become ubiquitous around the world, and the aircraft can be found residing as the top dog of choice within the various air forces. Born in controversy as are almost all new programs, the F-35 continues to be manufactured at a high rate, aside from some Covid delays. The cost was probably the number one gripe, with program delays coming in second. Regardless, the F-35 is in the process of being as popular as the F-16 was when it made its entry back in the day. The F-35 is a spiral develop program and it receives periodic validation and software updates to add new weapons and systems to the arsenal of what it can carry. Now that most of the bugs have been…

September 30, 2022 marks the 80th anniversary of the death of perhaps the finest fighter pilot of World War II: Hans-Joachim Marseille. This article focuses only on September 1942. It was truly a month like no other for in this month, Marseille rewrote the book on fighter-to-fighter combat. In addition to claiming an astounding 54 kills, including 17 of those on September 1, he saw two friends and colleagues die, met three high-ranking military leaders, was promoted to Captain, crashed an Italian fighter, found an unlikely friend in a Black South African prisoner of war, and was awarded Germany’s highest award. But as September ended, the “Star of Africa” lay dead in the Egyptian sand. Setting the Stage After scoring his 101st victory on June 17, a combat-weary and sickly…

ONE OF ONLY NINE MK V SPITFIRES still flying worldwide, the Royal Air Force Battle of Britain Memorial Flight’s Spitfire Mk Vb AB910 is a truly remarkable example of its type. A combat veteran with an amazing pedigree, this incredible aircraft flew operationally for almost three years during World War II and has defied the odds to survive in flying condition today. August 1941 Spitfire AB910 was built as part of the initial batch of 500 Mk Vb Spitfires ordered from the Castle Bromwich Spitfire “shadow” factory in 1941. It was fitted with a Rolls-Royce Merlin 45 engine and armed with two 20mm cannons and four 0.303-inch machine guns. It first flew in August that year. Initial operations Spitfire AB910 was delivered to its first operational unit, 222 (Natal) Squadron…

ON THE GROUND “Taxiing out to the runway in AB910 you need to weave to see around the long nose, which blocks the view ahead. The aircraft feels light and skittish on the ground, more so than later Spitfires. You need a yachtsman’s awareness of where the wind is blowing from and what effect it may have as you turn. The Spitfire’s center of gravity is well forward and the control column needs to be held fully back to counter this, as otherwise it would be easy for the tail to lift and for the propeller to contact the ground.” TAKEOFF “On takeoff, the performance is lively; Spitfire AB910 accelerates rapidly from brakes off with the power up to +6-inches of boost (half of what is available) and reaches liftoff…

The Vintage Aviator Ltd. (TVAL), in Wellington, New Zealand, has reproduced one of the most significant fighters from the Great War. This time the focus was on an iconic German aircraft, the Albatros D.Va, which was the machine of choice and the last in a long line of single-seat fighters. Many of the highest scoring German Aces achieved the majority of their victories while flying Albatros fighters. The Albatros DV was an attempt at an improved and lighter D.lll. A new oval cross-section fuselage was designed and a more powerful Mercedes engine was fitted. This combination proved to push the design to its structural limits, with nearly two dozen crashes attributed to structural failure in the first three months of operation! The solution was a factory redesign of the lower…

Harry Ballance Jr. has no memory of his father’s Stinson SR5A or any of the Stinsons his father owned. Born in 1939, he was too young to comprehend the beauty or significance of the Reliant series of elegant, high-wing commercial/private aircraft made in Wayne, Michigan between 1933 and 1941. With 10 principal civilian models, four military versions, and an assortment of subtypes, the SR line was offered as swift, luxurious personal transport for the well-to-do, company personnel, commercial passengers, and successful executives like Ballance’s father, Harry Ballance Sr. Ballance Sr. bought his first Stinson in the early 1930s, an SM8A “Junior” that he used to fly himself to the branch offices he oversaw in 13 states around the southeast for 20th Century Fox. Involved in the distribution and promotion of…

ON A SWELTERING DAY LAST AUGUST, liquid-cooled Merlin and Allison V-12s and an air-cooled Pratt & Whitney R-2800 radial engine idled impatiently at the east end of the Military Aviation Museum’s (MAM’s) beautifully maintained, 5,000-foot grass runway. Sweating through his tan flight suit in the hot cockpit of the Cavanaugh Flight Museum’s P-40N, Taylor Stevenson was less concerned than usual about getting the Warhawk airborne while waiting for the other fighters lined up to take the runway. “The P-40 heats up on the ground pretty quickly, faster than a Mustang and definitely faster than a Corsair,” he notes. “If we’re doing a formation flight, I’m used to being the guy that’s always saying, ‘Hey guys, we need to go!’” “The good news is the Mosquito heats up way faster,” Stevenson quips.…

IF, IN 1945, SOME FARSIGHTED INVESTOR had suggested purchasing and hoarding war surplus aircraft as a guaranteed way to make your fortune, you would have considered him a crackpot of the first order. Now, advance yourself to the 21st century: next to gold bullion (1945 price: $35/ounce), you might have been wise indeed to collect, scavenge, and hoard all the spoils of WW II. No one could have realistically imagined the future interest and marketability of what seemed, at the time, to be aviation junk. Nor could the intense recovery and restoration activities centered on WW II aircraft have been imagined. Just look at the number of celebrity and entrepreneurs today who have embraced investing, owning, and operating classic warbirds. This market has been so strong that new manufacture of…