Inhaltsverzeichnis für June 2020 in Flight Journal

For almost a quarter-century, we at Flight Journal have worked to present the most informative, unique, and interesting P-51 Mustang stories, and we hope that they will stand the test of time—along with the venerable Mustang itself. And no doubt, the words of the warriors who flew this Merlin-powered machine into combat will forever ring true. When it comes to military aviation history, it’s the Mustang that has been the driving force! Certainly one of the best and most authoritative evaluations of the P-51 is Mustang triple ace Bud Anderson’s remembrance of his many hours of combat in that airplane. There is no theorizing or guesswork in Bud’s words, as he was one of WW II’s most successful Mustang pilots, as well as one of the highest scoring Mustang aces.…

Pete: If I’m not mistaken, it held the speed record (822 mph) for a while! [On August 20, 1955, an F-100C set a supersonic world speed record of 822.135 mph. That record was broken on March 10, 1956 by a British Fairey Delta 2 at 1,132 mph. - Ed.] Jim Schreiber: You never wanted to get nose up too much with little speed on takeoff—disaster, and it had an aileron problem that in certain conditions would turn aircraft in the opposite direction from what was put into the controls. Also, the afterburner was not hugely reliable. Other than those few items, it was a pretty airplane. Tom Palmer: While I was stationed at White Sands Missile Range, I happened to be monitoring Biggs AFB frequencies (El Paso) and heard an…

Can you believe it’s been 34 years since we first saw Tom Cruise catapult off a carrier deck and up into the danger zone as Lieutenant Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in Top Gun? That jet-propelled ode to air-to-air combat in the jet age is without question one of the most iconic films of the 1980s—so much so that in 2015 the Library of Congress deemed it to be “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” enough to be archived in the National Film Registry! It was also the highest-grossing film of 1986, which probably has more to do with why Paramount Pictures and producer Jerry Bruckheimer have been trying for a decade to get a sequel off the deck—and now they have. Top Gun: Maverick rejoins everyone’s favorite cocky jet jock, now a…

The pilot in that Bf 109 was good—very good. At one time early in this engagement, his 109 had almost been in a position to fire at Capt. C.E. “Bud” Anderson’s Old Crow. But his 109 was no match for the superior performance of the P-51 and its pilot. Even now, this high-altitude fight stands out sharply in Colonel Anderson’s mind as the most challenging encounter of all his official kills. It was May 27, 1944, and Captain. Anderson was leading a flight of four P-51 Mustangs of the 363rd Squadron, 357th Fighter Group; the Group’s CO was Col. Don Graham. At 30,000 feet, Anderson’s flight was one of many escorting a bomber stream to the Ludwigshafen-Mannheim area in Germany. Below was occupied France; Germany was just beyond the Rhine…

Ninety minutes before daybreak on February 17, 1944, Operation Hailstone was launched from three U.S. aircraft carrier groups in the South Pacific. Hundreds of American warplanes ravaged the Japanese-held island airfields and harbors of Truk Lagoon, one of the most formidable Japanese naval air bases in the Pacific. The low-flying torpedo bombers and dive bombers did not show up on Japanese radar, and so were a complete surprise to the Japanese forces, with many of their personnel on shore leave. Over the next two days, Operation Hailstone stormed the Japanese defenses, shot down and destroyed more than 250 warplanes, and sank nearly 50 Japanese merchant vessels in addition to the few fighting ships that were left. An important victory for the United States, Operation Hailstone also resulted in the loss…

We welcome your feedback and suggestions across our social media. Comments may be edited for brevity and clarity. flight@airage.com facebook.com/FlightJournal instagram.com/Flight_Journal_magazine I enjoyed your fine article on the GEICO Sky-typers in the April 2020 issue of Flight Journal. Regarding the team’s SNJs, I have a question: The team’s aircraft are billed as being SNJ-2 models, but Skytyper No. 4 has the more triangular rudder of a later model SNJ. This begs the question, is this actually a later model SNJ, or an SNJ-2 that has been fitted with a rudder from a later model SNJ? I enjoy your magazine immensely. Please keep pumping such interesting articles.—J. J. Burgmeier J.J., You do have a good eye! According to the Air Show Team’s commanding officer, Larry Arken, you are correct. The No.…

EDITOR’S NOTE: Every aircraft that goes into service is accompanied by controversy. This was especially true for the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Super Hornet. With the long-anticipated Paramount Pictures movie sequel, Top Gun: Maverick coming out in June, we noted that in the original 1986 movie, Maverick was flying the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, but in the new sequel he is at the controls of the F-18 Super Hornet. So it made perfect sense to publish our classic feature "Battle of the Superfighters" as well as some of the passionate reader responses it generated. In this comparison, our two experts argue that the Super Hornet was not necessarily the airplane the Navy needed for the future, and their backgrounds lend weight to their arguments. Rear Admiral Paul Gillcrist spent 33 years as…

The producers know audience reactions (and box office receipts) for Top Gun: Maverick will depend in large part on the in-flight action. Back in 1986, CGI didn’t exist, so the air-to-air footage was a mix of real aircraft and scale models. This time around, CGI technology is a staple of the industry, but the filmmakers had the legacy of the original Top Gun and its live-action flight sequences to live up to, so they resolved to minimize the use of CGI—reserving it for scenes that were too dangerous, too destructive, or too expensive to film live. You might also assume that the in-cockpit footage of pilots, played by actors who are not exactly flight-rated in the F/A-18, would be CGI too. But filmmakers realized it would be impossible to realistically simulate the facial distortions…

No, this is not a scene from any movie where the hero staggers away from a “good landing” on Mindoro, Philippine Islands, after being shot down by a Japanese Zero; it is an actual photo of Lt. S. F. Ford walking away from a virtually new Lockheed P-38L-5-LO Lightning that he crash-landed, probably some time after January 1945. The lieutenant was almost surely newly assigned to combat in the Pacific, but with his plane on fire, he managed to break away and pancake the burning fighter somewhere on Mindoro Island. He was quickly rescued by U.S. Army Tank Corps troops, largely indicated by the fresh signs of tanks having passed quite recently. Although the outer wings were completely torn off as the engines and tail booms were totally demolished, it…

We recently found online a colorized photograph of WW I American fighter ace Capt. Eddie Rickenbacker, with his famous SPAD XIII (Flickr/Rui Candeias). We highlighted it as one of our weekly “Hey, check out this photo” posts, and many of you took notice. Here are just a few of your comments. Jerry Cross: I just finished his autobiography he wrote in 1966. Very good and easy read. Alexander Piela: I built a model of the SPAD XIII in my teens. One of my favorites! Kirk Walker: Did Rickenbacker fly with the Lafayette Escadrille? Eric Blatter: No, Rickenbacker flew in the 94th Aero Squadron (Hat in the Ring), which was an American unit. Eric Blatter: I might be incorrect, but I believe the Lafayette Escadrille was disbanded once the U.S. entered the…

The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang is my all-time favorite airplane. I have other favorites too, but the P-51 got me through WW II so well that it is the obvious choice for nostalgic reasons alone. The Mustang is a beautiful airplane to look at, and it has such a great, distinctive sound. There are so many legendary stories about the Mustang that it must be every flyboy’s favorite WW II fighter, and I think most objective researchers would agree that it was the best all-around WW II combat fighter. But why was the Mustang so great? In a nutshell, because of its advanced design and overall performance. It was superior in many ways, and if it wasn’t the best in a particular area, it was, at least, very competitive.…

FOR GENERATIONS, veterans have argued about which was better: the P-47 or the P-51. Maybe my preference for the P-51 started with my first flight in a Jug when I learned how much runway it needed. As pilots always do in a single-seat fighter, I spent a few hours in the cockpit memorizing all instrument and control positions. Then I was ready and was told that one of those monsters had just finished a 100-hour check and needed a test flight. I decided to take it. The field at A-66 was typical of advanced landing strips: carved from the countryside, cleared, somewhat leveled and covered with a metal mesh mat for its 2,700-foot length. It was adequate for Mustang operations. The Jug, even with its water-injection feature, required every last…

The Monocoupe Corp. built only seven Monocoupe 110 Specials (or 110 SPL), also called the Clipwing Monocoupe. The most famous was flown by legendary airshow pilot Woody Edmundson, who, in 1946, replaced the original 145 hp Warner Scarab engine with a 185 hp one that had an inverted flight carburetor and an Aeromatic propeller. He nicknamed the plane Little Butch and flew it for the next 19 years. In 1962, Edmundson sold Little Butch to Eddy Foyle, who wrecked it twice in the next three years. John McCulloch bought was what left of it in 1965 and had it restored by C.V. Stuart in Florida. John flew it a lot but finally gave it to the National Air and Space Museum in 1981. John McCulloch is the ultimate Monocoupe nut.…