Flight Journalの August 2020 の目次

"Pappy" Gunn had served in the U.S. Navy for twenty years before retiring to start airlines in Hawaii and the Philippines. When Pearl Harbor was attacked, he returned to the service — and received a Distinguished Flying Cross for flying in medical supplies to besieged troops on the Bataan Peninsula. He was evacuated to Australia, and in the summer of 1942, he began his major contribution to the war effort. Gunn started to add M2 .50-caliber machine guns to the noses of A-20 Havoc light bombers. The planes had been okay, able to carry a ton of bombs, but bombing from high altitude often didn't work with ships. So Gunn began modifying the A-20s, and later the B-25s, with M2s scavenged from fighters that had brought back their pilots, but…

The 339th Fighter Group flew P-51 Mustangs out of RAF Fowlmere with great success. When the war ended and the final totals were recorded, the group had destroyed 692 enemy aircraft (air and ground). But what made them stand out was the fact that they had been in position to fight large numbers of Me 262s, and when the dust settled, they had 12 confirmed kills with several more probables. This ranked them as the second-best jet killers in the 8th Air Force. These jet fighters were flown by some of the Luftwaffe’s best pilots, and there wasn’t any way to develop sound tactics against them. They struck so fast that there was only one way to take them—when they were most vulnerable at the bottom of a dive.…

By 1944, the tide of the Pacific War had begun to turn. Instead of advancing, the Japanese were now on the retreat. Faced with several major defeats and an increasing number of new, advanced Allied fighters such as the P-38 Lightning and the Corsair, the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Force needed a new tool with which to wage war. Its solution was the Kawanishi N1K1-J Shiden Kai (Violet Lightning). The Allies’ code name for the aircraft was “George.” The first variant of the aircraft, the model 21, was fitted with a powerful Nakajima NK9H Homare 21 radial engine (1,990hp), automatic combat flaps and pilot armor. Armament consisted of two fuselage-mounted 7.7mm machine guns, two wing-mounted 20mm cannons and an additional two 20mm cannons mounted in underwing gondolas. In later variants,…

I shot down my first Bf 109 during the first daylight raid on Berlin by American B-17s on March 4, 1944. I was flying a P-51B with the birdcage canopy. The weather was extremely bad, and many of the B-17 groups had aborted, with the exception of a couple of boxes, as I remember. I only saw one other Mustang from our 363rd Squadron. Flying at 32,000 feet above the bombers, I spotted a lone 109 out to the side of the B-17s at 28,000 feet. I peeled off and told my wingman to give me top cover. During the dive, I overestimated the 109’s speed and overshot. I pulled up in a big roll and came back in under the 109 at his speed and opened fire at about…

The European theater held more surprises for the Allies than the Pacific theater did. The Germans were leaders in developing state-of-the-art weapons, and if the war had lasted into 1946, it might have held some very lethal surprises for New York City and Washington, D.C. Using conventional aircraft, the AAF and RAF had to tangle with the Luftwaffe’s new jet-propelled aircraft, and they did a superb job of it. Basically, it was the P-51 Mustangs protecting the bombers deep into Germany, as they were pelted with attacks from the Me 262 and Me 163 Komet. These encounters were just an inkling of future dogfights in the fast lane. The first time a Mustang had a chance to bag a 262 happened on August 28, 1944, when two pilots from the…

During WW II, we in the military were not allowed to save notes, keep diaries or take pictures, and being a Boy Scout type, I lived by the rules. Now, decades later, when I’m called to write about some of my flight experiences, I wish that I had bent the rules a little. Thank goodness I have a copy of our Patuxent Naval Air Test Center “Report of Comparative Combat Evaluation of the Focke-Wulf 190A-4,” which was obtained by Corky Meyer from The Air and Space Museum under the Freedom of Information Act. Using that report for specific test data and as a memory jogger, I will relate some results and impressions from those tests. Keep in mind that this was before there was a test-pilot school in the U.S.…

For the general aviation population, the Kinner name is associated with a family of low-power radial engines. This may be true, but Kinner activities were far from being limited to engine production. From 1932 to 1937, Kinner produced a line of monoplanes that became an inspiration for an entire generation of airplane designers. Some of their features could be found on other designs years after the company ceased all activity. Bert Kinner, founder of the Kinner Airplane and Motors Corp., developed his first airplane design in 1919, which looked like a scaled-down version of the Curtiss Jenny. He later developed the original Sportster concept. Max Harlow, an aeronautics graduate fresh out of school and hired for the job, redesigned it into the Sportster K. Drafted in 1932, the Sportster was…

When Pearl Harbor was attacked, I was home at the time. It was a Sunday, and we heard it on the radio like everybody else. I was living with my parents and working for American Airlines at LaGuardia Field. We were outfitting planes to go overseas, converting commercial airplanes for use by the military. I had never been in an airplane except commercially, and I had never flown a light plane. I felt that an aerial line of duty was what I wanted, because I didn’t want to end up in a trench somewhere. It turned out pretty good for me, but my brother Robert was not as fortunate. An Army Air Corps B-24 top turret gunner and engineer, he survived two crashes but was over the Adriatic when his…

Gen. Francesco Fagiolo, then Sottotenente of the Italian 360a Squadriglia CT, was the first fighter pilot in his unit to engage the P-38. Stationed in North Africa in November of 1942, the Italians knew nothing of the soonto-be-famous Lockheeds until the 14th FG arrived over their field. From a series of interviews and the private diaries of Gen. D. A. Francesco Fagiolo. That morning, I had already been on a low CAP of the field and of the harbor of Tunis. In the afternoon I took off for a high CAP, the operative altitude was 6,000 meters. I remember that the specialist helped me to climb up and enter into the cockpit; all wrapped up in the flight gear and restrained by the various safety belts, it was not easy…

Peering out of the Navy Club window, I begin to realize how beautiful Tokyo looks in springtime. The cherry blossoms are in full bloom and the locals are sitting outside, eating their lunches and enjoying the sunny day. Seated in front of me is a man—old enough to be my grandfather—who is recalling a tale that happened long ago. His age seems to melt away as he remembers the great Pacific air war. As his quick mind reaches back through the years, in a soft voice he explains a forgotten page in WW II history. The man’s name is Ryoichi Yamada—one of the original Japanese Navy pilots who flew with the “squadron of aces” (the 343rd Air Group) during the summer of 1945. It was a time Japanese Navy pilots…