WW II plane buffs?

[Beanbag]

Fieseler Fi156 Storch (Stork). Probably one of the goofiest-looking planes of WW2, and that's saying something. A remarkable plane in that it is so STOL (short takeoff or landing) you could land the thing in a headwind and actually be going backwards relative to the ground.

The French and Czechs kept building them after the war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fieseler_Fi_156

Beanbag

 

[Dcdrac]

I have always liked the ME262

The Meteor always looked a convnetioanl airframe with jet Engines attached.

 

[Dcdrac]

I am sure there was a RAF plane that looked similar to a USAAF Lightening

 

[Dcdrac]

It was the Westland Whirlwind

http://www.militaryfactory.com/aircraft/detail.asp?aircraft_id=524

 

[Jack by the hedge]

I am sure there was a RAF plane that looked similar to a USAAF Lightening

Aspects of the Westland Whirlwind remind me of the P-38 Lightning, but without the distinctive twin boom tail, of course.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Fieseler Fi156 Storch (Stork). Probably one of the goofiest-looking planes of WW2, and that's saying something. A remarkable plane in that it is so STOL (short takeoff or landing) you could land the thing in a headwind and actually be going backwards relative to the ground.

The French and Czechs kept building them after the war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fieseler_Fi_156

Beanbag

RAF had the Auster, very similar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auster

which was a copy of the US Taylorcraft
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-2_Grasshopper

 

[Dcdrac]

And of course the Lysander

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/lysander.htm

 

[I Ratant]

Fieseler Fi156 Storch (Stork). Probably one of the goofiest-looking planes of WW2, and that's saying something. A remarkable plane in that it is so STOL (short takeoff or landing) you could land the thing in a headwind and actually be going backwards relative to the ground.

The French and Czechs kept building them after the war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fieseler_Fi_156

Beanbag

.
I believe this is a French built... it does well in spot landing competitions here.

 

[Andy_Ross]

And of course the Lysander

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/lysander.htm

Lysander was a whole lot bigger, it had a STOL capability thoug hand it's big fixed undercarriage made it ideal for landing on small unprepared fields to drop of Agents or recover downed pilots etc.

 

[I Ratant]

ISTR a restorer at California City says he has the Storch Skorenzy used to rescue Mussolini under restoration.

 

[Ove]

.
I believe this is a French built... it does well in spot landing competitions here.

In MAY be a French buildt but it has the original German engine (Argus). Most French Storch's (They were called Criquet) had a radial engine which changed the appearance somewhat. It was apparently a terribly easy plane to fly. Rommel is said to have flown one even though he didn't have any pilot training (i guess he got some "in field" instruction though).

 

[Ove]

Lysander was a whole lot bigger, it had a STOL capability thoug hand it's big fixed undercarriage made it ideal for landing on small unprepared fields to drop of Agents or recover downed pilots etc.

I have read a book by a Norwegian pilot who flew on secret "Pick-Up" missions and he says that they had great confidence in the Lysander because it actually "looked like it could fly" with the huge wings. They could be tricky though, if you had to abort a landing and "go around" again. With full flaps, in landing configuration, it would loop, and crash, if the pilot slammed the throttle open. But once mastered it could take off and land in VERY little space.

 

[Ove]

I have allways had a weak spot for "things that never happened". One of the unanswered questions could be: "What if RAF had deployed the Westland Whirlwind as a Bomber Destroyer alongside Spits and Hurricanes during the BOB". The Whirlwind was available at the time. It was a very agile plane (though it would have been hard pressed agains a 109) but more specifically it had an awesome armament of 4 20mm cannons in the nose which would have wrecked havoc amongst the German bombers. The Germans later in the war, used the Me110 in a similar role quite sucessfully. One of the problems was that the standard 8 X .303 machineguns used on the fighters was often not hard hitting enough to down the German bombers.

Another thing that never happened is the best fighter ever produced by the Brits, the Martin Baker MB5. It clearly outperformed anything else that flew, the problem was that it arrived too late in the war and it was never put in production. Only one prototype was ever buildt and it was later destroyed. I have heard that some Americans are building a Replika and that it should be about ready to fly, that would be awesome.

 

[Dave Rogers]

I have allways had a weak spot for "things that never happened". One of the unanswered questions could be: "What if RAF had deployed the Westland Whirlwind as a Bomber Destroyer alongside Spits and Hurricanes during the BOB".

I think an even more intriguing question is "What if the Whirlwind had been modified to use Merlins instead of Peregrines?" Rolls-Royce were understandably heavily focused on Merlin and Griffon development, so the Peregrine was the poor relation that never really had its reliability problems addressed, and that was the Whirlwind's Achilles heel. Two Merlins would have made it a lot heavier and might well have made its handling less pleasant, but it could conceivably have out-performed the Mosquito and made a stunningly good heavy fighter-bomber.

Dave

 

[Andy_Ross]

In wartime you can't afford to mess about too much. Whirlwind was stopped as other aircraft with less problems were doing the job.

 

[Ove]

I think an even more intriguing question is "What if the Whirlwind had been modified to use Merlins instead of Peregrines?" Rolls-Royce were understandably heavily focused on Merlin and Griffon development, so the Peregrine was the poor relation that never really had its reliability problems addressed, and that was the Whirlwind's Achilles heel. Two Merlins would have made it a lot heavier and might well have made its handling less pleasant, but it could conceivably have out-performed the Mosquito and made a stunningly good heavy fighter-bomber.

Dave

Agreed. I have allways seen the Whirly as a missed opportunity. It was hampered by a bad reputation to begin with but it actually did a very good job. Petter who designed it was one of the great designers and he later went on to designe the Canberra, the Lightning and the Gnat. The Perengrine was a development of the hugely sucessful Kestrel and wasn't a bad engine, Rolls Royce just lost interest.

 

[I Ratant]

In wartime you can't afford to mess about too much. Whirlwind was stopped as other aircraft with less problems were doing the job.

.
That was an unappreciated "virtue" with the German war industry.
The insanity of the leaders at the top couldn't focus on the stuff that worked, and kept diverting dwindling resources to blue-schemes, wasting men and material on wild-eyed ideas.

 

[Beanbag]

Spent part of yesterday at the Cavanaugh Flight Museum. I'd intended to spend the day at the Lewisville Balloon Festival, but after driving out there at 10AM, discovered there were exactly ZERO hot air balloons at present, and it didn't look like any would show up in the next four hours, and based on the size of the field they had marked off for setup, there --MAY-- have been only, what, four or five balloons expected, so I abandoned that video expedition for the Cavanaugh.

Here are some stills lifted from the HD video I shot.
First is the Cold War line-up outside: a Mig 17, a Mig 21, an F104A, and S2F, and some un-named small jet aircraft I haven't been quite able to identify.

Next is a 3/4 profile of the F104A.

Getting back into the theme of the OP is the F4U Corsair with its wings folded.

Then we have the L4 Grasshopper, the military version of the J3 Piper Cub. This was the "real" reason I went, as I needed some reference footage for a novel I'm writing.

And lastly, Fifi -- the only flight-worthy B29 -- is currently in residence. The Cavanaugh is funding the replacement of the engines, and in return the Commemorative Air Force keeps it hangared at Addison.

 

[Beanbag]

And lastly, to precede the timescale of the OP, here's a Fokker DVII. This is not an original, but a true-to-original replica.

It was a good day. Need to go back with my still camera and spend some more time.

Beanbag

 

[I Ratant]

That's an Iskra TS-11.. From Poland.