Great pilots

Funny you mention P51. I heard him on radio many years ago. A caller asked if the P51 was the best plane he ever flew. You could tell caller was hoping for some romantic tale of flying the 51. Yeager said "Nope. The newest is the best". Caller "Whats the newest?". Yeager "I don't know but whatever it is its the best".

 

Brian- Yup, that sort of fits into the dumb question grouping. Yeager got to go supersonic in an F-15D on the 65th anniversary of his X-1 supersonic flight, and I imagine he thought that was a better plane than the P-51. Not a big deal going supersonic, unless you were documented as the first one to do it.

 

If anyone is ever on Maui and drives "The Road to Hana" Lindberghs grave site is in a small village between Hana and Kaupo. Out in the middle of nowhere. He was very reclusive in later life and he and the wife lived out their years there. Beautiful place but hard to be more secluded and still be in USA.

 

I always say "Who was second to go supersonic? Who cares?". I was at open house at Edwards for 40th anniversary. They had him do flyby in F4 at mach 2. He had some time in those and I suspect at the time he had no desire to trade for 51.

 

Considering World War I, Von Richtofen gets the most press, but some have said that German runner-up Ernst Udet was possibly a better pilot; certainly Udet was known for his display flying between the wars. And top French ace Rene Fonck is rarely mentioned, even though with 75 kills he finished only 5 behind the Baron. Billy Bishop of Canada was next with 72, but I've heard that it is suspected that many of his credited kills were somehow not genuine.

 

There are and have been many great pilots. And probably as many definitions as to what makes a pilot "great". Some are obvious and others less so. Just a quick brainstorm for you to contemplate:
- Amet-khan Sultan
- Ivan Kozhedub
- Gerhard Barkhorn
- Erich Hartman
- Suburo Sakai
- Mitsuo Fuchida
- Douglas Bader
- I.R. Gleed
- Count Francesco Baracca
- Igor Sikorski
- Scott Crossfield
- Corky Meyer
- Lou Schalk
- Darryl Greenamyer
- Tony Levier
- Wiley Post
- Benny Howard
- Roscoe Turner
- Poncho Barnes
- Jackie Cochran
- Paul Mantz
- Robert Morgan
- Paul Tibbets
- Tex Johnston
- Jimmy Stewart
- Ted Williams
- John Glen
- Gus Grissom
- Steve Hinton
- Steven Hinton Jr.

And two of my dear friends who you don't know and who didn't get to come home:
- Maj Steven Plumhoff
- Maj Randy Voas

 

General Curtis LeMay flew bombers in WWII and had Corvette races at Offutt AFB in the very early 60's.

 

I was at a EAA dinner and fly In at EAA chapter 1 in Riverside,CA about 15 years ago. There was a meeting of two WW2 pilots German and American.

The German IIRC had 245 kills.

edit-- I was in the back seat of a Texan in a Commemorative Air Force formation flying flight of four. Steve Hinton Jr. was getting checked out for his FAST card. He passed with flying colors.

and then I've watched him win at Reno.

 

One you missed was Hanna Reitsch.

 

No, I didn't forget her. I just didn't include her.

 

Alex Henshaw and Jeffrey Quill deserve to be included, IMHO.

Rgds

 

LeMay was into cars and had some cool ones himself. Allowed sports car races at a variety of airfields around US. He was also a sponsor of shooting matches at bases. Another of his hobbies.

 

The Germans and Russians scored massive numbers of kills because there was no such thing as a "tour" or "rotation." You just kept flying until you died, and if you were good and lucky, you didn't die.

Speaking of Russians, Lily Litvak and Nadia Popova are probably work mentioning.

 

Greenameyer was a Ferrari guy too. I know who has his old TR.

Erich Hartman flew in the German air force in the 50's and 60's. He made so many enemies trying to prevent the Luftwaffe from buying F104's he was forced into retirement in 1970. A lot of German pilots died in non combat accidents in 104's.

 

I have read about 12 books written by German Aces, they seem to be quite a bit
more revealing about the actual combat as opposed to the ones I have read
that were written by American pilots.

One thing I learned was when flying in the eastern front, the Germans had big issues
with their engines. Now, when you crashed there, it wasn't uncommon for a German
pilot on the ground to go out and pick up the Russian pilot when his parachute landed.
In a subsequent chat, one of the German pilots made the simple comment that he had
no idea why Russian planes had no engine problems, and a Russian pilot replied back
they simply mixed a little diesel in the motor oil.... and that solved a lot of German
engine issues...

Hartmann was begging against the 104 due to so many crashes on landings,
and as soon as they tripled the training on that, crashes went down by 90%.
I read two books written by Hartmann.

 

What you say about the lubricant issues in the aircraft is very interesting It effected far more than airplanes. I knew a Czech who as a very young man worked on Wehrmacht trucks and tanks. The Germans were simply unprepared for Russian winter conditions because they had never been exposed to it before. They had real issues with tank turrets simply freezing in place because the grease froze. Lots of engine and transmission failures in everything as well.

Hartmann was very interesting. Many years ago I read everything I could find on him. He trained on jets at Luke AFB as I recall. His funeral was a who's who of living German aces.

 

And about 150 of his first kills were basically against sitting ducks on the Russian front,
poor guys flying airplanes made in the 20's and 30's.... no match for a BF-109
Almost all of his 'victories' were on the eastern front - where it was much easier.
IIRC Hartmann said he himself was shot down 17 times, but usually crash-landed.
He was also very badly injured once and spent many months in a hospital...

 

The Russians had very few that could be considered a good match for an FW or Me..so big scores were common. Still, lots of real talent in Luftwaffe.

 

Yessir, Darryl Greenameyer was a well-known Ferrari owner and enthusiast. And another person on that list has an interesting tie-in to Ferrari, and that is Count Francesco Baracca. Many sources credit his personal crest as the inspiration for the Scuderia Ferrari shield.

https://www.logodesignlove.com/ferrari-logo-history

 

By the time they had a halfway decent aircraft, they didn't have many pilots left.

I'm trying to remember the aircraft Hartmann said he thought were good, I want to say YAK-9 or Lag-3 maybe?

 

Probably Yak 9. Late models were very good.

 

Hartmann told one story of being pursued by P-51Ds and rolling inverted over his own airfield and bailing out. Lots of airplanes left, not enough pilots. Hard to train new ones with allied fighters shooting up the airfields.

 

German and Japanese aircraft both did not enjoy the major improvements ours did over the course of the war. The 190 did go from a small round motor to the Jumo but the 109 or the Zero were pretty outclassed by ours towards the end. And then there was the shortage of well trained pilots.And while the German pilots liked them the 109 was pretty long in the tooth by the end of the war. All those guys with triple digit scores would have been a different story if they had faced P51s, 38s and 47s for 4 years.

 

The Germans had the opportunity to upgrade the Bf/Me-109 early in the war with the He-100 but figured the 109 was good enough to win the war. The little Heinkel was a beautiful aircraft that would have been much easier to upgrade. Lots of great photos of that one from the propaganda effort

 

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