Originally posted by skaltura
Bodie also claims how "the eight heavy machine guns of the P-47 put in a target more weight than the 4 cannons of the Tempest per second" which is an outright lie. When confonted with the facts, he became abusive.
He also seems to seriously believe that the XP-72 was good for 480 mph at sea level...
And that Truman was a miserably coward for not "nuking those stinking Chinese" in Korea. His words, not mine.
I talked with Ken Jernstedt at a AVG get-together in the middle 1990's. Since he was one of the two XP-72 test pilots, I asked him about the aircraft and Bodie's claim. He was tickled that someone wanted to talk about something besides the AVG. Jernstedt said he could reach about 395 mph a few hundred feet above Long Island Sound. This was at MIL power. That's quite fast, but still well below 480 mph. Ken was nearly blind by then, but he still had a twinkle in his eye.
I spent a few years working with Bodie (after Jeff Ethell died) in my spare time, co-authoring several magazine pieces and helping him with various projects. Warren was very difficult to work with. Moody, cranky and downright surly at times. Eventually, I grew quite weary of it and simply quit. I haven't talked to him in years. I did, however, steal his publishing company name... Widewing.
I argued with him about the XP-72's speed, but he insisted that Carl Bellinger told him "480 mph". He probably did tell him that, but Warren accepted it without question. Clearly, it was an error. Nonetheless, I couldn't change his mind. Yeah, the XP-72 could reach 480 mph, in fact it attained 490 mph. However, it did that at 25,000 feet, not at sea level.
Whatever Warren's faults were, he has one of the best collections of historic and vintage aviation photos (many of which he took himself) in existence. He has a huge library of primary source documents, especially from Lockheed. He was the Skunk Works tech pub manager for many years.
Bodie may lack some of the skills of a trained historian, and does not possess the opened minded approach required to be objective. However, he is still one of the most knowledgeable people alive when it comes to aviation history. His work is not without error. However, it is still among the best in terms of depth and content.
Warren was always a very opinionated fellow, and a product of his generation.
Oh, and I'm not a big fan of Truman either...
My regards,
Widewing
