Miracle Stories

[Raptor05121]

I'm interested in hearing some stories. I know a lot of you have been here wayy longer than I have so post up! Anything amazing/once-in-a-lifetime/never-should'a-happened kinda stuff.

I was flying a Bishop B-25H to test out my new gunsight I got for it. I up from a small field and head for a classic GV v GV fight with a couple of dogfights overhead. I NOE all the way there and sure 'nuf there is a heyday of GVs slaughtering it out inbetween the two V bases. I'm doing my passes, drop some 250s on a M16 for kill number one and fire a few rounds at an M4 doing some damage when I notice the rooks begin taking the lead with the dogfight overhead and start coming for me. One of which was another B-25. He is doing a pass on my tanks so I head for him and as he pulls out of his dive, he sees me and we HO. Guns blazing we both pass and I manage to clip his wing and he goes down for kill #2. I was too late to realize at this time I'm flying directly over the enemy V base @ 250 feet, doing about 120mph. BAAAAD mix as I see about 3-4 wirbls all over the place and autoack gunning for me. Hark right break to get out of there and BAM! Black smoke starts pouring out of the right engine. Another second later another boom and so does my left engine. Ctrl + D for damage and both my oil tanks are hit, fuel cell, and my left vertical stabilizer. So I immediately head the 25 miles back to the airfield (It wasn't until I was 1/2 way there that I probably could've landed the 2 kills @ the friendly V base). I know oil supply was dwindling short so I cut off the number one engine and limp home @ 1,500 feet. I'm entering the dar ring when everything gets quiet so I start my last remaining engine with whats left of its oil supply. It lasts about two minutes and I soon make a descent for landing, about 4 miles short of the runway. I find a spot and aim for it, slowing as I go down. Gear down and perfect touchdown as the prop stops swinging. So for the heck of it, I see how far the 120mph landing will carry me. Back to cockpit view I start dancing on my rudder pedals dodging trees. The burning dar is just ahead and pretty soon I'm slowing through 50. Take a couple more turns which clips the right wing and I see pavement! Down through 20....15.... about 500 feet out I aim for it and start chanting to my striken bomber. I'm closing on the indestructible at a snails pace and just as I begin to stop, my last tire clears the grass and onto the pavement. A quick .ef and low and behold my name in lights. It was crazy. I thought I never was going to make it. Sadly I forgot to save the video

[skorpion]

i remember back in january when i was running one of those massive b17 raids to the enemy strats to completely oblitterate their ammo/fuel. i got seperated from the group because i went afk at the wrong time. i had gotten to the strats but far before anyone else did. i was swarmed by  enemy fighters, constantly switching guns just to keep them at bay, by the time the big group got to the strats i was on the way back, by then it was "keep the gun going or die". i bagged 3 before a 262 got my #3 drone and badly wounded my bomber. i had only the front gun left as all others were out of ammo or completely destroyed. the 262 overshot and ended up right in front of me. i quickly switched to the front gun and took out his left wing and tail section. he went plummiting to the earth from 25k and i got a wave of relief. but sadly that was short lived. there were 2 109k4's waiting overhead for me. as they dove down i just prepared for the inevetable. but as they started to open up i saw a formation of friendly p47's dive in and kill them both. after the hell i went thru i limped back to base and quickly went to the tower so i could get out of those bombers. it seems whenever i was in b17's that had my favorite skin (the 457'th BG i think) bare metal skin with the blue stripe on the vert. stab. gets shot to hell every time i take it out. i know i have the film somewhere, but i have over 300+ films in the film viewer and i really dont wanna go looking thru all of them.

[Tank-Ace]

Jabo run in a 110G, 190A5 attacks me, and extends. I zoom up when he makes his second pass and he zooms beneath me. I swing my nose down and fire a single 1/2 second burst of 20mm at D1000 and I kill him. Unfortunaly I was later killed by SBD when I was about to drop ord  .

[bbosen]

OK. Mine comes from Air Warrior, almost 12 years ago. I was flying with my teenaged son Adam, and in our excitement, we got far deeper behind enemy lines than we had intended, and we had to fight our way back home low on ammo and fuel. We both survived, chased by a big group of determined adversaries and forced to "Thatch weave", team up, and pick them off one by one during a 100-mile chase. I ran out of fuel at the most critical moment in a final, desperate, successful turn to land at my airfield, after shooting down my second-to-last pursuer, and cheering as friendly ack-ack took out my last antagonist. My son watched me coast to a stop and then landed with me, also out of ammo, engine sputtering to a stop just a few yards ahead of me.

This was back in the days when live voice comms were brand new, and such a novelty that I retained a movie of the entire mission. It just so happens that I still have it.

HERE THEN, folks, is what an Air Warrior Miracle Story looked like, after turning back the clock to the year 2000, just after the turn of the century:

http://techvideoreview.com/FlightSimMovies/AirWarrior/CombatFlights/AirWarriorCombatFlights01FullPage.htm
 

[titanic3]

Out of ammo and doomed to die with 2 minutes of fuel left, I decided to die in an honorable way. We were attacking the base when I saw a friendly C47 being chased by 2 enemy planes. I decided to go after them, hoping to scare them off long enough for the goon to reach town and drop troops. The closest enemy broke when he saw me lining up on his 6. The second one was about D800 away from the goon. I gunned WEP, and dove for him. Gap was getting closer...600, 400, 200, right at that moment, he opened fire on the goon, at the exact time, I rammed him, cutting his wing off and saving the C47 who was flying with half a wing at this moment. I bailed to watch as the goon dropped his troops, captured the base, and won the war. 

Over 7 years ago and I still remember it.

[beau32]

This happened just yesterday.

Me and a friendly got engaged with a 109K4 and a Ki-84. I was in a 109G-2 and my friendly was in a 109G-14. I quickly dispatched the K-4 and turned on to help my friendly out. Well, I was a little late, but I managed to get the Ki. I was pretty close to a friendly base when I looked at my map and seen about 8-9 enemy dots right above me. I was pretty low on fuel, but was flying as fast as I could to get back home. I had a pretty good head start on a Nik that was trailing me, but he wasnt a threat. Why he didnt radio his buddys to come down and make me turn, I will never know. I ended up getting back to base and landing the kills, but after that fight and the run home, my hands were pretty sweaty.

[Guppy35]

15 years of cartoon flying and I'm not dead yet!  If that's not a miracle I don't know what is

[Krupinski]

15 years of cartoon flying and I'm not dead yet!  If that's not a miracle I don't know what is

Winnah!

Raptor, turning engines off won't conserve oil, it leaks at the same pace on or off.

[icepac]

My sorties of this type usually end with "and then a la7 vulch killed me after I rolled to a stop as I clicked End Sortie over and over"

[branch37]

In a FSO a long time ago my squad was tasked with B-25Cs out of England to hit a target in France.  I arrived late so I gunned for a squaddie.  We were shot to pieces.  We did our best with no tail gun but the top turret soon ran dry of ammo and we sere still being perused.  The pilot forced an overshoot and I pinged the 109s oil with the single nose gun.  However, both elevators were hit, only 1 aileron was functioning, 1 working rudder,  and our #1 engine was out, and we were still a good 80 miles from the coast.  We limped back to home base where the first approach had to be aborted due to lack of elevator control.  On the second approach, wouldn't ya know it, there's a bridge right at the end of the runway.  After narrowly missing the bridge with only throttle control, my pilot landed the wounded B-25C nicely.    

[beau32]

Winnah!

Raptor, turning engines off won't conserve oil, it leaks at the same pace on or off.

I thought that when you received a oil hit that if you shut off the engine the oil consumption would cease. I have done it in P-38's like that to where I shut down the hit engine, fly for a long time, and turn it on again to land. I did it yesterday in a 109 as well.

[Krupinski]

I thought that when you received a oil hit that if you shut off the engine the oil consumption would cease. I have done it in P-38's like that to where I shut down the hit engine, fly for a long time, and turn it on again to land. I did it yesterday in a 109 as well.

Nope, a hole in your oil tank doesn't magically seal up because you turned your engine off. (How I wish though)

[68ZooM]

I am haunted by my actions in "The War", specifically the events that took place over "Macho Grande", where I lost My entire squadron. to this day the events are still unknown 

[BaldEagl]

Here's three of my favorites.  Previously posted.  OK, I'm lazy.

Last night I was playing on the Baltic map and decided to take a 262 out for a spin.     There had been a pretty good fight going between the Bish and the Nits in the NW corner of the map so I headed toward the Nit base.

I like to fly the 262 at around 10K to start so I'm between the high guys and the low guys and the bases in that corner of Baltic are around 4K so I was flying at 14K when I got to the Nit base.

So I'm cuising along near 500 mph at 14K looking around, dipping a wing to see what's below me when I spot a 110 just off the runway and almost directly below me.  I chop throttle and dive in.     I get close, fire a shot and try to pull out.  Uh Oh.     Quick to the trim tabs I trim elevator all the way up.  The nose starts to respond as I brace for the inevitable.  I hear a noise.     I'm climbing again!    I check the damage and my left engine is gone.    I must have whacked the ground with it!  I can't even blame it on a tree because I was headed to an open area.

I think the other engine was also damaged as I couldn't hold more than 325 mph in level flight after that and when I did land I couldn't shut it off.  At least I got it home.   

Man I wish I filmed my sorties.  I'd like to see that one close up. 

I was flying a Goon the other night NOE when my left prop clipped a tree which stopped the engine.

So I'm flying along on one engine and struggling to go up a very gradual incline.  I'm in external view and keep lifting the nose higher and higher trying to make this grade.  Then, I notice that my tail wheel is on the ground putting out a nice little dust trail as the nose is pointed skyward and the main gear are up.  It was like this for what seemed like a long time.

Needless to say I didn't make it and got a ditch.

It's those little things that really make this game cool sometimes.

I occasionally dabble with the P-38's.  The first one that I was actually able to go out and get kills in and land with them was the G.  I came to like the G a lot.

Then one night, on a rare occasion, I joined a mission flying a J.  Turned out the J was a pretty sweet machine and a couple of camps ago I flew it a bit more.  I had a pretty good time in it.  It seemed to be able to handle itself against anything I ran into.  Funny little side story... in that mission, there were two of us left trying to RTB both low on fuel.  Two 109's attacked just as my wingman ran out of gas and ditched.  I killed one of the 109's then ran out of fuel.  I killed the second as a glider, then ditched myself... that was my aha moment in the 38J.

[Debrody]

Nope, a hole in your oil tank doesn't magically seal up because you turned your engine off. (How I wish though)

Beau is right. It works with wounded 262s too.

Maybe the Prawns remember to that crazy turnfight, 2 p38s and a lala vs me, back in May. Took about 10 mins, none of them were trying to extend and pick plus i was lucky as hell. Definiately goes into my top 3.
Big <S>