Fw-190 half-wing landing

[jeffdn]

Pretty wild, and a not unfamiliar story!

[Someguy63]

 

Amazing.

Musta been scary considering he was at low altitude.

[puller]

Funny that you posted this...the last 2 times I've flown a 190A8 I have landed with half a wing...

[BuckShot]

 new achievement?

[Zoney]

new achievement?

If so, I have a thousand of them.

[mthrockmor]

The caption is mostly correct. The proper write-up though is "Boo, while flying in the MA collided with a freaking Brewster....yada yada yada." And yes, I am happy to claim the kill.

boo

[Volron]

   I would have told the crew chief to bring a bottle of my favorite and a pack of smokes, then proceeded to get completely wasted in the cockpit.

[DaveBB]

Did the Spit pilot bail out?

[Ack-Ack]

Did the Spit pilot bail out?

Doesn't sound like it from the photo caption.

ack-ack

[GScholz]

ace pilots everywhere...

[DaveBB]

Doesn't sound like it from the photo caption.

ack-ack

Well that's actually what made me think he did.  The plane was rolling as the pilot fought the controls, then it just went into a dive.  I know the caption says "low altitude", but that is subjective for the ETO.  The Spitfire may have stabilized in a dive after the pilot jettisoned the canopy and bailed out.  Here's to hoping anyways....

[Ack-Ack]

Well that's actually what made me think he did.  The plane was rolling as the pilot fought the controls, then it just went into a dive.  I know the caption says "low altitude", but that is subjective for the ETO.  The Spitfire may have stabilized in a dive after the pilot jettisoned the canopy and bailed out.  Here's to hoping anyways....

The part that says the Spitfire rolled twice and then dove into the sea kind of leads me to believe the Spitfire pilot didn't bail out or otherwise survive.

ack-ack

[GScholz]

It also says "very low altitude". I'm guessing that's why Rischbieter stayed with the aircraft instead of bailing, and he was lucky to still have a controllable aircraft. The Spit pilot was not as lucky.

[DaveBB]

My research didn't turn up anything about the Spit pilot, but it did find some interesting stuff about Rischbieter.  After the war he became a DMD (dentist), and even invented a type of (patented) artificial tooth.  He died in 1996.  He must have been a very intelligent guy.  

On one forum, one of his patients says he asked him about the war (this was in the 60s).  He said Reschbieter would not talk about it at all.

[Brooke]

Yet again an area where I have heard people crow on about unrealistic elements in AH (like surviving in a plane with half a wing missing) only to find that it happened historically.

Another pic I like in this regard: