"I saw a little dot in my mirror at twelve o'clock," Beurling replied calmly. "I knew that if I said anything on the R/T the chances of our whole section turning around quickly enough weren't very good. That spot would have disappeared. So I peeled off, climbed and got behind him. I was to his left and behind, and I could see my shots going into the rear of his cockpit. The FW went down in flames.
Notwithstanding such tales of Beurling's "super vision", his account of shooting down an enemy aircraft without anyone else realizing it seemed farfetched. More importantly, without an eyewitness the only possible evidence that could be used to support his claim would be if the movie camera in his Spitfire, which operated when the machine guns were fired, had recorded the event.
"By golly", said Monty afterwards, "the film clearly showed the aircraft being shot down. He had spotted this dot, peeled off, got behind it and got back into position without anybody knowing what had happened.""
http://www.accessweb.com/users/mconstab/beurling.htm-------------------
"Looking to the direction of the noise I saw a huge, ragged hole in the right wing trailing fire, and in my rear view mirror I saw three Russian fighter aircraft directly on my tail with all guns blazing! I later identified them as YAK-16s. Dropping my fuel tanks and adding full power, I started a steep, climbing right turn. It was too late. I continued to take more hits and I knew the F-5 was doomed when flames came into the cockpit."
http://p38assn.org/stories_01-02.htm-----------------------
"MacDonald had already turned back but the Mitsubishi flew for the kill. Lindbergh rammed rpm forward and throttle; to the firewall; the Lightning surging forward but the enemy craft still grew larger in his mirror, now within gun range. Realizing the futility of trying to outrun the Zero and too low to dive, the civilian continued turning, denying a no deflection shot at his pursuer while he hunched low in the seat and its armor plating. Lindbergh remembered his family with startling clarity as the Zero; nose and wings sparkled with gunfire."
http://www.charleslindbergh.com/wwii/-----------------------
"The Hurricane's visibility was pretty good, except above and below to the rear. The mirror was useful, but not as effective as it might have been. I replaced mine with a curved rear-view mirror, and felt that it gave me a touch extra speed besides giving a better view."
http://www.battleofbritain.net/section-5/page-64.html------------------------
"-How good was visibility toward the rear in the P-51B?
-I had a mirror outside the cockpit.
-Were those mirrors very effective?
-[shakes his head] The mirror had no adjustment. I tell you that you could not see anything. They should have just taken the mirror off! [laughs] In the P-51D the mirror had no use at all, but it was a million times better than in the B plane.
-So it was still bad in the P-51D?
-Yes.
-Why was the mirror bad?
-Because it was useless in the air!
-In the P-51D, with the bubble canopy, could you just turn your head and look back? Or did the head rest obscure a lot of the view?
-In the P-51D you could look back, yeah.
-It was good?
-Yeah, yeah.
-So the fact that you had a backrest there did not obstruct the view a lot?
-Yeah.
-But in the P-51B, if you turned back, could you see anything?
-In the B plane you could see nothing. Nothing.
-Could you see better in the P-51C than on the B?
-Much, much better.
-So the Spitfire kind of canopy helped a lot?
-Yes. You could turn your head and look back."
http://home.insightbb.com/~j.dapena/cohen/interview.html-----------------------------------
"Very early production Corsairs were equipped with the Brownscope wide-angle rear-view periscope system, which was shortly replaced by a mirror in a small "bubble" in the sliding canopy. "
http://usfighter.tripod.com/f4u.htmJets w/ mirrors:
http://storm.webvis.net/scrap016.jpghttp://storm.webvis.net/scrap018.jpg-------------------
From:
http://www.il2sturmovik.com/forgotten_battles/fb_development.phpHurricane w/ mirrorLa7 with Mirror---------------------
