"There I was..."
returning to base low on fuel from a succesful 3 kill mission of harassing the knights even though bishop dar was down. I spy a distant dot continuing to trail me after the other dots broke off. Unable to turn around to engage without running out of fuel I throttled way back and cruised at about 140mph indicated. still gas is going away like water through a screen door on a submarine so i just shut the engines off n wait all the while gliding nearer to my base as the con closes.
Up ahead a nice comforting bank of cumulus clouds looms large over bishop field10. "hmm I wonder if..." i say to myself.
the con is in Icon range now, an F4U1c, gaining altitude above and closing fast.
I start up the engines and start accelerating in a shallow dive toward the cloud banks and start maneuvering hard as the corsair came within cannon range.
working hard to force an overshoot pays off and we are now scissoring directly into the clouds.
from this point i gain the advantage then everything goes grey. I'm in the clouds, then out the f4u is just behind the cloud in front of me. all the while im trying to guess where the corsair is and trying to maintain a visual each time i pop in and out of the clouds. it was a ton of fun to fight this way as I'd never actually had a chance to use the clouds tacticaly. we finally descended though the clouds and continued down to the deck where my now ultra light and running on fumes p-38 kept me saddled on the f4u1c's 6 and with my remaining 170 rounds of 50 cal I got a good burst in and removed his horizontal stabilizer.
then I frantically turned toward my airfield, cleared the hill the engines died out and I glided in for a perfect landing
what a sortie
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"There are no born fighter pilots. Some are a little better than others, thats about it. But I would say time, training, training, training and more training are the key... to any success." -Francis Gabreski
Citabria
=357th Pony Express=
[This message has been edited by Citabria (edited 04-22-2000).]
