Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: vadr on October 14, 2000, 02:20:00 PM
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Graber of JG77 was kind enough to forward me some of --ik--'s articles on flying the 109 series in Warbirds. I've posted these on the JG2 website.
They are an excellent resource for anyone who wants to learn to fly the 109 series effectively in hi-fidelity combat flightsims.
http://www.jg2.org/ (http://www.jg2.org/)
The link is on the home page.
Please excuse the mess on the site, it's sort of in the middle of rewrite. (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/wink.gif)
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Vadr
Kommandeur, III/JG 2 'Richthofen' (http://www.jg2.org/)
CM, S3 Team (http://personal.smartt.com/~barbell/S3main.html)/Parser (http://www.cgidesign.net/s3/)
vadr@jg2.org
Combat Flightsim Business Forum (http://www.egroups.com/group/flightsimsonline)
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Anyone have Pongo's email addy?
-PotStirrer (@work)
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I have been visiting --ik--'s page for a long time. I love teh recount from that P-51 pilot of his encounter with Hartman! Ya gotta read that.
ammo
Thx vadr
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Whatever happened to --ik-- anyway? He dissapeared almost a year ago, and I haven't heard what happened to him.
I had heard he discovered women. (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/wink.gif)
Anybody know?
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The best advice a 109 pilot can get.
Too bad he did not fly in AH. I always wanted to meet the guy.
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-ammo-, are you talking about this encounter? I like it very much (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/wink.gif)
Lawrence Thompson: " .... this was my first major dogfight I had in the war, in January 1945. I was flying a P-51D and we were supposed to meet with bombers over Romania. Well, the bombers never showed up! and we kept circling and wasting our fuel. When we were low on fuel the squadron leader or-ders us back to base, with the top group at 24,000 feet and the four bait Mustangs ordered to 15,000 feet.
Now you might not really think about it, but the difference in altitude, 9,000 feet, is almost two miles, and assuming that the top flight could dive and rescue the 'bait' airplanes, it might take a full sixty seconds or more for the top group to come to the rescue. A heck of alot can happen in sixty seconds. Earlier, I requested to fly in the bait section believing that I'd have a better chance to get some scores (at that time I had no victories either) and this was my seventh mission. I have to say now that I grew up in Kansas City, Kansas, and my older brother flew a Jenny biplane in the late 1930s, so I learned the basics of flying even before joining the Army.
So we're all heading back to Italy when, all of a sudden, a dozen or so Me109's bounce us. From one mo-ment it's a clear blue sky, next moment there are dozens' of tracers passing my cockpit. I'm hit several times and I roll over to the right, and below me is an P-51, heading for the deck, with an Me109 chasing him. I begin to chase the Me109. All this time I believe there was another Me109 chasing me! It was a racetrack, all four of us were racing for the finish line! Eventually I caught up with the first Me109 and I fired a long burst at about 1,000 yards, to no effect. Then I waited until about 600 yards, I fired two very long bursts, prob-ably five seconds each (P-51 has ammo for about 18 sec-onds of continuous bursts for four machine guns, the remain-ing two machine guns will shoot for about 24 sec-onds). I no-ticed that part of his engine cowling flew off and he immedi-ately broke off his attack on the lead P-51. I check my rear view mirrors and there's nothing be-hind me now; somehow, I have managed to lose the Me109 following me, proba-bly be-cause the diving speed of the P-51 is sixty mph faster than the Me109.
So I pull up on the yoke and level out; suddenly a Me109 loomes about as large as a barn door right in front of me! And he fires his guns at me, and he rolls to the right, in a Lufberry circle. I peel off, following this Me109.
I can see silver P-51s and black nosed camouflaged painted Me109s every-where I look, there's Me109 or P-51 ev-erywhere! At this time I cannot get on the transmitter and talk, everyone else in the squadron is yelling and talking, and there's nothing but yelling, screaming, and incoherent interference as everyone presses their mike buttons at the same time. I can smell something in the cockpit. Hydraulic fluid! I knew I got hit earlier.
.... I'm still following this Me109. I just got my first con-firmed kill of my tour, and now I'm really hot. I believe that I am the hottest pilot in the USAAF! And now I'm thinking to myself: 'am I going to shoot this Me109 down too?! He rolls and we turn, and turn; somehow, I cannot catch up with him in the Lufberry circle, we just keep circling. About the third 360 degree turn he and I must have spotted two Mustangs flying below us, about 2,000 feet below, and he dives for the two P-51s. Now I'm about 150 yards from him, and I get my gunsight on his tail, but I cannot shoot, because if I shoot wide, or my bullets pass through him, I might shoot down one or both P-51s, so I get a front seat, watching, fearful that this guy will shoot down a P-51 we're approaching at about 390 mph. There's so much interference on the R/T I cannot warn the two Mustangs, I fire one very long burst of about seven or eight seconds purposely wide, so it misses the Mustangs, and the Me109 pilot can see the tracers. None of the Mustang pilots sees's the tracers either! I was half hoping expecting that they'd see my tracers and turn out of the way of the diving Me109. But no such luck. I quit firing.
The Me109 still dives, and as he approaches the two P-51s he holds his fire, and as the gap closes, two hundred yards, one hundred yards, fifty yards the Hun does not fire a shot. No tracers, nothing! At less than ten yards, it looks like he's go-ing to ram the lead P-51 and the Hun fires one single shot from his 20mm cannon! And Bang! Engine parts, white smoke, glycol, whatnot from the lead P-51 is everywhere, and that unfortunate Mustang begins a gentle roll to the right. I try to watch the Mustang down, but cannot, Now my full at-tention is on the Hun! Zoom. We fly through the two Mustangs (he was taken POW). Now the advantage of the P-51 is really apparent, as in a dive I am catching up to the Me109 faster than a runaway freight train. I press the trigger for only a second then I let up on the trigger, I believe at that time I was about 250 yards distant, but the Hun was really pulling lots' of negative and positive g's and pulling up to the horizon, he levels out and then does a vertical tail stand! and next thing I know, he's using his built up velocity from the dive to make a vertical ninety degree climb. This guy is really an experienced pilot.
I'm in a vertical climb, and my P-51 begins to roll clockwise vio-lently, only by pushing my left rudder almost through the floor can I stop my P-51 from turning. We climb for altitude; in the straight climb that Me109 begins to out distance me, though my built up diving speed makes us about equal in the climb. We climb one thou-sand fifteen hundred feet, and at eighteen hundred feet, the hun levels his aircraft out. A vertical climb of 1,800 feet! I've never heard of a piston aircraft climbing more than 1,000 feet in a tail stand. At this time we're both down to stall speed, and he levels out.
My airspeed indicator reads less than 90 mph! So we level out. I'm really close now to the Me109, less than twenty five yards! Now if I can get my guns on him......... At this range, the gunsight is more of nuisance than a help. Next thing, he dumps his flaps fast and I begin to overshoot him! That's not what I want to do, because then he can bear his guns on me. The P-51 has good ar-mor, but not good enough to stop 20mm cannon hits.
This Luftwaffe pilot must be one heck of a marksman, I just witnessed him shooting down a P-51 with a single 20mm cannon shot! So I do the same thing, I dump my flaps, and as I start to overshoot him, I pull my nose up, this really slows me down; S-T-A-L-L warning comes on! and I can't see anything ahead of me nor in the rear view mirror. Now I'm sweating everywhere. My eyes are burning because salty sweat keeps blinding me: 'Where is He!?!' I shout to myself. I level out to prevent from stalling. And there he is. Flying on my right side. We are flying side to side, less than twenty feet separates our wingtips. He's smil-ing and laughing at himself. I notice that he has a black heart painted on his aircraft, just below the cockpit. The propeller nose and spinner are also painted black. It's my guess that he's a very experienced ace from the Russian front.
His tail has a number painted on it: "200". I wonder: what the "two hundred" means!? Now I began to examine his airplane for any bullet hits, afterall, I estimate that I just fired 1,600 rounds at the hun. I cannot see a single bullet hole in his aircraft! I could swear that I must have gotten at least a dozen hits! I keep inspecting his aircraft for any damage. One time, he even lifts his left wing about 15 degrees, to let me see the undercar-riage, still no hits! That's impossible I tell myself. Totally im-possible. Then I turn my attention back to the "200" which is painted on the tail rudder.
German aces normally paint a marker for each victory on their tail. It dawns on me that quick: TWO HUNDRED KILLS !! We fly side by side for five minutes. Those five minutes take centuries to pass. Less than twenty five feet away from me is a Luftwaffe ace, with over two hundred kills. We had been in a slow gradual dive now, and my altitude indicates 8,000 feet. I'm panicking now, even my socks are soaked in sweat.
The German pilot points at his tail, obviously meaning the "200" victories, and then very slowly and dramatically makes a knife-cutting mo-tion across his throat, and points at me.
He's telling me in sign language that I'm going to be his 201 kill! Panic! I'm breathing so hard, it sounds like a wind tunnel with my mask on. My heart rate must have doubled to 170 beats per minute; I can feel my chest, thump-thump and so. This goes on for centuries, and centuries. The two of us flying at stall speed, wingtip to wingtip. I think more than once of simply ramming him. He keeps watching my ailerons, maybe that's what he expects me to do. We had heard of desperate pilots who, after running out of ammunition, would commit suicide by ramming an enemy plane.
Then I decide that I can Immelmann out of the situation, as I began to climb, but because my flaps are down, my Mustang only climbs about one hundred feet, pitches over violently to the right and stalls. The next instant I'm dangerously spinning, heading ninety degrees ver-tically down! And the IAS reads 300 mph! My P-51 just falls like a rock to the earth! I hold the yoke in the lower left corner and sit on the left rudder, flaps up, and apply FULL POWER! I pull out of the dive at about 500 feet, level out, (I be-gan to black out so with my left hand I pinched my veins in my neck to stop from los-ing blood).
I scan the sky for anything! There's not a plane in the sky, I dive to about fifty feet elevation, heading to-wards Italy. I fly at maximum power for about ten minutes, and then reduce my rpm (to save gasoline), otherwise the P-51 has very lim-ited range at full power. I fly like this for maybe an hour, no planes in the vicinity; all the time I scan the sky, check my rear view mirrors. I never saw the Me109 with the black heart again.
I mention the Me109 with the black heart and "200" writ-ten on the tail. That's when the whole room, I mean everybody, gets instantly quiet. Like you could hear a pin drop.
Two weeks later the base commander shows me a telex: "....according to intelligence, the German pilot with a black heart is Eric Hartmann who has downed 250 aircraft and there is a reward of fifty thousand dollars offered by Stalin for shooting down him. I never heard of a cash re-ward for shooting down an enemy ace ... " .
Eric Hartmann, called "the Blond Knight of Germany", survived the war with 352 victories.
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haha yea right, that story is fiction.
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Who cares Nath, that was a great story! I could read 500 pages of stuff like that in a single sitting (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif)
Gatt, was that out of a book, if so title and author please.
(http://www.twc-tampa.com/mdisalle/109g6ho.jpg)
Eagler
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yup Gatt, that is the one (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif) Absoluttely great story. --ik-- had it up on his website however the link is no longer any good. --ik--'s data though is now on JG2's page.
Thanx for posting it Gatt!
ammo
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I know -ammo-, probably ik got it when I first posted the story on AGW some years ago.
Eagler, sorry, I got it from a text file posted some years ago on the web. I dont know where it comes from.
Anyway, fiction or not ... great story (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/smile.gif) ... even in 1944 there were run-stangs (sorry couldnt resist (http://bbs.hitechcreations.com/smf/Smileys/default/biggrin.gif))
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I didn't like the story, that P51 pilot was a gimp. ;/