Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aces High General Discussion => Topic started by: infowars on September 08, 2008, 12:50:38 PM
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Anyway here goes.
We have a small airport by our house in Southern California which also has a aircraft museum. Monthly they have a special event. This Saturday they had a spitfire on display, and five speakers who either flew or were involved in it somehow or another.
One of the speakers was a P51 fighter Ace names Bob Goebel. After the seminar people were going up and talking to him, so I mingled around until the line died down. The closer I got I noticed that he had his book and was signing them. I had my son with me so I had to take this opportunity. NOTE I don't admire movie, sports stars etc, I could care less and would never go out of my way for an autograph. But this guy was different.
Anyway. I didn't have enough cash on me and there was not an ATM there. I talked to the lady in the gift shop and she told me about an ATM a mile away or so. My son and I rushed over the ATM and rushed back. When we got back to the hanger he was still there with one last guy in front of him. SO we got into line. While listening to their conversation I heard Bob Goebel say "well ya sold me out" . I'm sure he could see the look in ours eyes as I confirmed he was sold out. He was sorry and offered me his card and said he'd send one to me...
I guess he could tell that we were still pretty disappointed and he said "wait, I tell ya what, I have one more book left but I messed up on filling out the person's name, do you want it for free?" I said sure, please... So he crossed out the first attempt to address it to someone and filled it out to my son. Which I think makes it even more personal.
We were so elated, I could not control my smile and I think that's why my jaw is sore today.
I had so many questions to ask him but knew he was busy so I asked one. I asked-- at co-alt equal e-states against a 109 would you rather be in a p51 or spitfire. He said 51 hands down. The reason he gave me is because the spits maneuverability is defensive and how long could a fight go on before someone bites it. He said in a 51 you could leave if it got too hot... Food for thought I guess...
So anyway that's my story.
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Great story. Should have gave him the AH2 Website! :aok
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I'm in the Warbirds 31st Fighter Group. One of our players, handle Goebel, is Bob Goebel's grandson. He has always been generous and helpful when asked for input. I hope to meet him in person some day.
PS His book is a good read as well.
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I love reading about real life fighter pilots and those that are lucky enough to know or meet one. I had a chance to meet Franz Stiegler a few years ago, he was the German pilot that escorted a crippled B-17 rather than shoot it down. Not too many years ago Mr. Stiegler who had moved to Vancouver BC, and Mr. Charles Brown the pilot of the B-17 met in person. For years since the war they only lived 100+ miles apart, Stiegler in Vancouver BC and Brown in the State of Washington I think, not sure. There was a TV show that had them on together a few years ago. Here's a link to the story, there are many more on the internet about it... http://www.acap-peru.org/newsletter/2007-07/war-stories.html
I had a chance to meet him but missed the opportunity. A friend who was a member of the Abbotsford BC flying club said he was also a member and I could tag along with him sometime and meet Mr. Stiegler. Somehow I lost touch with that friend :(
He mentioned that Franz Stiegler was an incredible pilot even at his age, but couldn't drive a car worth crap, he was always running into something he said :lol
I'm sure he's passed away by now, it's a shame, great story. :salute
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Just gives more ammo for the Runstang argument. lol
Great story though!
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Just gives more ammo for the Runstang argument. lol
Great story though!
Sounds like someone is suffering from horse power envy
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-I hate to be the one who has to point this out in every P-51 thread, but the ghosts of engineers at North American will haunt me if I don't...
Fact of the matter is, P-51 combat and test pilots considered their rides to be close to a 109 in maneuverability and quite superior to a Jug in that area. I also posted a quote I read from a Luftwaffe pilot awhile back to the effect that the P-47 was not so bad, they could easily out-climb and out-turn it, but the P-51 was a different animal. Will look it back up if necessary. So apparently even the enemy pilots easily recognized the superiority of the Mustang over its predecessor in the maneuver department.
This stands in distinct contrast to our sim, where if anything the P-47s can turn somewhat more tightly than the Mustang.
-All I have to say. Cue the arguments about how the flight modeling is infallible and what combat and test pilots said is trumped by simulated physics on our desk-top PCs.... :devil
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-I hate to be the one who has to point this out in every P-51 thread, but the ghosts of engineers at North American will haunt me if I don't...
Fact of the matter is, P-51 combat and test pilots considered their rides to be close to a 109 in maneuverability and quite superior to a Jug in that area. I also posted a quote I read from a Luftwaffe pilot awhile back to the effect that the P-47 was not so bad, they could easily out-climb and out-turn it, but the P-51 was a different animal. Will look it back up if necessary. So apparently even the enemy pilots easily recognized the superiority of the Mustang over its predecessor in the maneuver department.
This stands in distinct contrast to our sim, where if anything the P-47s can turn somewhat more tightly than the Mustang.
-All I have to say. Cue the arguments about how the flight modeling is infallible and what combat and test pilots said is trumped by simulated physics on our desk-top PCs.... :devil
:aok
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-I hate to be the one who has to point this out in every P-51 thread, but the ghosts of engineers at North American will haunt me if I don't...
Fact of the matter is, P-51 combat and test pilots considered their rides to be close to a 109 in maneuverability and quite superior to a Jug in that area. I also posted a quote I read from a Luftwaffe pilot awhile back to the effect that the P-47 was not so bad, they could easily out-climb and out-turn it, but the P-51 was a different animal. Will look it back up if necessary. So apparently even the enemy pilots easily recognized the superiority of the Mustang over its predecessor in the maneuver department.
This stands in distinct contrast to our sim, where if anything the P-47s can turn somewhat more tightly than the Mustang.
-All I have to say. Cue the arguments about how the flight modeling is infallible and what combat and test pilots said is trumped by simulated physics on our desk-top PCs.... :devil
I HAD talked to a couple old german pilots a few years ago. they flew 190's. they both stated that the 190 was superior to the pony, butg that if they shot down 20 today, tomorrow 100 would come back. they said they couldn't shoot em down fast enough. same for bombers.
i don't really know how true it was though.
as for flight modeling.....i don't really care how the aircraft fly in game compared to real life. htc does the best they can. i try to learn how to fight the way the planes will fight in here.
if i know i can use my zeke, and follow that corsair up as he's trying to rope me(and i have), then i don't really care if it could do that in real life.
but that's just me. to each his own
i should also add that i do admire the hell out of the guys that did this in real life. <<S>>
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What's his name (Mark Hanna?) has flown the P-51D and the 109G and says the latter is more maneuverable. P-51D pilots in WW2 ETO were well trained and up against n00b opposition for the most part.
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What's his name (Mark Hanna?) has flown the P-51D and the 109G and says the latter is more maneuverable. P-51D pilots in WW2 ETO were well trained and up against n00b opposition for the most part.
well, i may be wrong here, but........
P-51 P=pursuit. as in persue and intercept bombers. escort bombers if needed, and persue attackers(not necessairly engaging them) to keep them off the friendly bombers.
i thought i hd read somewhere that the pony was not originally intended as a dogfighter? actually, i thought i had read that about the pony, thunderbolt, lightning.....all of the "P" planes basicly. the "F" planes, such as the f4f, f6f, f4u, etc were intended as dogfighters.
am i right?
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I've been researching/reading about WWII flyboys and I've come to the conclusion that the Germans were better pilots. Mostly because they were required to fly quite a few more mission than their American counter parts. There is no replacement for experiance. For example Bob Goebel got his walking papers when he was 21 years old. German pilots fought long after that age.
We had manufacturing on our side and could pump out dozens of planes a day, where as we were demolishing theirs.
Anyhow I admire anyone who could actually shoot someone out of the air in real life. :rock
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i thought i hd read somewhere that the pony was not originally intended as a dogfighter?
The P51 evolved from the A-36 Apache which was, IIRC, a dive bomber.
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I've been researching/reading about WWII flyboys and I've come to the conclusion that the Germans were better pilots. Mostly because they were required to fly quite a few more mission than their American counter parts. There is no replacement for experiance. For example Bob Goebel got his walking papers when he was 21 years old. German pilots fought long after that age.
We had manufacturing on our side and could pump out dozens of planes a day, where as we were demolishing theirs.
Anyhow I admire anyone who could actually shoot someone out of the air in real life. :rock
i believe i read(again) that luftwaffe pilots trained in gliders(before the war) before they were allowed to touch a powered aircraft. this would have gone a loooong way to teach them energy management.
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I've been researching/reading about WWII flyboys and I've come to the conclusion that the Germans were better pilots. Mostly because they were required to fly quite a few more mission than their American counter parts.
That was a double-edged sword.
It was great, as Germany had many 100+ victory, highly experienced and skilled combat pilots that had served since the Spanish Civil War, throughout the war.... but combat pilots die.... period. And since they were never cycled back to train new pilots, like old pilots were in the US and UK, new pilots arriving at the front by 1943, 1944, and especially 1945 were extremely under experienced, with Germany's 'Alte Haeren' running thin... by 1945 you had entire Geschwaders of new, under trained recruits (though with the USAAF bombing campaign you'd think the Luftwaffe would be short on planes, but in actuality many planes were not used period due to the lack of pilots and fuel), supplemented by a handful of pilots who had been around since the Battle of Britain, facing hordes of well trained pilots whose training was supplemented by pilots who had 'been there'.
i believe i read(again) that luftwaffe pilots trained in gliders(before the war) before they were allowed to touch a powered aircraft. this would have gone a loooong way to teach them energy management.
This was a hobby of many of the more successful pilots, I've never read that it was part of any kind of training though.
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I've been researching/reading about WWII flyboys and I've come to the conclusion that the Germans were better pilots. Mostly because they were required to fly quite a few more mission than their American counter parts. There is no replacement for experiance.
Quite a few more missions means: until you are dead. :uhoh
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What's his name (Mark Hanna?) has flown the P-51D and the 109G and says the latter is more maneuverable. P-51D pilots in WW2 ETO were well trained and up against n00b opposition for the most part.
Without knowing the speeds, altitudes, configurations, weights, maneuvers, power settings, etc, of such mock dogfighting, it is difficult to say how useful such information is. One would think for safety's sake with old and rare warbirds, they wouldn't be running wide-open or doing high-G maneuvers at speeds beyond Vma.
Which is not to say I think the P-51D can make a smaller mininum turning radius than the 109 G6, physics tell me it probably can't, unless there is some factor we are overlooking. A moderate differance here doesn't nessecarily decide dogfights though. I wasn't comparing the P-51 to 109s anyway, I was comparing them to Jugs, a plane with higher wing-loading and worse power-loading than the Mustang, that was acknowledged to be turn less tightly than the Pony. A Pony that turns somewhat better than the Jugs do in AHII right now, would be very, very deadly IMHO.
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i thought i hd read somewhere that the pony was not originally intended as a dogfighter? actually, i thought i had read that about the pony, thunderbolt, lightning.....all of the "P" planes basicly. the "F" planes, such as the f4f, f6f, f4u, etc were intended as dogfighters.
am i right?
Uh, no I don't think so. Remember, the Navy planes were bnz/e-fighters vrs. their Japanese opposition themselves. If anything, a P-51 had a much better chance in a Luftberry with a 109 than a Corsair had with a Zero. Remember that most war planes in history have NOT been designed with turn radius in mind, or at least it was a lower priority than other things. Because the higher-ups have repeatedly pronounced dogfighting obselete...*shrug*.
The reason USN planes tend to have a turning advantage over USAAF planes is that they had to land on a carrier, and this makes a lower stall speed nessecary, even at the cost of top speed, climb, range, etc. And because we all like to engage in t'n'b 1v1s in flight sims, indeed, this is the most intuitive strategy for a simmer, it can give the illusion that USN planes are much superior to their USAAF or Luftwaffe counterparts.
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If I remember the quote correctly by Robt. Johnson on the P51 and it's Pilots.
Of course the 51 did well! The Jug Pilots shot down the Good LW Pilots before they got here!
In 1944 germany was putting out its' highest numbers of the war in fighter Aircraft. Unfortunately their Pilots
were chiefly inexperienced and trained poorly. They had more fighters then qualified Pilots to fly them.
So there is truth to Mister Johnsons statement. Only he forgot the P38 Pilots and the RAF Pilots.
P51s' were late comers to the war. P51 is still considered widely as the best fighter of all time.
P47 is considered widely as the best fighter bomber of all time. Methinks on both accounts it was their Pilots
that gave them both a great reputation as well as the Manufacturers of both aircraft.