Sometimes getting shot down is just plain fun

[HFMudd]

Lost the tail of my 110 to low Spit on my six that I am sorry to say I never saw.  As my 110 began that slow, tail first, fall that they make a Spit (could have been the same one, my SA was not so good at this point) started diving after my helpless plane.

"Gosh I wonder," I thought.

Sure enough, in his desperation to pump more 303's into a dead plane, he crossed right in front of my nose at only about 50 yards.

I dweebishly filled him 20mm for that move and got the kill.

Then I bailed.  But I grinned all the way down...

[Löwe]

Nothing more dangerous than a guy who's gonna die . WTG:D

[moose]

anyone ever land without the vertical stab?

i did it ONCE in a 109

real trick to master but wicked cool if you do it

[Wilbus]

Once Moose, can't remember what plane though, gotto keep rolling to counter the instability, roll left, ROLL RIGHT, ROLL LEFT!!!

[Tac]

i landed a 262 without vert stab once. had to use the engines to keep it level with horizon.

Was very time consuming and painful, especially since I had to slow down to land. I had 3 full fuel tanks when it happened.. when I landed i had barely 25% left in the last tank. hehehehe.

[Nifty]

I never seem to lose just my vert stab, if it goes, the horizontals go with it, and that's all she wrote.   I've lost the rudder only before, but I can't ever recall losing the whole vert stab and nothing else.  

best I've done is rip both wing tips and ailerons off the Ta-152 (in a TOD, the ONE time I've flown that plane) and managed to get out of the fight AND land it.   Me and Ghosth dove in on some P-47s...   I follow him in thinking he know what he's doing...  hehe, next thing I hear on RW is "awww, damn it!"   and sure enough, he's lawndarting and I am too.  I try to pull out of it, and rip off a lot of both wings and immediately it starts looping on me (kinda like when you lose the horizontal stabs)   I'm seeing tracers all around me from the P-47s that musta been laughing their butts off.  I just let go of the stick thinking "sheesh, this was quick..."  Somehow though, the loop gets them to overshoot and I try to level her out with the elevators.  sure enough, I have authority again with them and get her pointed down and haul some more butt to the deck back to Germany.  hehe, getting it pointed in the right direction was rather interesting.   I'm amazed I got her down.

The B-17 with only 1 or 2  engines, 1 wheel out, 1 side of flaps gone, the other side's aileron gone.  That was amusing too.  I think more things were red in the damage list than were green!  

[Otto]

I always fire everything I can when I'm going down.  I could care less about Gunnery %.