Innholdsfortegnelse for WWII Fighters i Flight Journal

BOTH CHANCE VOUGHT AND GRUMMAN were given many Navy E (for “Excellence”) citations for production during WW II. And, indeed, they both did produce a large quantity of excellent Navy fighters. Ten Hellcats were delivered in 1942, just six months after the first flight of the XF6F-3. Grumman delivered 2,547 Hellcats in 1943—enough to fill the needs of all the fast-attack carrier task forces. Grumman set the record for the greatest number of aircraft delivered by one company when it delivered 664 aircraft during March 1944. This beat North American, which had led the pack the month before with its P-51 production record. In total, Grumman delivered 12,275 aircraft by November 1945, when the line was shut down. The XF4U-1 flew on May 29, 1940. Because of its carrier problems,…

Showing off the flowing curves of a jaguar ready to pounce, a Spitfire snugs in close, its pilot a picture of concentration as he carefully places the airplane exactly where he wants. It’s a timeless image of a timeless design. Reginald Mitchell laid down the original lines of the Spitfire at a time when the very word “fighter” meant a stack of fabric wings with flying wires coupled to big, exposed wheels and outfitted with a few machine guns. While so many aircraft are inspired by others of similar function, the Spitfire was the first of a new breed. Although the move to monoplanes was already well under way worldwide, it was Mitchell who brought the soul of an artist to the engineers’ drafting table Whereas Willy Messerschmitt had a…

By the time this limited-production high-performance version of Maj. Michael Jackson’s Teddy was photographed in early spring 1945 at Boxted, the 56th FG had been operating with Thunderbolts for almost three years. Initially constituted in November 1940 as the 56th Pursuit Group, with three Squadrons (61st, 62nd and 63rd) operating a mix of training aircraft and basing, they were posted in scattered locations in defense of New York City in early 1942. With the 63rd actually based at Republic’s Farmingdale factory, it was a natural for the 56th to be tapped to be the premier Thunderbolt unit in May 1942. Training and wringing out operational problems throughout the rest of the year, the 56th and attached service groups transited the “pond” along with 11,000 other servicemen on the RMS Queen…

7 LOCKHEED P-38 LIGHTNING Lockheed’s twin-engine Lightning had the potential to be the number-one fighter. It first flew on January 27, 1939—early enough to have been deployed before Pearl Harbor. It had more horsepower than any previous fighter, and its tricycle landing gear greatly simplified pilot training. Its five centerline guns, unhampered by converging wing-gun aiming problems, made gunnery much less difficult for its pilots. Its turbo-supercharged engines gave it a great altitude advantage over enemy aircraft. It had many combat assets, and it was the first twin-engine fighter ever put into service by the USAAC. It was the first fighter designed for top-priority mass-production by Lockheed when it was already embroiled in design and manufacturing problems with other military aircraft, and it had a very large backlog of unfilled…

3 MITSUBISHI A6M5 ZERO In 1937, Jiro Horikoshi, the designer of the “Claude,” agreed with the Japanese Navy’s requirement that a carrier-based fighter should have a much longer range and greater speed than the fixed-gear Claude. The Navy specified new requirements for a retractable-landing-gear fighter that would be capable of a 310.5mph top speed and of reaching an altitude of 3,000 meters (9,843 feet) in three minutes, 30 seconds; with an external tank, it should have a cruise range of 10 hours at 131mph. Armament was to consist of two Type 99, 20mm cannon—Mark l, Model 3—two Type 97, .30-caliber machine guns and two 132-pound bombs. The production and combat experience gained with the Claude were used to develop the requirements for the new fighter; it was soon to be…

Whenever Navy and Marine Corps aviators who flew and fought in propeller-driven fighters gather, there is always the argument about which was the better airplane: the “bent-wing bastard,” as we lovingly dubbed the Chance Vought F4U-lD Corsair, or the Grumman Hellcat? I am sure that many beers have been consumed and many loud, emotional discussions have taken place on this subject. In the desperate climate of WW II, the Navy decided that the easiest, quickest, and least costly way to tweak the utmost performance out of its fighter planes would be to let rival manufacturers test the latest versions of one another’s products. So, in the summer of 1943, the Navy delivered into Grumman hands the newest Corsair (F4UlD Buno 17781). I was privileged to be the project engineering test…

THE NON-SUPERCHARGED ENGINES used in fighters in the late ’20s had induction air flowing directly from a duct in the nose of the aircraft into the carburetor. When an aircraft gained altitude, the thinner air was insufficient to maintain the sea-level-rated horsepower of these engines, so performance decreased as the altitude increased. The aircraft had a service ceiling of 14,000 to 18,000 feet (depending on the air density), and level-flight high speeds decreased proportionally with altitude. Because the attainment of a high altitude is so important to fighter aircraft, superchargers were added to engine induction systems in the mid- to late ’30s. These were single-stage compressors geared to the engine crankshaft; they rotated at high rpm and provided the engine carburetor with greater than sea-level pressures. This produced a marked…

“We’d fly over the target, level, and the target would go under the wing. We’d be slowing down, and slowing down, pull up, and just do a wing over. Slightly beyond the target, pull over, and then come straight down. We had a gun sight, but [we’d] just line the target up on the seam of the cowling. We’d drop on straight down and pull out, and either hit the deck or pop up again and come back and strafe, depending on the opposition. Sometimes, if there was any gunfire, which I didn’t see much of, I’d stamp the rudder a little bit, left, right. You’d skid. Don’t keep the ball in the center was my tactic. They’d shoot to the right, and I’m going to the left.” Unsung Heroes…

Not all fighter pilots are short, cocky guys wearing a big watch and offended if characterized as “cerebral.” Dr. Guido Hans Mutke was just the opposite, nearly six feet tall, well built, and possessed of a tremendous intellect that propelled him into the forefront of space medicine. He was not an ace, but he flew in hundreds of sorties in many different aircraft during his five combat-filled years in the Luftwaffe. He did everything from night reconnaissance to strafing T-34 tanks crossing the Oder River to an ultimate achievement—going supersonic in the Messerschmitt Me 262—or so he thought. Outlandish claims? Maybe not! Despite not scoring five kills, Mutke twice made indelible marks on the flying world. First, it is “his” Messerschmitt Me 262, Weisse 3, you see at the wonderful…

When the editors of Flight Journal asked me to write about all the great WW II fighters and to choose one as “the best,” I thought, “What an ego trip!” The selections would be easy to dig out of my dusty flight-report files (which document my evaluations of WW II fighter types) and out of books in my aviation collection. I test-flew several versions of these fighters during the Joint Army/Navy Fighter Conference at NAS Patuxent in October 1944 and also fighters that had been passed between Navy and Air Corps contractors for test-pilot evaluations: the F4U-1, F4U-1D, F4U-4 Corsair; P-51B, P-51D, H Mustang; P-38D, M Lightning; P-47B, P-47D, N Thunderbolt; P-40N Warhawk and P-39 Airacobra; P-63 King Cobra; F4F Wildcat; F6F Hellcat; Supermarine Seafire (a carrier version of the…

THE F4U-4 WAS BLESSED with the more powerful Pratt & Whitney R-2800-34W, which gave it a great boost in high-speed performance. This provided the necessary edge over the newer Japanese fighters that were coming into squadrons when the F4U-4 arrived in the Pacific Theater. Grumman also had a version of the Hellcat, the XF6F-6, with the same engine, and from what we learned in our 1943 evaluation, it demonstrated a comparable high-speed performance to the F4U-4 model Corsair’s. The F6F-6 Hellcat caused an interesting internal fracas on “mahogany row” in Grumman headquarters. Our very capable director of production, George Titterton, wanted to put the F6F-6 into production. Bob Hall, director of experimental, who had flown the Focke-Wulf 190 in 1943 and was very impressed with that airplane, wanted to put…

In the fall of 1937, the Technical Department of the German Air Ministry decided to develop a replacement for the Messerschmitt 109. At the end of the year, after discussions with Focke-Wulf’s chief designer Kurt Tank, the Air Ministry awarded a contract to the company. The Ministry specified the need for a fighter whose performance would be significantly better than that of both the 109 and the British Spitfire. Tank realized that he would require the most powerful engine available to him, and this requirement clearly pointed him toward the 18-cylinder, two-row radial BMW 139, which offered 325 more horsepower than its nearest rival, the 12-cylinder, in-line, liquid-cooled DB 601. This decision surprised Luftwaffe officials but was accepted because of the uncertainty of the future supply of the Daimler-Benz engine…

A PERSONAL MEMORY Dr. Rolf Ebhardt, who flew combat in the Bf 110G-4 with 8./NJG 1 during WW II takes us aboard for a night mission. We do not hate the British or the Americans; these boys are doing their duty just as we are. Neither side can change the political situation, so we have to carry on with our job to prevent as many Allied bombers as possible from destroying our cities and killing our people. The first RAF pathfinders are dropping their target indicators. We see cascades of red, green and white flares marking the aiming point. They light up the area and descend slowly on little parachutes. We call them Christbäume (Christmas trees). From now on, it doesn’t take long for the terrible spectacle to begin! Thirty…

From December 7, 1941, through the Battle of Midway (June 4 to 7, 1942), Kaname Harada was a Zero pilot onboard the carrier Soryu. During that time, he scored several aerial victories in the Indian Ocean operations and Midway. His carrier, however, along with the Akagi, Kaga and Hiryu, was sunk during the disastrous Midway operation. The young naval aviator spent several hours in the ocean before being rescued by a destroyer. After this terrible loss for Japan, he was one of the surviving veteran airmen who vowed to get their revenge the next time they fought in combat with U.S. military forces. In July 1942, Harada-san was transferred to the carrier Hiyo. During this period, Japan was focusing all of its resources to reclaim Guadalcanal Island. On October 17,…

A good example of a supposedly “perfect” fighter that’s cited by many historians as being the greatest such WW II aircraft, is the German twin-jet-powered Messerschmitt Me 262. It was more than 100mph faster and had a more powerful fighter-to-fighter armament (four centerline, aimed 30mm cannon) than any other WW II fighter. But it had three serious combat problems that clearly keep it out of the “best” category. From the beginning, the Me 262’s engines were problematic. They were extremely sensitive to throttle movement and could easily blow out their combustion chambers; they were also exceedingly hard to restart in flight. Even if the engines had been perfect, however, the airplane had no propeller drag that would allow speed control by changing power; all WW II fighter pilots used this…