Innholdsfortegnelse for September/October 2024 i Flight Journal

Our story by retired RAF pilot Clive Rowley about Russian fighter pilot Anna Yegorova and the Ilyushin IL-2 Sturmovik she flew is as brutal as the aircraft itself and the Eastern Front conditions she fought in. Most of us are familiar with the U.S. American Women’s Army Service Pilots (WASPS), who flew training and ferry missions during the Second World War, but the Russians had three little known combat squadrons with female pilots, and Anna flew with the only operational one. There is nothing aesthetically pleasing about the Sturmovik, with its ungainly hunchback appearance and crude finish, with seemingly illfitting fuselage skin panels and exposed rivets. But like so many machines produced by the Soviet war machine, utility, strength, and huge production quantities were the most important requirements. The sheer…

“The Il-2 was a good plane, very tough. I was hit by five 37mm shells one day, the pitch controls were damaged, the left longeron was broken and the right aileron was torn to pieces, the right cannon was torn away, the rear upper armor was torn away, not to mention many small holes in the fuselage and wings, but I still made it home. On another sortie to find and attack a German flak train, they shot at us and “Wham!” I got a hole in the wing. My plane started to roll to the right. I informed the commander about the damage and he ordered me to return to base. When I landed, I got out of the cockpit, onto the wing, and descended to the ground through…

THE 1930S WERE A GOLDEN ERA, pushing the boundaries of sophisticated design in the quest for speed and air race glory. The de Havilland Aircraft Company excelled with the DH 88 Comet G-ACSS “Grosvenor House,” which won the prestigious 1934 London to Melbourne (Australia) MacRobertson Air Race. The King’s Cup Air Race, inaugurated in 1922 for a trophy initially presented by King George V, became the most important and widely publicized British air race. The quest for intercontinental records also continued unabated until the outbreak of World War II in Europe. The Mew Gull: A Winning Design Prime among European racing and recordbreaking aircraft of the era was a singleseat, low-wing monoplane: the Percival Mew Gull. Only six were built by Edgar Percival’s company at Gravesend, Kent, between 1934 and ’37:…

FIRST LIEUTENANT PAUL L. JACKSON of the 445th Bomb Squadron, 321st Bomb Group, would long remember his thirty-seventh B-25 mission, March 24, 1945. “As we flew away from the target, the guys in back called on the intercom to ask if we had taken a hit up front, since things were ‘very windy back here.’ We checked everywhere, but there was no damage. Our radioman then crawled into the space over the bomb bay and opened the inspection hatch to discover that one of our thousand pounders had hung up by its tail shackle. It was hanging out the bomb bay, preventing the doors from closing. Not only that, but the arming propeller on the nose was spinning. I looked over at my co-pilot—our first reaction was to consider bailing…

“I COULDN’T TEAR MY EYES AWAY from the airplane. It was a beauty. It had a streamlined, elongated fuselage with a glassed-in cockpit that looked out across a great distance of pointed engine cowling. Four menacing rapid-fire cannons and machine guns bristled from the wings’ leading edges, and eight launch rails for anti-tank missiles hung beneath the wings. The aircraft’s central wing section held four bomb bays, and six more 100-kilogram bombs could be fastened under the fuselage … What a mighty bird had been entrusted to me!” —Anna Yegorova Ilyushin IL-2 Sturmovik The Ilyushin IL-2 Sturmovik (“Sturmovik” is a generic Russian term for a ground-attack aircraft) was a rugged, armored, hard-hitting, close air support, ground-attack and tankbusting aircraft. It could be thought of as an antecedent of the Fairchild…

Clarence E. “Bud” Anderson, Jr., America’s last living triple ace, departed the pattern on May 17. He was a rara avis, as only six other World War II aces remain. Anderson grew up a Depression-era farm kid who was crazy about airplanes. In that regard he was no different from millions of others enthralled with the glamour of aviation’s golden era. Unlike the huge majority, he followed his dream to stratospheric heights. Born in Oakland on Friday, the 13th of January 1922, “Buddy” inherited some invaluable traits growing up on a farm near Newcastle, California. From his parents he received excellent genes and a powerful work ethic. From his environment he developed an early sense of self-reliance and a youthful confidence that was common then, rarer now. Without knowing it…

The 18 scout bombers approached Oahu that Sunday morning, flying in pairs to cover the Eastern Hemisphere from their carrier, USS Enterprise. “The Big E” had just delivered Marine Corps fighters to Wake Island, and Vice Adm. W. F. Halsey was taking no chances. He had operated his task force on a war footing since the previous month, even when returningto Hawaiian waters. Cmdr. Howard Young was approaching Pearl Harbor at about 0800 when he saw a fighter initiate a pass at his Douglas SBD-3. The air group commander recognized a good gunnery run, mentally complimenting the brash U.S. Army pilot while resenting the intrusion. Then the Mitsubishi Zero opened fire. It was December 7, 1941, and the United States was suddenly, inexorably at war with Japan. Young heard the…

FORTY-FIVE MILES WEST OF PARIS, France near Dreux, 1st Lt. Kenneth Dahlberg and seven other pilots from the 353rd Fighter Squadron bounced a formation of 20 Me-109s on August 16, 1944. Diving from 14,000 feet, they tore into the German fighters just before 5 pm local. Almost immediately, 60 more 109s joined the fray. Dahlberg, flying a P-51B named “Shillelagh” by its regular pilot, 1st Lt. David O’Hara, was too busy to recognize the odds. “You can only see so many at a time,” he later recalled. The nose of “Shillelagh” was pointed at a 109 trailing a group of four other Messerschmitts. Dahlberg opened fire and the German fighter started smoking and spinning. Bending the Mustang’s nose left, he found a new target in front of him and let…

Ilyushin IL-2 Sturmovik c/n 305401 is part of The Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum collection at Paine Field, Everett, Washington. It was originally owned by Paul Allen and is now owned by Steuart Walton under the umbrella of the Wartime History Museum. This IL-2 is based on a straight-winged Sturmovik originally constructed in Moscow in the winter of 1943. It was shot down in October 1944, crash-landing on a frozen lake and sinking when it thawed. The airframe was recovered in 1991 and restored by Retro Avia Tech Ltd. at Novosibirsk, Russia, as a composite aircraft, with parts from three other IL-2 wrecks discovered in the former Soviet Union. It now appears as an IL-2M3 “Arrow” Sturmovik with the swept leading-edge to the wings. It is powered by a…

THEODOR “TED” ROSARIUS BEGAN FLIGHT TRAINING in 1932 but when the fledgling Luftwaffe was formed on March 1, 1935, he decided to stay with civil aviation. By 1938, he was responsible for testing aircraft instruments with the Askania company before transferring to Hansa Luftbild, which was absorbed into the military under the designation Versuchsstelle für Höhenflug (Experimental Station for High-Altitude Flying) in 1939. In 1942, he was promoted to Hauptmann and in 1943 was asked to form a “circus” to help familiarize combat pilots with captured enemy aircraft. Among the aircraft Rosarius flew was the Supermarine Spitfire, which proved to be a thorn in the side of the Luftwaffe throughout the war. However, like all aircraft, it had its limitations: most importantly, duration and range. During the Battle of Britain it…

In 1971, my father and two friends purchased the A-24B used by Multnomah County, Oregon, as a mosquito-control aircraft. Dad bought out his partners, and we spent almost a year restoring it to SBD-5 configuration—at the time, the only flying Dauntless. With the gunner’s flight controls installed, I could feel out the Douglas. Conventional wisdom said, “It flies like a big AT-6,” which was true. Ed Heinemann’s ailerons were light to the touch—a thumb and two fingers were enough at cruise speed. The SBD was exceptionally stable—what you’d expect in a divebomber—and one of the easiest to land of its generation. For a better perspective on the SBD as a weapon, however, here are some comments from combat aviators. Rear Adm. Maxwell Leslie, who led Bombing Three at Midway, considered…

IN THE LATE 1960S B-25s were headed for certain extinction. Airports across the nation were littered with deteriorating, dead, or nearly dead Mitchell carcasses that no one wanted and few could afford. Most of them could be bought for scrap value. Where fighters and the trainers were of manageable size, both physically and financially, the B-25 was just “too much” for most warbird enthusiasts. In only a few years they would have been smelted into beer cans. Then “Catch 22” came along. Director Mike Nichols' 1970 screen version of Joseph Heller’s quirky WW II anti-war novel, “Catch 22,” saved a minimum of two dozen B-25s, returning them to service and making them available to future generations of restorers. Ron and Diane Fagen’s magnificent restoration is one such Mitchell to take…