The late-war Baltimore Whore had the lowest combat loss rate once they lengthened her wingspan.

Also, Doolittle proved you could fly with one engine out. That man was incredible.

B-26 Marauder

FPNI.

L-17 air observation post pilot.

Poll Fail !!!

Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star.

They DID deploy a few aircraft to Italy in early 1945, but they did not see any combat.

So, the vet that I talked to about 15 years ago said that everybody wanted their picture taken in front of a P-51, but when the chips were down, he preferred the P-47 for its ruggedness.  Nice old guy, helped clean his captured Luger and got to look at many of his pictures.

Europe = p51
Pacific = p38 but the Corsair is oh so tempting

The P-38 struggled in the ETO. Its engines didn't do well at high altitudes (which was due in part to poor performance from using British fuel). Its cockpit heater frequently froze up, making for a very uncomfortable ride. Good article here:

https://www.historynet.com/p-38-flunked-europe/

There are only so many choices in a poll. The aircraft listed were infinitely more numerous than the P-61. I would have listed the C-47 and PBY first either way.

The Jug wins but damm Lightnings are soo sexy.

P-38, mainly because a friend of my father had one and sat me n the cockpit for a ground test for the rebuilt engines.. I was 11.

The AAF dropped them pretty quickly after the war for some reason though.

P-38.  Great for different missions, lots of firepower, two engines, more survivable.

They were dropped, and the K model was never produced, because they were considerably more expensive than any other fighter of their time.

One German ace said in a postwar interview that he considered the P-38 to be the toughest opponent of all Allied fighters.

Nobody wants to be a team player and fly bombers though.

Nobody wants the highest probability of dying - B-17s over 50%. RAF Bomber Command 44.4%.

SR71 or B52

P-38 or P-47

Your pet coyote too.

Attached File

This. Or the Typhoon.

I chose the P-38 because it was my favorite as a kid.

Lots of good choices..

P-47 is a personal favorite.

B-26 had the lowest loss rate per sortie of US combat aircraft in the ETO.

That  applies to the heavies.  B-26 is the safest choice.

Those guys who just had to sit there waiting for the inevitable attack have earned my respect.

I flew a bonanza for a B-17 pilot early in my career. He would never talk about his experiences. Don’t blame him.

/thread

Anything D-version or later.    The Jug gets dragged down by the performance of the earlier models but the late models were the fastest production prop aircraft of the war.    The US could still have won the air war with no trouble if the mustang was never built.

The Jug and the Wildcat broke the backs of the axis air forces - everything that came later just cleaned up.

Interesting pic.

For all you Jug fans, I had the honor and privilege of getting to know my Father in Law who lived into his 90's.  He flew P47's, then Mustangs in the European Theater of Operations during WWII.  3 missions over the beach on D Day in a Mustang earned him the French Legion of Honor.  But before that he flew the Jug.

He was a great story teller, and sometimes I would turn my phone on and capture one.  This is from a transcript and describes his Jug bringing him home:

*****

"I had 20/15 vision, and could spot planes a lot sooner than any of my flight mates. So I got designated as wingman a lot. We were on a combat mission, and I was wingman to my flight commander. I had to fly with him and protect him.



"We were chasing three ME109s. They were didoing through the clouds and we were after them. There were four of us and three of them. I thought that was good odds. Those guys - to look back on it - I think they were intentionally leading us away from the bombers we were escorting. Anyway, we got permission to go after them. And they went low; we got down to almost treetop level, chasing those guys. And they were leading us through
anti-aircraft fire, so that when they got through, the AA’s would go to shooting at us. Well, that got kind of discouraging, so we decided to break it off.



"At this point, I was the tail end of the whole group. So the other three guys broke off the attack - we let the Germans go - and the other guys were pulling away from me, and I was trying to catch up with them.



"And then a Messerschmitt locked onto me. I was climbing like crazy, trying to outrun him, but he was staying right with me. We were going up, spiraling around each other and trying to get in position for a shot. I couldn’t shake him.



"And then I heard a voice. “Hit the water, Billy!”



"Now, the voice might have come over the radio, but since we were supposed to maintain radio silence, I chose to believe it came from God.



"I had forgotten that we had water injection in the engine of those Thunderbolts (P47). You could squirt some water in the engine and get more power. So I hit the injection, and got a boost of power and shot up. The ME-109 that had been pursuing me stalled out and had to break off his attack.



"I managed to catch up with my flight commander, but I wasn’t sure where the other two guys were. The sky is a big place when you are up there by yourself, and especially when people are trying to kill you. So we ended up with just the two of us, heading back toward England, still climbing to get above 20,000 feet. And I was on his wing, and we were watching out for each other. Here we were, just the two of us, over enemy territory. I was afraid we were going to get jumped by the Luftwaffe..."

*****


I did not know about such water injection until I heard that story.  But sure enough, that extra "passing gear" was engineered into the Jugs:
http://wwiiaircraftperformance.org/p-47/P-47_Water-Injection_3feb44.pdf

@jmt686
@ruger556boy
@whiskerz
@rock71
@9divdoc
@BFskinner
@GI-45

Kind of the opposite of “I’ll hit the brakes and he’ll fly right by.”!

Thanks for sharing that story.

SR71 Blackbird.

realty is my height would have prevented me from flying any of them.  i’d take the P-47 though

Dad would agree if he was still around.

A friend of mine's dad was a ground crew chief for P-38s in North Africa and later Italy. As long as I remember he had the vanity plate "P-38L" and did until he died. He loved those airplanes and never spoke ill of them so I guess the Med. theater planes didn't have the northern European problems.

A-10
AC-130

If you haven't seen Greg's series on the jug yet, make some time because it's really, really good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULLsIo1VzTw&list=PLD2EcpzcvT-tvemNaIYUfZfV3s8K8Gbgh&pp=iAQB

@Southernman077

He smuggled it into England and flew five missions with it.

https://www.military.com/history/how-live-coyote-became-army-air-forces-mascot-world-war-ii-england.html/amp

P38 for the sheer joy of dogfighting and finesse.

P47 to increase my chances of making it back home.

How could someone fly missions with an animal not strapped in or on oxygen?

P-80 Shooting Star. Four were deployed to the ETO in January 1945.

P-38L although you wouldn’t be screwed in a B-26 either. Not enough choices -op, no B-25?? What I would want would be a FW-190D13 or TA-152 or the A-26.

I would have put the B 25 on the Pacific list. The B 26 seemed more appropriate for the ETO.

I can tell you the last one I would want to be on. A B-17 in the ball turret.

Same here, all beautiful planes. Jug is a tough mofo, and being built around that huge supercharger just screams POWER.

maybe this guy.   one of the faster fighters.


F8F Bearcat



though plenty of cool planes, and pilot skill certainly made many of them viable over better airframes.

they certainly had a reputation for eating damage.

It’s interesting how aircraft fared differently in different theaters.  The P-38 had a mixed record in Europe but did very well the the Pacific.  The A-26 and B-26 were rejected in the Pacific due to poor pilot visibility for skip bombing, but both did well in the ETO.

If I got to choose, it'd be the P-47D Razorback. Sure, rear visibility was not as good as the bubble.  But the Razorback had a lot more opportunities to stop a round than plexiglass.

By far, my fav aircraft is the B-17G... but in combat over Europe having to stay information from the IP to Bombs away getting absolutely shredded by enemy flak... and you CANNOT EVADE and you have to sit there and take it???

Ill take the A-10 of the era, the Original THUNDERBOLT!!!

I would take that over the same position in a B-24.  B-17 was tougher than the 24 and easier to fly.

Coin flip between the 47 and 51. Both were sexy, beastly weapons of war.

At least the ball turret could be retracted up into the fuselage on the B 24. Have that B 17 turret get jammed in the wrong position and you were done for.

Great uncle made 41 missions in a B26. Bad penny and royal flush. 40 was required tnen rotation to the US. Someone got sick and made 1 more then taught gunnery stateside.

Said they would bomb a powerplant at a factory and next mission it was up and running again. He went to work for Dow Chemical and they had a guy from Germany visit. Asked where he was from and then my uncle told him he probably bombed some of his family.

Yeah I think it did OK in the MTO, and obviously in the PTO, where it was a superstar. But not so much in the ETO. Opinions will vary, of course.