Best biplane fighter of WWII ?

AFAIK, none of the MAC ships had hangar decks. One wonders why so brilliant an idea wasn't adopted earlier in the war, like around 1941 or 1942? Many ships that were sunk by U-boats might have otherwise survived, for it's a fact that no convoy with a MAC ship along lost any ships to submarine attack.

 

Exacrky the point an fomer RAF Squadron Ldr(can't remember his name, and that magazine collection was destoyed in a fire at our cliub back in the late 1980s..!!) made in an article ( part of a regular series in the old "Flying Review" (a William Green magazine, ancestor of "Air Enthusiast") called "What were they like to fly"-he flew practically all RAF aircraft types, and many captured German and Italian aircraft- his one comment about the Gladiator vs. the CR. 42 "Falco" was that the CR.42 was "a far better kite all around" One Cr.42 was actually fitted with a DB engine for experimental reasons and reached a max. speed of 325 mph-
Great pictures Roel!

 

Sorry, I won't take credit for what I didn't do... I posted no pictures in this topic. Thank Skua!

 

You are right..Gotta lay off the Bushmills..hahha! Sorry. Great pictures Skua!

 

325 mph? That's very impressive for a biplane.

 

I'd also read that, if it had been accepted it would have made the Cr.42 the fastest operational military Biplane in history, however by then even the Italians had to accept that the future of aviation lay with the monoplane.

 

True. The biplane era should have ended in Spain.

 

I even remember the exact line used in a William Green bookpart of a series-known as " Fighter aircraft of the Second World War". " No mean feat for a biplane, but by then, even the Itallians were willing to admit the heyday of the biplane was over"...Simonr t1978..can you remember the name of that ex-RAF Squadron Leader? he stopped writing c. 1964 when he established a small shipyard which specialized in catamarans...

The first "Stuka" was a biplane,( the Henschell HS 123) and was by all accounts a sweet heart fo fly..able to absorb punishment and quite reliable.It was bloodied in the Spanish Civil War--five were sent to the "Condor Legion" for evaluation, and were later substituted for a trio of Junkers JU-87As Such was the sucess of the HS 123 that the Nationalist air force , which had received the Legion's five HS 123s) ordered 16 additional aircraft in 1938. These served to equip Grupo 24. In Spain the aircraft was known as the "Angelito" (Little angel)- Fourteen survived the civiil war and remained in service for many years. Now, does anyone see a slight ressemblance betweehn the Curtiss Hawk II and the HS 123 or am l seing things?

 

What's really remarkable is that the Henschel 123s stayed in service with the Luftwaffe on the Eastern Front until all had either been destroyed or simply worn out.

 

I read somewhere that in 1943 Generalfeldmarschall Wollfram von Richtofen requested that the HS 123 be put back in production; but that all the available equipment (tools, jigs) had been scrapped in 1940..and nothing came of it..

 

That figures. The Luftwaffe High Command likely thought that a successor would be in full production quickly enough to allow the scrapping to be done.

 

[q[/quote]

That figures. The Luftwaffe High Command likely thought that a successor would be in full production quickly enough to allow the scrapping to be done.[/quote]

When the winter of 1943-44 they brought some antiques out of retiremental. Taking a page from teh Soviet's book, the Luftwaffe established a "Night Harrassing Gruop" in Estonia, equiped with Heinkel HE-50 biplanes (first flown in 1931) and captured Fokker C.V.s....

 

[q[/quote]

That figures. The Luftwaffe High Command likely thought that a successor would be in full production quickly enough to allow the scrapping to be done.[/quote]

When the winter of 1943-44 they brought some antiques out of retiremental. Taking a page from the Soviet's book, the Luftwaffe established a "Night Harrassing Gruop" in Estonia, equiped with Heinkel HE-50 biplanes (first flown in 1931) and captured Fokker C.V.s....

 

That figures. The Luftwaffe High Command likely thought that a successor would be in full production quickly enough to allow the scrapping to be done.[/quote]

When the winter of 1943-44 they brought some antiques out of retiremental. Taking a page from the Soviet's book, the Luftwaffe established a "Night Harrassing Gruop" in Estonia, equiped with Heinkel HE-50 biplanes (first flown in 1931) and captured Fokker C.V.s....[/quote]

Night would be the only time flying those things would be safe.

 

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Night would be the only time flying those things would be safe]

Yep! Late in the war the Russians were using Po-2 trainers for such missions-...mainly to keep German personnel from getting a decent night 's sleep...