It's amazing sometimes how much TLC goes into the prototypes and the production runs are complete garbage. Hand made engines don't really count in my book. Do you know how nmany were made in that fashion?
I don't have a clue what your talking about TLC what does that mean (obviously not The Learning Channel)? Your book is obviuosly wrong... sometimes the best things are made by hand remember RR...why does hand made not count...but on the other hand i was not there at the production so really i don't have a clue on how they were put together (atleast i think they were benched by hand!):-? ! A total of 80 experimental Jumo 004A engines (V-series) were built. A total of 7916 Jumo 004B were built by Junkers Flugzeugwerke plus an unknown number of engines at Opel. In summer 1941 the reconstruction of the Jumo 004A for serial production was started. The first serial production engines Jumo 004B-1 to B-3 were ready in early 1942 and underwent intensive tests during 1943. The Jumo 004B differed in the compressor entry, an improved stator blade design for the compressor, modified turbine entry and had seperate compressor discs. Also hollow turbine blades were introduced, which caused again blade failures. In summer 1943 the serial production of these engines was started at Junkers Leipzig and at the Opelwerke at Russelsheim.
Hand made engines obvoiosly do reallu count, you just can't make enough of htem fast enough. I was agreeing with your point that hand made prototype articles (especially those made with TLC!) can be of higher quality than massed produced items. I've seen it myself.
Well, when you're in the prototype stage, the last thing you want is for the plane to crash because the engine cut out on you. That can lead to all sorts of...complications.
when the planes are roughly equal...its the pilot that makes the difference...no 30 or 40 victory yank or brit pilot is going to win a duel with a 100 to 200 victory german(sorry simoner ) a german bong or tuck or boyington would not even be invited into the jet program...me262s in germany not expertan enuff.....get fb disks ..log 200 hours of dogfighting practice in the very latest late war mustang ,spit or lavochin..then tangle one on one with blizzard or baalsberith or sgt arris (they flying 1940 junk, say a warhawk or hurricane or fiat)....then ,you will see for yourself which is more important ...the plane or the pilot....
Even when the planes aren't roughly equal. A good fighter pilot (not the same as a good pilot ) in a poor(ish) aircraft would have a better than equal chance against a reasonable pilot in a good aircraft. Something like 50% of all kills were made by about 5% of the pilots... it's not just aircraft handling that counts, but deflection shooting, situational awareness and knowing what to do.
majorwoody: Many factors go into the making of an "Ace." Opportunity is one of the most important. To state that Bong or McGuire couldn't hold a candle to German aces with 100+ kills is rubbish. I say talent is talent whether you have 20 kills or 200. The Eastern Front was a high-density hunting area for the Luftwaffe pilots. Plenty of targets, and plenty of opportunities. German pilots in this theatre--with talent--ran their scores up accordingly. In the Pacific campaign, the hunting wasn't always as good, as many times the Japanese pilots refused to be baited when their airfields were attacked. Sure, the skies were swarming with Zeros when we were flying Buffalos, Airacobras and Wildcats in the early days, but not in the closing months of the war. Same was true--late war--for allied pilots in the European theatre... as an American or British pilot, the targets were few. For any Luftwaffe pilot lucky enough to get-off the ground, the targets were plentiful. German pilots flew til they were crippled or killed. America and Britain tended to pull their top-aces out of combat before they were killed. Dick Bong was sent home, and later died testing the Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star. Tommy McGuire violated one of his own "cardinal rules" and was killed as a result. Tim
Woody, that's nonsense, I can't be bothered right now to go into why again except to say that I think Hoosier has pretty much hit the nail squarely on the head.
During the fall-winter of 1943-1944 twelve German aces with a combined total of 1,146 credited kills were killed in air to air combat with the allied air forces (primarily USAAF).
all because the overwellming numbers the luftwaffe pilots had to face since the luftwaffe was little by little dispering from all the fronts, so by the end there was no fuel and no pilots, but many , many useless planes but what would happened if they face one on one?
in their first combats ,most fighter pilots make lots of mistakes...forget to turn on gunsite ,charge guns...pee their pants....cross controls...get what we call in the usa "buck fever"....an allied pilot with ten kills under his belt would be regarded by his peers as a steely eyed killer, a clint eastwood...a deadly viper....i know the germans had lots of targets,but please to remember their targets were trying really hard to kill them...the russians and spitfire drivers were shooting at them with real bullets...i belive a guy that has been in enough combat to shot down 75 or a hundred enemy planes is operating at a different level of awareness and zen like concentration then say his young wingman who has only 29 kills...i think hartmann ,barkhorn and galland had icewater in their veins...hartmann and sakai never lost a wingman...hartmann never had a bullet hole in his plane...priller shot down 69 british pilots(if you only count spitfires....)...i think that kind of combat experience counts for something..i think, one on one in matched airplanes the outcome would be very predictable...
majorwoody: I find it interesting then that the 332nd and 99th Pursuit Squadrons of the "Tuskegee Airmen" while escorting bombers in Europe have the distinction of never losing a bomber to enemy fighters while under their protection. I imagine that rankled the Nazi "Supermen" greatly to have their "experten" pilots shot-down by Afro-American share-croppers. hehe. Tim
OK Woody, I will state again. A Pilot's score is the result of a combination of factor, skill is just one of them. Luck, target abundance, mission types, average training of their opponents to mention a few will affect the potential to amass a high kill total. For the skilled German fighter pilots most if not all of these factors were in their favour. Allied pilots facing a relatively target sparse sky, facing well trained pilots early on, often facing just fighters, frequently rotated away from front line squadrons, tied to bomber escort sorties... Why are you so fixated on the score figures to the point of utterly ignoring everything else?!? :roll:
simon..im not disputeing any of your points about luck ,skill or target abundence...this thread was a question of a top allied pilot in a p80 against a top german pilot in a 262...a hypothetical duel ...not unlike our earlier debate... top luftwaffe vs top allied pilots in matched planes...(twilite zone...picture if you will...)german pilots with150 kills against brit ?yank pilots with 30 or 40 kills..i would suggest that kills in combat is a fairly good measure of a fighter pilots combat skill...able to keep track of 6 or 8 enemy planes at once in a whirling upside down world...always sqeezing the trigger at just the right instant..then breaking hard into a turn or barrel roll as the tracers go zipping past your own canopy.....day after day ..week after week...until you can do this while your hungover and half asleep....your premise simon is that the rall or barkhorn with 30 victorys would be the equal to the rall or barkhorn of 250 kills... this to me seems silly...i agree that even nowotny or lang will eventually run out of luck when he faces 6 or 8 mustangs or spitfires everyday....but if it was only one mustang or spit ...?
It's also a measure of targets available as Simon has explained. Having more kills mostly means that you had more targets, and since kills were largely (80% IIRC) on targets that never saw the attack coming and aces had a far better awareness of the situation then it would most likely come down to aircraft performance in the end. The victor is the guy who made his mistakes last. If I ever get the opportunity to talk to Gunther Rall at one his lectures/ presentations at Elvington I'll ask his opinion, and post it here. Fighter pilots don't have hangovers - pure oxygen is a "known" hangover cure (even ground crew took a lungful or two of it the morning after the night before.... even as late as the eighties and nineties, and probably still do, according to my recently demobbed ex-RAF colleagues.)
you guys that are ww2 fighter nuts(like me)....please spend 100$ on ebay and get the il2 cds and a good stick and come to the hyper lobby...its a very easy thing in sim combat to put yourself in a target rich enviornment...i do it by accident all the time(chaseing a smokeing enemy to long towards his own lines).....when one arrives at this wonderfull T.R.E. one will suddenly discover that it is also a B.R.E.(bullet rich enviornment) even when i fly into a sky full of novices my hands are way to busy not getting shot to worrie about shooting at them....if the targets are expertan sim pilots(69th,ims,rogue squadren) then fiery death is only seconds away....come experience for yourself this wonderfull target rich enviornment and you will have a new insight into the issue...if u have a good fast pc,the 100$ will be the best money u ever spent,i promise you!....simonr ,ill refund you 50% of your costs just so we can stop argueing about it...lol.
