Aircraft Videos and Images

[Jaws2002]

Originally Posted by Tvrdi

Only few idiots would fly BF109 like that...it was a stalker (BnZ) and was used as stalker through the war....mostly....

Those were real Bf-109 fighter pilots, not internet comandos. They flew real planes, in a real war. In war they fly how they have to in order to achieve the mission goal.
If they had to chase an I-16, on the deck, they did just that. Not all made it out of it and not all could afford to fly how they wanted.
It was a real war not a game.

[csThor]

Quite seriously: I am considering soviet war stories to be usually grossly blown out of proportion on behalf of the soviet authorities (Stalin ordered "improved" historiography after the war). Far too often this or that soviet pilot was injured/got his aircraft set on fire/whatever and still outfought so-and-so-many german fighters. I have read too many stories like this, most of them following exactly the same script without many or any deviations, so I simply discard them all as potentially or even most probably made up.

Sorry and hats off to the veterans. No slant against them, they're as much the victims of state propaganda as the general audience.

[xpzorg]

Do you maybe want talk about anti-soviet propaganda conducted by western governments?

[csThor]

No need. I have the german edition of "The Blonde Knight of Germany" about Erich Hartmann. I do recognise products of the Cold War when I see them ...

[zxwings]

About the 109 chasing the I-16:

Everyone, not just "a few idiots", makes mistakes. Erich Hartmann, when not so experienced in the air, did, too. The 109 pilot in the story, however, did not survive his mistake.

[Feathered_IV]

Sore throat perhaps.

[Flanker35M]

S!

About history..everyone writes their own But it is true that the Russian official history sadly STILL follows this strange agenda that an armless and legless guy half blind plane on fire without ammo shot down half of the Luftwaffe by shouting for Motherland and Stalin..I think the veterans do not approve all this from neither side.

A great example of Russian WW2 history are the claims of shot down Finnish airplanes during Winter War 1930-1940 lasting 105 days. VVS claimed over 440 planes being shot down. If this was the case our air force would have been decimated up to present day..go figure. Another goes for a guards regiment claiming 5 Messers shot down over Finnish Gulf when these planes just broke off in a dive because fuel was low. Dates and places match when comparing and the Finnish radio monitoring heard the message from the Russian pilot stating it.

Anyways..war ended LONG time ago and those men who were there are soon all gone. We would respect them more by remembering THEM instead the war. Those men gave their youth to war and rebuilding after it. We have it easy. I think they appreciate more that they are remembered and respected than the everlasting nitpicking of the war itself.

[Ataros]

Originally Posted by Flanker35M

About history..everyone writes their own But it is true that the Russian official history sadly STILL follows this strange agenda that an armless and legless guy half blind plane on fire without ammo shot down half of the Luftwaffe by shouting for Motherland and Stalin..I think the veterans do not approve all this from neither side.

I do not think we have any official history now. Every author has his own view depending on how he interprets old data. Especially in the field of aviation there were almost no historical research in the recent 25 years. Sadly government does not finance it.

Speaking of war and post war time this agenda was present on both sides because it was not a subject of history but subject of propaganda, Stalin's or Goebbels' - no much difference. Same that CNN does nowadays

[engadin]

Originally Posted by csThor

Quite seriously: I am considering soviet war stories to be usually grossly blown out of proportion on behalf of the soviet authorities (Stalin ordered "improved" historiography after the war). Far too often this or that soviet pilot was injured/got his aircraft set on fire/whatever and still outfought so-and-so-many german fighters. I have read too many stories like this, most of them following exactly the same script without many or any deviations, so I simply discard them all as potentially or even most probably made up.

Sorry and hats off to the veterans. No slant against them, they're as much the victims of state propaganda as the general audience.

+1 here. When propaganda gets so spread, it's really hard to tell it from reality. You know, truth, as Jaws 2002's battle plan, is the first casualty of war too, and prop has everything to do with it.

[VO101_Tom]

I know it's repost, but some of you might not know:
http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/pilots/pilots.htm