Ubiquity of the "victory roll"?
 

I wanted to throw this out there. How common was the victory roll? I first saw it as a young child watching The Battle of Britain and they made a fairly big deal out of it considering it's two appearances in the film.

But here's my question... was it something that was popular and spread? Did German pilots perform them? Russian? What about in the Pacific?

Anyone know?

I think the Germans tended to 'waggle their wings' whereas the RAF used the roll.

My suspicions is that it this type of activity was generally considered poor form, especially in the RAF where no attempt was made to depict the air war as some kind of blood sport. I also suspect that rolling and waggling was probably regarded as being a bit immature by those guys who actually had a few hours in, and had a more sober view of their future prospects.

When you consider the number of aircrew that wouldn't return from an operation at all and those that did in a distressing state, all shot up or burnt, watching some wanker doing a victory roll over the field would probably go down like a cup of cold sick in many cases.

Some pilots did do "stunting" and a few paid dearly for it. One incident comes to mind where a P-38 pilot attempted a loop at low altitude and impacted the airfield on the way down. In general however, it's probably a bit "Hollywood".

I wondered if it was maybe a bit Hollywood. I know a few pilots are on record as having done it but I wondered just how much.

I remember watching a history type channel that a Japanese fighter ace in a Zero performed an aerobatic display over an American airforce base that they had attacked.

Polish pilots from the 303rd did it during the Battle of Britain.

Saburo Sakai is the one who performed the aerobatic display with his wingman over Port Moresby.


Wheels

Interesting! Now I know Japanese fighter outfits tended to count kills as a group and rarely displayed personal kill markings. How was a victory roll or victory aerobatic display viewed in Japanese fighter pilot culture?

i remember reading a interview wit ha russian pilot who said that in his squad it was common to do a little show off for the ground when returning from a sucessfull mission, a barrel roll, a low alt pass over the field something like that.

he also said that it was prohibited after one pilot tried something in the likes of a loop and crashed.

Don Gentile pranged his mustang on his last flight, tore shangrila all up.