Quote:
Originally Posted by Pursuivant
The high number of accidents on landing and takeoff might be due to evil habits of the late model Bf-109 - lots of engine torque and a narrow landing gear - plus landing on improvised or bomb damaged fields. But, again, losing 10-20% of your pilots due to landing and takeoff accidents on every mission is "not fun."
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The late 109´s certainly were rookie killers. But it happened to FW 190 pilots as well. In ´44 many rookies were trained on old, obsolete Italian fighters. In these machines you lowered throttle by pushing the lever
in. As soon as they sat in much more powerful "modern" combat planes, it was just the other way round. Not much imagination needed about the effects ...
In his novel "Der verratene Himmel" (Skies Betrayed) Rudolf Braunburg gave some vivid accounts of this, based on his own experience as a rookie 190 pilot in ´45.
(By the way: he dedicated this book to all fighter pilots who never scored a kill, but just were shot down ... like himself)
11-08-2014, 09:13 AM
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