He did one hell of a job of bringing that plane down.
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True story of a Grasshopper Pilot and observer whom shot down a German Storch with a pistol!
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My father, top middle, Flight Instructor at Thunderbird Field in Arizona at the beginning of the new Flight Instruction program. This was in Stars and Stripes Magazine. He had been around the world on ships with the Merchant Marines and flying military Cargo to Europe, under fire. He was a barnstormer as a young man. He was in his early thirties, so older then new military, when the US was attacked, so he became a civilian, flight instructor training new military pilots on Stearman Bi-Planes and a prototype of the old T-1 trainers (If I remember the name correctly…there were two models)
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Silly question:
How come there’s (virtually) no black aviators in the US Air Force?
Best plane out there is the venerable P-3C.
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Weren’t they Caribbean-born?
I’m sure there are black pilots out there, but certainly not proportional to their population (10% or so).
Caribbean born? Where did you hear that from? All who served were US natural born citizens. Also African Americans only represent 13% of the population so you can do the math. In today’s airforce women are flying multi-million dollar machines so I think it’s safe to say that there are African Americans flying them as well.
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DeHavilland has a strange record of producing some extremely utilitarian aircraft as well as a handful of outstanding military aircraft considering it’s such a small company from a relatively insignificant country with a population smaller than some US states.
You are completely wrong. Blacks and women make up a disproportionately high percentage of commercial and military pilots and have for decades in the US.
https://diversity.defense.gov/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=gxMVqhkaHh8%3D&portalid=51
The only thing that limited them was meeting basic physical, mental, and educational requirements. When you account for those both are more than 3x higher disproportionately than white males of the same levels of aptitude and achievement.
I have no problem.
Just wondered how come they never appear in the foreground.
I like the “Beaver”
I flew in one, their status is legendary as being reliable aircraft.
I’ve flown in and piloted both the Beaver and Otter, flat out amazing purpose built aircraft.
In the WWII era the Dehavilland Mosquito set records for speed, reliability and versatility that have never been matched and they were virtually undetectable by radar due to their soft wood/canvas construction.
When I was in GB working with 21,22, and 23 Regiments I managed a ride in one of the few remaining Mosquitoes and even got a ride in one of the still active Avro Vulcans.
The Vulcan was responsible for the longest bomber mission in history at the time for it’s work in the Falkland Islands War.
There’s a great movie done on that particular mission.
Working in JSOC’s International element OD1 and OD2 made for some amazing opportunities. We’d deploy for 12-24 months at a time embedded with allied Special Operations Units focusing on Counter Terrorism and Counter Insurgent operations then come back and write papers and teach for 3-6 months in rotation.
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The Vulcan was also an original Canadian Design as was the Arrow at the pinnacle of Canadian Aircraft design.
In truth though the F-111 was it’s inspiration.
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The US Army wrongly believed that Black People could not fly an airplane. During WW 1,the French had a whole squadron of black pilots some of whom became aces. Racial prejudice!
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Check out the maiden flight of the B-52, in 1952. I was three years old!
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B 52 lost its rear fin!
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