Well, they have guys to fix that sort of thing in the Navy. 
For the F4U they wanted the biggest engine available. Big engines take big props, which isn’t a prblem on a P-47. But you don’t want long landing gear on a carrier airplane, since landings can be pretty rough. So cranking the wings was a way of having a big engine and a big prop, and also a stury undercarriage.
Incidentally, compare the legs on an F-14 to the ones on an F-15.
How so?
The cranked wings of the Corsair were because the huge propeller needed a lot of ground clearance. The other options were a smaller propeller, which wouldn’t be able to take full advantage of the engine’s power; or longer struts on the two main landing wheels, which would have made them considerably more fragile and perhaps unable to handle the shock of carrier landings.
It lets you have a short strong undercarriage and puts the wings higher off the ground?
It lets you have a short, strong undercarriage and it puts the propeller higher off the deck.
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Look at the picture. The inner part of the wing bends toward the ground, the wheels come out of the lowest point of the wing, so the wheel struts don’t have to be as long.
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There was a short story in the Belgian comic book Buck Danny about a Polish fighter pilot named Boleslaw “Michael” Gladych flying for the RAF.
A number of times throughout the years 40-42 he either fought against, or heard stories of other pilots running into an Me-109, tail number 13, who would cripple Allied planes, line up on their 6 for the kill shot ; then pull up alongside his quarries, shake his wings and buzz off.
Then on March 8th, 1944, during a bomber escort mission, his plane was again crippled and he disengaged from the furball, only to be cornered by a pair of Messerschmidt (including number 13) whose pilots signalled him to come along with them as prisoner. So he did, having little choice in the matter as they would have immediately shot him up had he tried evasive manoeuvers. Still, he remembered that during raids, ack-ack procedure was to aim behind the leading plane of a formation rather than directly at the lead (that way the airburst shells explode right in the path of the tailing planes) so what he did was, as they reached the German airfield he suddenly dived all guns blazing like this was some sort of special ops raid using captured planes. Sure enough, the AAA soon started firing at the two Messerschmidts pursuing him and shot them down while he made his escape.
He would always lament causing the death of the gallant pilot who’d “saved his life” many times by refusing to finish him. Until he went back into Germany on business, 6 years after the war, where he met former Luftwaffe ace Georg Peter Eder, who off handedly remarked that another pilot had once taught him that nothing is ever hopeless.
You guessed it: on that evening, drinking with other former pilots and sharing war stories, it turned out that Eder was Number 13, and the pilot teaching him about hope was Gladych.
Never let it be said that I’m not a man of my word, finally found the account.
It’s on page 330 of ‘Wings of War’, a collection of anecdotes from military pilots edited by Laddie Lucas.
The account runs as follows:
“I was positioned over Leeuwarden [northern Holland] by the [ground] controller and then given a vector towards an enemy aircraft. At the same time Feldwebel Kissing, my radar operator, had already picked up the target and was giving me distances from it, measured by the SN2. These reduced with such rapidity that the logical thought - that the two aircraft were approaching head-on did not even occur to me.
Then, suddenly, a Mosquito shot like a ghost past my Me 110G. I could pick out the outline of the pilot’s head and shoulders quite clearly, and I feel sure he must have seen me, too.
After I had recovered from the shock (felt, I suspect, on both sides), I was left with a feeling of incredulity - amazement - at the extraordinary precision of this device…That, and the regret that I hadn’t had time to salute.”
Originally posted by Oberstleutnant Georg Hermann Greiner.
So there you go, I was misremembering the account and it did involve tasking by ground control and not on-board radar.
Personally I’ve always wanted to see a reunion of fighter pilots from both sides, where one old bloke suddenly runs at another old bloke, smacks him in the mouth and says “Thats for July seventeenth 1942 over London you Bastard”.
More on the Brown-Stigler encounter during WWII: http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/09/living/higher-call-military-chivalry/index.html?hpt=hp_c2
It’s a nice story, but what I find really interesting about it is the comment that the Pentagon has created a new medal for drone pilots.
One hand on the joy stick, and one hand on the…other joy stick. :rolleyes:
All I got is: Max Schmeling, pride of the Third Reich, became good friends with Joe Louis after the war. It’s a pretty good story.
The incident you are referring to is detailed in “A Higher Call” authored by Adam Makos. It’s a very good read. It chronicals the lives of an American B-17 pilot and a German ME-109 pilot. The German let the B-17 crew escape back to England. This incident itself was kept under wraps by the U. S. and, obviously, the German pilot had to keep it quiet, as well. Eventually, they met and spoke frequently at various reunions. Again, a very good read.
I know this is a zombie, but just a few thoughts.
I think the chances of meeting your successful opponent depended very much on where you fought in WW2. In WW1 maybe not so much, but survival rates from being shot down were not great anyway. Captain W.E. Johns who wrote the ubiquitous Biggles books survived being shot down and ended the war in a German POW camp. he was not a captain either).
The barbarity of the Japanese forces in WW 2 has been well documented. However, the German/ Soviet fights were as brutal as anything and it would be a little difficult to imagine opposing pilots still being alive and willing to meet each other.
If you get a chance, read Pierre Clostermann’s “The Big Show” of his experiences in WW2. He certainly has a lot of admiration for his German opponents.
Great story.
No instances wherein the the American is now a Hells Angels member and the Japanese is now a CEO?
Not quite… although Jeffrey Archer wrote a short story in which a British officer who survives a Japanese POW camp bonds with one of his more humane guards and testifies before a war crimes tribunal to save the guard from execution. The British officer becomes an Anglican priest and then a bishop. The guard becomes a successful businessman and then CEO, and many years later writes a huge check to pay for the reroofing of the bishop’s cathedral.