World War II Fighter video(s)

I keep forgetting we have a thread for full size and keep posting them in the cafe, doh!

A long video but really is worth watching till the end.

Ooops! The video you posted says "Embedding disabled by request"

Ah yes, thank you- didn't even realise they did that!! Can you see "watch on youtube" underlined underneath the "embedding disabled..." message? If you click on that you can then view it. Think it is something the poster has enabled, don't know why lol

I love listening to the chaps retelling their stories, Sqn Ldr Bruce Lawless after having to ditch his plane into the sea near Dover and hoping to be rescued by a destroyer and thinking "great, can have a couple of gins up there" but getting rescued by an air sea rescue crew instead that "all they gave me was bloomin bovril!" Tickled me lol! :lol:

Plus interesting footage and accounts of the first encounters with V1 flying bomb might interest you Simon

Eh just had a thought, if Eric builds himself a Hawker Tempest and I build an anti aircraft gun we could re enact this with your V1 :lol: :lol: :lol: I used to manage a fancy dress shop that hired WW2 uniforms, will even dress up for the part haha!

I think the tale about the Germans setting the fuse to explode if tipped is a bit of an old wives tale. I can find no reference to it.
It did have a belly fuse so it exploded if for any reason it did not dive into the ground at the set range but this was simply a security measure to prevent any bits falling into enemy hands. Even that fuse did not always work!

Quorneng wrote: I think the tale about the Germans setting the fuse to explode if tipped is a bit of an old wives tale.......

I'm inclined to agree, if it were true then what;s to stop it exploding when it starts to fall from the sky??/?

Hmm primary source v secondary source- do you believe the pilot's ref in the film to being told not to tip it as a primary source because he actually SAW the one that crashed and didn't explode thus seeing the wiring mechanism that could blow it if tipped, or is he a secondary source due to being told by someone ELSE who claimed to see the unexploded bomb and it's mechanism

I couldn't find anything either, though I did find this, not read it properly just scanned it but still cant see anything that suggests either or-

www.zenza.se/vw/

however........... did find this (again, not sure how reliable a source it is)

Pilots of the modified Spitfires and Tempests could now close with the flying bombs more easily. Some could even fly right alongside the bombs, close enough to read the German writing on the fuselages. A few enterprising pilots discovered that they could slide a wing under the wingtip of the "flying blowlamp" and lift it, tipping the flying bomb out of control. That quickly became a standard method of destroying the bombs.

"Tipping the doodlebugs" nearly always worked. The flying bombs had a very delicate gyro mechanism, any sudden, violent movement-such as wing lifting would cause it to malfunction. With the gyroscope out of order, the machine would spiral earthward and crash. From the air, the concentric shock wave of the crashed bomb was said to look like "a single ripple on a lake."

But this manoeuvre was not without its risks. The flying bomb was made of rolled sheet steel, while the RAF fighters had a skin of light aluminium alloy. Many a Spitfire and Tempest hobbled back to base with one of its highly polished wings bent and twisted out of shape from the "wing wrestling."

from The Air Museum - Chino, California - May 2002

the wing tip was slid under the wing tip of the V1 to destroy its flying qualites on one wing, effecting a stall, dodgy stuff,

I recall reading somewhere that it was the interaction of the airflows that precipitated the stall-roll of the V1, but you had to watch that it didn't roll INTO the 'attacking' plane, which could be embarrassing, and not physical contact between wing-tips.
At the same time, shooting them down was rather dangerous, too, because you had to get pretty close in order to hit it, and the fraction of a second between the big bang, and flying through the debris, wasn't enough for the debris to spread out much, or for the attacker to get out of the way.

I believe it was Roland Beaumont who said the first time he shot down a V-1 with a Tempest and flew through the explosion he came out upside down.
He later discovered it was due to the wing stalling in the rapidly expanding gas cloud and engine torque inverted the plane before normal airflow was resumed.

cor, like i said, dodgy