The A-1 had three dive brakes one on each side of the fuselage just aft of the wings and on the bottom of the fuselage also just aft of the wings.What you are seeing is the side air brakes being deployed the national emblem happens to be painted on the side air brakes.Of course the A-1 when used in Korea and Vietnam rarely ever used the dive brakes it had been designed to be a pure dive bomber that concept faded from use after WWII for the most part.

The A-1 is iffy it was a WWII design but never flew anywhere near a combat or even a supportive situation during WWII.From a technical stand point to me at least that makes it not eligible.It missed the war by over a year as well because it did not enter service with the Navy until December 1946.The A-1 also performed all of its dirty work in Korea and Vietnam in those two wars it more than made up for what it theatricality missed.In a strange way the end of WWII actually saved the A-1 because the Navy needed something to replace its Curtis Helldivers and Avengers planes that served well but where obsolete for post war combat.

I put the A-1 in the same category as the F7F and F8F early post war aircraft even though they where designed during the war and both the F7F and F8F both became active in the last few months of the war it was too late for any of them to see combat they never got a chance to prove their worth until seeing use in other wars.

Rgr that :yep:

Whenever someone mentions the B-26, this image comes to mind. I never knew about the “Susie-Q”'s close encounter with the Akagi until a few years ago when I read a magazine describing the incident.

http://www.valorstudios.com/Images/A...6-Marauder.jpg

The A/B-26 Invader is one of the more interesting WWII ear aircraft it was one of the few to go through a designation change and in doing so had the same designation as another aircraft no longer in service(B-26 Marauder). The Invader saw the majority of its action in Korea though it did see some action in a last months of the in the ETO and a few months of action in the PTO as well as some use in Vietnam though the largest number saw action in Korea.

During Vietnam they took A/B26 airframes that where sitting out in the Boneyard in Arizona and called them B-26Ks at first they simply refurbished them however after several crashes both in Vietnam and in Tampa Bay,FL (the stateside home of the Vietnam era Invaders was McDill,AFB) the USAF ran an investigation and discovered that the airframes all had weak frames around the wing roots causing them to fail in a catastrophic fashion in mid flight usually killing the crew as well as of course destroying the plane.As a result a company strengthened the airframes but USAF crews never had regained full faith in the B-26Ks and they where often referred to as "Two a Day in Tampa Bay".

The B-26 Marauder also had a bad reputation because it was tricky to fly and there where many accidents so the Marauder sometimes got the nickname "Baltimore Bitch" or "Baltimore Widow Maker" because the main Martin factory was in Baltimore Maryland.

That's cool. Just so you know, he didn't mentiion the B-26. The Douglas A-26 Invader and Martin B-26 Marauder were completely different aircraft.

Except from 1948-1965, when the A-26 was the B-26.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_A-26_Invader

Okay, that's something I didn't know. Thanks for setting me straight. Gotta love a thread that's interesting and educational at the same time.

But a redesignation doesn't change the nature of the beast. That's like saying the Huff-Daland XB-1 of 1927 and the Rockwell B-1 of 1974 are the same aircraft.

B-1
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...ps762df8d7.jpg


B-1
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a3...psf25e055f.jpg

That is why most people choose to use A-26 or A/B-26 when referring to the Invader and B-26 when referring to the Marauder.Steve is correct the B-26 Marauder and the A-26 Invader are completely different aircraft.

The B-26 Marauder was not in service when the USAF changed its aircraft nomenclature P becoming F and A becoming B for a time calling certain truly attack aircraft bombers was actually for political reasons and argument with the US Army up until 1963 the USAF did not use the A for attack nomenclature after 1963 Congress said that all fixed wing aircraft where the realm of the USAF(excluding some very specific roles) after this point the USAF felt safe to use the A for attack nomenclature again.The USAF had concern that the US Army would stake claim to any so called attack aircraft because they support ground forces directly.

Of course the B-26K retained its the B nomenclature anyway and the USAF did not acquire any ex US Navy A-1 Skyraiders until 1964/65.You will notice also the USAF flew many aircraft titled F for fighter when truly they where bombers F-105,F-111,F-117 the first two again where for political reasons and the F-117 was to confuse the nature of the program to anyone looking for something interesting.

Don't read too much into the similar designations. The military recycles them all the time. After all what does a Garand rifle and an Abrams tank have in common other than they are both "M1's"?

Well it sure isn't the hurricane in il-2 in hyperlobby I get my butt handed to me every time I go up in it.

A Hurricane is only as good as it's pilot... :up:

I think the Hurricane is just fine but I'll take a Bf-109G or K over it any day.

Or a P-40...or a Spitfire....or an F4F, F6F, F4U, P-51, etc...

It isn't my favorite plane...but if I had to use it i'd be okay with it.

IL-2 Sturmovick though a very fun game/sim does accurately simulate how many of the aircraft it depicts actually flew making it a very poor way to judge what aircraft was better than the other.

For starters the way they have the BF109s set up is wrong they did have good acceleration but nothing near what they have in IL-2.IL-2 makes the Wildcat seem half way decent when it fact it was no match for any Japanese aircraft it faced.What made the Wildcat good was purely its durability and the tactical skill that its pilots employed.I could go on and on but I wont.The in game AI can do things that are not even possible to do if you are flying the same plane in the sim and things that would be impossible in a real aircraft.


To base judgement on real aircraft based on how they fly in any sim especially IL-2 sounds very amateur to put it nicely.Thanks to Il2 there are tons of people who do not know hat they are talking about that think that the BF109 was the best aircraft in WWII.If IL-2 where truly accurate you would die half the time just taking of and landing in BF109 almost as many where lost in landing and take off accidents as where to enemy action.Most other famous fighters had nasty vices the P-51 for example could bite you if you banked it certain ways it had to do with the tail surfaces and they never solved the problem you just had to avoid certain maneuvers.

The truth is that the BF109 was a fairly good design but it was hard for a pilot to get the best from it which is always a weakness the Spitfire on the other hand even a relatively inexperienced pilot could get the max performance out of a Spitfire safely and that goes a log way.I saw a TV show once where a former German ace sat in a Spitfire he was very impressed and wished that he had a Spitfire over a BF109 based on what he saw of them in combat and on what he felt from the seat.

If I was going to pick one best air to air combat aircraft from WWII it would be the Spitfire easily because it was a very easy aircraft to fly(in real life) and it took little skill for a lay pilot to fly one effectively that factor is very important because the easier it is for a pilot to fly his mount the more effective he will be in combat.

I have a aviation magazine about the famous P-61, "The Lady in the Dark" but dang if I can find it. I think the same magazine had an article about how a P-61 pilot and a P-47(I think?) where haggling at the bar about their respective fighters attributes. At some point, the other pilot made a snide remark about the P-61 was more like a medium bomber so that ended up causing a challenge to see who could out dogfight the other. I think they had 3 or 4 categories. One was shortest take-off, another was actual dog-fighting but I can't remember the others. Anyway, the two categories I do remember, the P-61 won and I'm pretty sure the guy won whatever other contest that was in play. Just wondering if you recall this incident at all? A lot of it could of just been the P-61 pilot being a lot more experienced but still quite the feat if it's true.

Well, the pictures look kinda the same, if I don't look too closely, or I turn my monitor off.

I know they're different aircraft. The reuse of the "B-26" name is somewhat confusing.

At least there, one is a tank, and one is a rifle, so it's pretty easy to tell from context (likewise with the B-1s pictured). Last year, my dad and I were watching some of the planes from the airshow flying by, and there was a twin engine, single tail medium bomber. We decided that there was a 2/3 chance it was a B-26, because it was either an A-20, A-26, or B-26. I'm not sure if any of those are still flying, but I have trouble telling them apart at a distance.

Back when I was in middle and high school I was really into building models mostly 1:48 and 1:72 scale WWII aircraft.I used to save up my money and go to the hobby shop and sit sometimes for over an hour deciding what plane to choose.

One time they had a P-61 kit that I had not noticed before and I ended up picking that one it was one of my favorite builds mostly because it was different.I also read up on the P-61 and found that it was pretty impressive for its size.P-61 did shoot down many single engine fighters a common prey for the Black Widow in Europe where the specialized FW190A/F8's used to attack airfields and other military targets in the early evening and pre dawn hours.

Which is why I explained it in two different posts if you understand the reasoning it is not confusing.And as August military nomenclature can be confusing for example M1 can be four different things August only mentioned two of them.the other two are M1 Carbine and M1 Thompson.
If you dont know the context of the conversation when I say M60 am I talking about the machine gun or the tank?

It was not you who did not know that the B-26 and A-26 where two different aircraft it was another poster mako88sb.He thanked Steve for explaining that there are two aircraft using "B-26" don't take offense where none was intended.

I have to disagree with you on some of these points. The Bf-109 (at least the late models) had one of the best climb rates and acceleration of the period. The early models not so much.

Quite the opposite. The Spitfire could out-turn a 109, but had the problem of being very touchy while doing so. The semi-elliptical wing had a nasty tendency to stall, and the plane had the very bad characteristic of instantly going into an inverted flat spin. It was said that the expected pullout distance of that spin was about 5000 feet, so if it happened at low altitudes you could have serious problems. The Bf-109, on the other hand, was fairly gentle in a stall (though not so much as the FW-190, which was said to be practically unspinnable), and would fall off to one side in a gentle spiral when the pilot screwed up. Couple that with negative-G capability which no Spitfire had until the Mark IX, and while the Spit had superior maneuverabilty it took a seasoned pilot to get the best out of it.

And when Hermann Goering asked Adolph Galland if there was anything he could get him to aid in the Battle Of Britain, Galland famously replied "A squadron of Spitfires." And when a former German ace flew a P-47 for the first time, he said the cockpit was so roomy he felt like he could run around inside dodging bullets.

In my opinion there was no "best" fighter in WW2, at least among the group of very best. The Spitfire was tight-turning, the Bf-109 was fast climbing and fast-rolling, the Mustang had extremely long range, the P-47 was amazingly rugged, and they all did their respective jobs superlatively. I would love to be able to fly any of them. And I didn't even mention the Japanese or the US Navy fighters. Silly me.

Yeah, I don't think I knew anything about the P-61 until I seen the old 1/48 scale Monogram kit with the Shepard Paine diorama insert. I wonder how many aircraft & armor kits he helped sell for them? Pretty impressive work considering there was hardly any aftermarket stuff available back then.


http://sheperdpaine.com/gallery/aircraft/P-61_1.JPG

I was referring to how the BF109s behave in IL-2 it is a bit over done and gives a false impression.I cant find the links right now but I have read and heard in more than one place German BF109 pilots saying the 109 was not easy for an inexperienced pilot to get the best out.What you say about the Spitfire is true i suppose though pilots and historians have argued for years which was the better turner Spit or 109 the truth is that neither was substantially better than the the other.Now the 190 could easily out turn a Spitfire any day of the week.Of course turning is not the only thing in a dog fight a skilled pilot can counter a turner.

The most important factor I argue is pilot and overall unit skill an air force that has generally better pilots will always have an advantage so long as they can maintain it something that both Germany and Japan failed to do while the Allies managed to have fairly skilled pilot corps that where consistent throughout most of the war. As the war progressed Japanese and German pilots on average become of sub par quality and the survivors even with all their skill could not make up the difference.At the start of hostilities Germany and Japan had very skilled pilots which is the primary reason that in the first year or so of the war they where dominating air combat.Of you still had insanely good pilots a late war Japanese ace managed to shot down 5 F6F Hellcats in a single engagement 1945 most likely this was purely do to one pilot having vastly superior skills of course it had no effect on the outcome of the war for Japan.Another example of pure skill is Richard Bong he managed to defeat an experienced pilot flying a P-38 while himself flying a T-6 trainer this was while Bong was still in advanced training.

The Axis powers also rarely rotated pilots so they fought on until they died or the war was over.The Allies on the other hand understood the value of having combat experienced pilots train new pilots and many pilots rotated back to the states and passed their knowledge on to new pilots.