Talk with my Uncle

Greetings Gents I had told Skpg and Nuts that I was going to see my uncle last weekend... My Uncle flew P51's and P47's in WWII... he remained in the Air Force after the war and retired as Lt. Col.... Talking with him was absolutely awsome... Guys the way our birds fly in AW is exactly how they flew in the war... Salute to Kesmai for developing this treasure... He was amazed at how much I knew about dogfighting and evasive manuvering (Geez he should talk to you guys...LOL ) Anyway We had about an hour and a half that we were swapping stories about how the planes reacted when we did different moves with the rudders and stick and throttle and flaps... I told him about me chopping throttle to turn with a 109 and down em, As I described fighting different planes he told stories of encounters with the same aircraft... In the war as in AW the Fw's always had a tendency to run...ha ha ha and it pissed him off too, back then... And get this... the P51 had problems with Gear indicator lights ha ha ha... The only major differences are that they had control of the prop pitch and gas mixture which gave them a little more performance, but with a great deal more aggrevation... He asked me what we tried to do when we flew together as a group ie; "Pony Raids"... I described to him how we would fly in a small group to shut down fields where our enemies were upping from and attacking our bases... Here is how he told me they did it in "The Big One" They would fly these kind of Raids on fighter bases prior to the Bombers lifting off in order to mess up the enemy's interception process ... Now this guy was a Command Pilot and Flight Leader... He also was an Instructor after the war... _____________________________________________________________________________________

First and Foremost.... Fly in Formation... Flying in tight formation 1000 apart allowed the group to stay well within sight of each other... When in a tight formation lone enemies will rarely attack... even hunting pairs woud hesitate to attack the formation, they recognize that the people flying in tight formation are too formidale a force to tangle with and have little chance to survive and usually without any chance of a kill... They will however pounce on a straggler... The way to Fly Formation is to line up on the runway roughly in the same formation as you are going to fly... of course you are a lot closer together on the ground than you will be when you become airborne... The Flight Leader will inform the squad before take off the heading you will all be taking and you would usually maintain that heading until you were at 2,000 ft. Flying level at 2,000 ft the flight leader would cut to 93% throttle (or less depending how strung out the formation is when leveling at 2,000 ft) The rest of the Squad then Pulls themselves into their designated postion using throttle and flaps as necessary.... ( Flight Leader tells everybody where to position themselves before the flight) Communication is the Heart of Formation Flying... After the Squad is in formation and are all positioned properly ( The Flight Leader has to give this some time, due to the amount of e some people will have more, some less... Once the Formation Has "Settled" in otherwords is maintaining Alt and Distance by adjusting throttles The Flight Leader can begin Manuvering the formation... This is done by radio ie; FLIGHT LEADER: "Turn, 270 degrees on my mark"... (pause long enough to allow everyone to ready themselves...usually a few seconds 3 to 5) FLIGHT LEADER: "MARK".... Every one turns hard to the designated compass heading always watching and concentrating on the Nearest Plane to himself... Don't worry about the rest of the Group...Stay with your nearest plane... the two of you can adjust back into the rest of the group as needed... (Flight leader is maintaining 93% throttle remember ?) NOTE: It is best to go to level flight at a given altitude before initating a turn (Flight Leader should call this out well in advance ("Going to Level Flight at 12,000") call this out with about 1000 ft left to climb... After attaining level flight... each member of the Squad reports to the flight leader... "Level at 12"... Flight Leaders Maintains level flight for about 5 seconds Flight Leader Initiates the turn (as described above) Flight Leader checks the formation and then calls "Climb at 3 on my Mark....pause...Mark"... everyone then pulls back on the stick to a climb rate of 3... to resume the climb to bombing altitude.. usually no less than 18,000 ft... If possible reform the formation after the raid on the way back to your base for two reasons... 1. Protection from enemy attacks 2. "It looks cool as hell to see a formation returning to base and peeling off one behind the other to land" ( ha ha those are his words exactly ) they did it mostly to impress the other pilots... I will try to prepare another email describing some moves with throttle stick and rudder that he told me about... one will just about turn your P51 180 degrees on a dime... IT Works I have tried it but it will take practice... the timing has to be perfect... Salute Guys I can't wait to try this out with you guys... We would really be awsome in appearance and strike capability if we could get this down with practice... I made a graphic and have attached it to this email that illustrates the positioning that they flew in most of the time for dive bombing raids Hlnas --------------------

FLIGHT LEADER: "Turn, 270 degrees on my mark"... (pause long enough to allow everyone to ready themselves...usually a few seconds 3 to 5)