- 2 days ago
For educational purposes
This episode looks at developments leading up to the invasion of France, and how the P-51 Mustang and the P-47 Thunderbolt helped to change how people fought.
Featured Aircraft:
- North American P-51 Mustang
- Republic P-47 Thunderbolt
Shooting Location:
Planes of Fame Air Museum, Chino, CA
This episode looks at developments leading up to the invasion of France, and how the P-51 Mustang and the P-47 Thunderbolt helped to change how people fought.
Featured Aircraft:
- North American P-51 Mustang
- Republic P-47 Thunderbolt
Shooting Location:
Planes of Fame Air Museum, Chino, CA
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:01Hi, I'm Neil Armstrong. Join me for an adventure through time.
00:57The Air War Over Europe
00:59entered a new phase when American industry geared up for the challenge.
01:04Suddenly, a new generation of fighters took to the sky,
01:07and Americans quickly entered the competition for the world's best fighter,
01:12one that was faster and carried more armament than anything else in the sky.
01:21With victory in North Africa,
01:23the Allies would soon find themselves battling the European Axis powers
01:28on the Italian and Russian fronts.
01:31In spite of broad defensive lines,
01:34the Germans and Italians were holding their own.
01:47To crush them, a third front was required in Western Europe.
01:53After lengthy preparations, the Allies launched Operation Overlord,
01:58the invasion of France.
02:01It began on June 6, 1944, D-Day.
02:14Air superiority was essential for the success of the invasion.
02:19The supreme Allied commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, promised his men,
02:24If you see fighting aircraft over you, they will be ours.
02:29His promise was kept.
02:35Air superiority had been hard won.
02:38Over the years leading up to the invasion,
02:41the Allies had perfected their air strategies
02:44and developed the aircraft necessary
02:46to make them one of the most formidable air powers of their day.
02:53A key part of the Allied strategy
02:55was the round-the-clock bombing of German industrial targets throughout Europe.
03:01The American B-17 Flying Fortress was used for daytime bombing.
03:06Although heavily armed with machine guns,
03:08the number of B-17 losses were appallingly high
03:12without fighter escorts.
03:28American P-47 Thunderbolts and British Spitfires
03:32were among the first escort aircraft.
03:35But their limited range did not allow them
03:37to fly far into Germany.
03:40As a consequence,
03:42bomber losses were as high as 200 planes
03:45and 2,000 men a week.
03:51The introduction of the P-38 Lightning
03:54did extend fighter escort range into central Germany.
03:58Although an improvement,
04:00even greater range was needed to reach Berlin.
04:07The answer was the P-51 Mustang.
04:11She not only flew long,
04:13but she flew well.
04:17The Mustang outperformed the German ME-109
04:21and let the Americans exercise more aggressive tactics.
04:40Another important air strategy for the Allies
04:43was perfecting air-ground coordination.
04:46With the introduction of P-51s for escort duty,
04:50P-38s and P-47s were used increasingly for ground attacks,
04:55clearing the path for soldiers down below.
05:08General George S. Patton said of the relationship between air cover and ground forces,
05:14that it was a case of love at first sight.
05:22Serendipity is often a part of great inventions,
05:25and this is true for both the P-47 and the P-51.
05:30The P-47 was originally designed as a high-altitude fighter,
05:35but earned its greatest reputation for ground support.
05:44The P-51 was used as a dive bomber for six months
05:48before its potential for high-altitude escort was discovered.
05:53As these aircraft settled into their most appropriate roles,
05:57the Allies began to gain momentum.
06:12The P-51, or Mustang as it was often affectionately called,
06:17was originally built in America for the RAF.
06:21The high-speed fighter turned out to be such an efficient aircraft
06:25that the Americans also built thousands for themselves.
06:29When it went into combat in 1943,
06:32it sealed the fate of the German Luftwaffe.
06:37In early 1940, the British government approached
06:41the president of North American Aviation, Dutch Kindelberger,
06:45with a request to produce Curtis P-40s.
06:48Dutch politely counter-offered with a proposal
06:51to deliver an all-new aircraft that would outfly the P-40.
06:55The British accepted and bet Dutch
06:58that he couldn't deliver it in 120 days.
07:02Dutch delivered his first P-51 Mustang airframe
07:06in just 117 days.
07:11It was a sleek aircraft, utilising the latest in wing designs.
07:16It carried up to eight machine guns
07:18and flew 25 miles per hour faster than the P-40.
07:24This first version was limited by its Allison engine,
07:28which worked best at altitudes below 15,000 feet.
07:31For this reason, the first P-51s were used for reconnaissance and dive bombing.
07:45In November 1942, the RAF experimented with putting a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine in the P-51,
07:52the same engine used in the Spitfire.
07:57The transformation was stunning.
08:00The Merlin added over 50 miles per hour to the Mustang,
08:04doubled its range, and made it fully operational at high altitude.
08:07This new P-51 helped change the course of the air war.
08:17For the first time, bombers could be escorted all the way to Berlin and back.
08:23The performance of the Mustang was so exceptional that new tactics evolved.
08:29No longer did fighter escorts stick with their bombers.
08:32As General Meyer of the Army Air Force put it,
08:36we did a better job at defending the bombers by getting out further away from them,
08:41where we could engage the fighters before they had a chance to get in so close.
08:48Mustangs also attacked the Luftwaffe while they were still on their runways.
08:52German air ace Adolf Galland admitted that
08:55the fatal turn in the war for the Luftwaffe
08:58was the switch from close bomber defense to the offense.
09:08One of the most impressive things about the P-51 is its mystique.
09:14Many pilots continue to restore old P-51s
09:17or to build them from prefabricated kits.
09:22Kevin Eldridge is an aviation restoration expert
09:25with the Plains of Fame Museum in California.
09:30When you think about the Mustang, it kind of has a temperamental image.
09:34One day it could run really good, the next day it might not run so good.
09:39As far as the engine goes, being a V-12 liquid cool,
09:42it's a little more temperamental than a Ray Dill engine, say, in the Corsair would be.
09:46But when she's performing, she's really good.
09:48It's nice and smooth.
10:05Flying the Mustang, one thing you've got to really keep an eye on are the engine controls,
10:09such as the coolant temperature.
10:11There's a certain degree, 121 degrees Celsius,
10:14which is the maximum the engine could run at without hurting it.
10:17And that's one thing you really have to keep an eye on.
10:19Another thing are, just like any other engine, the oil temps and oil pressures.
10:24If you see a big change in that, that means something's wrong,
10:27and you better be doing something to get down.
10:28And that means something to get down.
11:20One of the problems was pilot fatigue.
11:23They were able to stay with the bombers, be on longer missions, say eight, nine hour mission,
11:27and that really played a big part.
11:29It's really hot in the cockpit,
11:31and if you're sitting in a 120, 130 degree temperature cockpit for eight, nine hours,
11:35it really takes a toll on you.
11:37And when you came back in to land, that's where a lot of the accidents started to occur.
11:42It's great.
11:43It's very hot in the air.
11:58I've got to lay it in to land.
12:09It's the water in the air.
12:10Like many warbirds this particular P-51 was assembled from the parts of
12:15several aircraft. The airframe is part of the famous P-51 racer the Red Baron. In
12:221979 pilot Steve Hinton set a world speed record in the Red Baron for
12:27propeller driven piston powered aircraft. A record that was to stand for 10 years.
12:33Recorded speed records date back to the Wright brothers and include pilots such
12:38as Howard Hughes and Jimmy Doolin.
12:45The Plains of Fame Museum also has a P-51A. This was the model with an Allison
12:52engine that was originally delivered to the British. The museum acquired this
12:57aircraft in 1957 and eventually restored it to flying condition in 1981.
13:18Here again is pilot Kevin Eldridge. As far as handling one of these planes it's a real
13:25jewel to fly, it's light on the controls, real responsive, it's a really smooth
13:31running aircraft and you feel really snug in the cockpit so it feels like you are
13:36a part of the plane.
13:46One simple solution for a better faster fighter was to increase its power, adding
13:52hundreds or even thousands of horsepower. That idea produced the P-47, the Thunderbolt,
13:57pilot, often claimed to be the fastest fighter of the war.
14:03In June of 1940, the United States Army Air Force asked several manufacturers to develop
14:10an aircraft capable of 400 miles per hour with a 40,000 foot ceiling. Republic aircraft put
14:18their chief designer Alexander Cartvelli to work on a proposal. Cartvelli had worked with Blerio in France
14:26and Fokker Aircraft of America before joining Republic. He was already respected for his work designing the P-35.
14:36The specifications for this new aircraft were demanding. It had to be fast, in spite of the increased weight of
14:44armor plating,
14:45self-sealing fuel tanks, and eight .50 caliber machine guns.
14:54Cartvelli's solution was a solid sturdy design powered by a huge 2,000 horsepower radial engine.
15:09On May 6, 1941, when the P-47 completed its maiden flight, test pilot Lowry Brabham jumped from the cockpit
15:19and said,
15:19we've got a winner.
15:26But that was the last thing combat pilots in Britain thought when seeing their first P-47s.
15:33They were accustomed to their sleek spitfires. On the ground, the six tons of Thunderbolt didn't look promising.
15:44But in the air, it was a different story. The P-47s sped along at 420 miles per hour.
15:54On escort missions, the eight machine guns of the P-47 were very effective.
16:01It was soon discovered that the Thunderbolt had a flare for diving attacks. No German aircraft could outrun her in
16:09a dive.
16:26As P-47s were gradually replaced by P-51s for escort duty, military command put her to work as a
16:35dive bomber.
16:36Here, the P-47s came into her own as a ground attack fighter.
16:43In March of 1944, P-47s began regular attacks on transportation and communication targets in preparation for the B-Day
16:53invasion.
17:02This was a new type of aerial warfare, and pilots took an active role in developing strategy for ground attacks.
17:11Military convoys, airfields, tank columns, bridges and trains were common targets.
17:26After D-Day, the Thunderbolt found a new role in coordinated air-ground attack.
17:32Experience in North Africa had proven the value of close air support for ground troops.
17:37As Allied forces made their way through France and into Germany, the Thunderbolt fought at treetop level,
17:45clearing military obstacles for foot soldiers and friendly tank columns.
18:01The Thunderbolt was famous for the amount of punishment it could absorb.
18:05Damage that would destroy other aircraft didn't stop the P-47.
18:12On one escort mission, Ace Robert S. Johnson's P-47 absorbed twenty-one hits from twenty-millimeter cannon fire
18:20and a hundred machine gun rounds before returning safely.
18:26Thanks to Cartvelli's design, the P-47 could be modified for a variety of tasks.
18:32In all, twenty-two modifications were made over the course of the war.
18:38The M version was a high-speed, low-altitude interceptor designed to destroy German V-1 buzzbombs.
18:46And the J version was the first fighter to achieve speeds over 500 miles per hour.
18:54The P-47 was one of the first true multi-role fighters, performing as well on the deck as in
19:01the stratosphere.
19:07Like most World War II aircraft, only a few P-47s are in flying condition today.
19:14Here in the cockpit of a Planes of Fame P-47 is racing pilot Steve Hinton.
19:20The P-47 always brought its guy home.
19:23Looking in the history books and talking to the pilots that flew him,
19:26you know, it could sustain a lot of damage.
19:28I've seen pictures of these things with the propeller blades bent,
19:32you know, the airplane flying through trees.
19:34You know, they used it for a lot of ground attack towards the end of the war.
19:36When the Mustangs and some of the other airplanes fulfilled the fighter escort role better,
19:42they put the Thunderbolts to the ground strafing role.
19:44And with that big air-cooled engine and the armor plate the airplane had,
19:48the big eight machine guns, I mean, it was a real formidable weapon.
19:52And it could take a lot of punishment without getting knocked down.
19:56The Thunderbolts is a pretty easy airplane to fly compared to some of the other ones.
19:59It's got a real wide landing gear.
20:02And when you touch down the track, it's nice and straight down the runway.
20:05Handling qualities in the air are real nice, has real nice control pressures.
20:08They're real even and balanced.
20:22As you can see, it's a big, beefy machine.
20:26The airplane weighs about 12,000 pounds of empty weight.
20:29It's capable of speeds at an altitude of over 400 miles an hour.
20:33It incorporated a turbo supercharger in the belly.
20:35If you look at the design of the airplane, you can see it was really built around the biggest engine
20:39that was available.
20:40And also the equipment to support it, the big turbo in the back, the intercoolers.
20:44It was really a great machine in its day.
21:33The P-47 really didn't have a lot of major problems.
21:35in this development. The biggest problem it had early on when it came out, it didn't have an inline
21:41engine. The thinking in those days, a pursuit airplane had to have an inline engine. That was
21:45what they were pushing for, but the performance numbers that the airplane generated just outdid
21:50those early requirements.
22:13The airplane is not real fast. It doesn't give you the sensation of speed like a P-51
22:18does or a Spitfire or a Bearcat or a Corsair, but it dives real good. It did really good
22:24because it was so big and had such great guns. It has eight machine guns on the thing. Pilots
22:30said it was easy to aim, easy to shoot, and also provided a lot of protection for the
22:55pilot.
22:56Weak points for the P-47 in comparison to some of the other fighters, obviously, is this
23:00airplane size. It's really big. The rate of climb, therefore, suffers, although the strong
23:07points being handles real nice, easy to fly. Obviously, it's a really balanced airplane.
23:34Well, the P-47 really is very docile in a stall, in a turn. I don't think it really has
23:40any
23:40bad qualities, different than maybe some of the other airplanes. You might say the only thing
23:46that comes to mind is the sink rate. If you were to close the throttle on landing with
23:50full flaps at a high altitude and slow down, it really comes out of the sky. But as far
23:55as an image goes, it's just a big, comfortable airplane to fly. A roomy and smooth, real
24:00running airplane.
24:10Join me again next week for first flights.
24:12.
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