WW2 Fighter Planes

In my humble opinion, I would have to say the best allied plane would have to be the P-47 thunderbolt. The P-47 had excellent range, altitude,and armmament ( to the tune of 8 .50 caliber browning machine guns ) it was an excellent weapons platform. The P-47 could be outfitted for either ground attack roles or as a fighter for bomber support, or fighter sorties it was lethal in either role.

I believe the Germans were working on a jet-propelled fighter that was just going into production at the end of the war….I believe I saw something on in on the History Channel a while back.  It might have changed the course of some battled had it been introduced a year or two prior to that.  Anyone know more about this?

I believe the Germans were working on a jet-propelled fighter that was just going into production at the end of the war....I believe I saw something on in on the History Channel a while back.  It might have changed the course of some battled had it been introduced a year or two prior to that.  Anyone know more about this?

Messerschmidt developed the first production line jet adopted by the Luftwaffe toward the end of the war.  It is believed that the Nazis had jet technology as early as 1939 but Hitler did not believe in the reliability of the jet engine and so he didn't order any jet fighters opting instead for proven radial engine designs.  Hitler was probably not wrong in this decision because in the beginning his Stukas were vastly superior to British, French, and Russian planes.  The jet was not needed in the initial Blitzkrieg and there was no way to produce enough jets to completely eliminate the radials.  It was simply too early for the jet to become dominant, but Hitler could have produced more earlier to augment his existing inventory.  Still by war's end, Germany had more planes than pilots so it really didn't matter what propelled them since there was no one available to fly them. 😀

At first sight I fell in love with the Spitfire. I later liked the Mustang and the Yak-5 (or 3) designs.

Thank you, Omer. It's like looking at photos of my first love (the girl).

An excavation at the site of a 1941 Spitfire crash in a bog in the Irish Republic uncovered huge, remarkably preserved chunks of plane and six Browning machine guns. After 70 years buried in peat could they be made to fire?http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15652440

They can probably get the browning to fire.  They are one of the most robust machine gun designs ever, right up there with the MG42.  When I was in a HMMWV scout platoon in the early '90s we had some Browning .50cals that were over 40 years old and fired perfectly as long as the gunner made sure to double-check the headspace and timing before firing.