Conversation Piece
Over a British airfield, Lieut. Ralph Johnson found he could get only one land--ing wheel of his P47 down; a machine-gun bullet from a German fighter had jammed the other. He went back upstairs to think it over, and Lieut. Colonel Hubert Zemke flew up beside him to see what the trouble was. Their radio conversation, recorded in the field control room:
Zemke: Have you tried to shake it down?
Johnson: Yes.
Zemke: Get way up and try again. If you can't shake it down, you'll have to jump. Be careful. Put your landing gear handle in down position, do a bank on the left wing and snap it over to the right. Let me get a little ahead.
Johnson: Okay.
Zemke: That hasn't done it. Do some violent weaving back & forth.
Johnson: Sir, my landing gear handle is stuck.
Zemke: Is it stuck down?
Johnson: Yes, sir.
Zemke: Let's go upstairs. Follow me. . . . Do you want to try one wheel?
Johnson: I certainly do. sir.
Zemke: Let me take a good look at you. . . . You don't have any flaps and you'll need plenty of field.
Johnson: Whatever you say, sir.
Zemke: Better bail out. How much gas have you got?
Johnson: About 30 gallons. . . . That fellow didn't do a very good job of gunning on me.
Zemke: I'm afraid of a landing.
Johnson: You aren't half as scared as I am, sir.
Zemke: It's not so bad. [To station]: His plane is in bad shape. I'm going to have him bail out northeast of --. [To Johnson]: We'll go up to 10,000 feet. Be sure you hold your legs together when you go over, and count ten. Try shaking it once more.
Johnson: Yes, sir.
Zemke: You don't have to sir me up here. Head her out to sea.
Johnson: Yes, sir. Is it okay now?
Zemke: Open up the canopy.
Johnson: It is open, sir. It's been open for a long time.
Zemke: Okay, mighty fine. The crate is heading out to sea.
Johnson turned his plane over, flipped out, parachuted safely to the ground. The P47 dived harmlessly, disappeared in a great splash of sea water.
Supercharged Milk Bottle
There is no "world's best fighter plane." A mediocre low-altitude pursuit ship can give short shrift to a crack medium fighter caught hedgehopping. But for nailing enemy bombers and escorting friendly ones at really high altitudes (25,000 to 40,000 ft.), it looks as if the U.S. can now claim the title. So say the pilots who fly the Thunderbolt (P-47).
Thunderbolts have been in action only three months. But in that time they have made 5,238 operational sorties, in fighter sweeps and escorting high-flying Fortresses over France and the Low Countries. Their records have led Major General Ira Eaker, commander of the Eighth Air Force, to boast that the Army now has an airplane which can outfight the Focke-Wulf 190, top German high-altitude fighter.
Slow Starter. The Thunderbolt was a long time getting there. Production bogged in sloughs of tail flutters, engine imperfections, radio quirks, troubles with the turbosupercharger that, with 62 ft. of aluminum air ducts, crams the belly of the ship. The plane now creeping into R.A.F.-Eighth Air Force communiques is the fourth model. It looks something like a huge,* streamlined milk bottle. It is half as heavy as a loaded 21-passenger transport, is armed with eight .50-calibre machine guns, is heavily armor-plated, is powered with a 2,000-h.p. Ford-built Pratt & Whitney engine.
Training Thunderbolt pilots is tricky business--one reason why the plane was delayed in reaching combat. There is no room for an instructor in the cockpit. The pilot is on his own in mastering speeds of 420-plus m.p.h., learning how to pull out of 680-m.p.h. power dives that can hurtle the P47 to safety when its ammunition is exhausted. In early days, many a student pilot forgot that a Thunderbolt can dive a mile in six screeching seconds, needs thousands of feet for the simplest maneuvers.
More to Come. Although the P47 is now being turned out in quantity, the plane still has a long way to fly before the Army will be wholly satisfied. That is one reason why other theaters have yet to report the Thunderbolt in action. It is not as good at dog-fighting as the Spitfire IX, its range is limited, its rate of climb is slow. But engineers are already eying the huge air-cooled motor for an added 300- 400 h.p., to get both faster climb and top speeds not far below 500 m.p.h. If that happens, says one British expert on both planes and understatement, the result will be "quite startling."
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