Favorite WW2 fighter aircraft?

What's your favorite fighter aircraft? Mine is the German FW190, it's just beautiful and powerful at the same time.

 

May I ask for its brief power-plant specification and combat history ?
Thanks ....

 

Fw190 in British trials:

https://archive.org/details/TF1-3681

Translated:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/219137510/Handbuch-FW-190-A8

Spares:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/204059830/Ersatzteilliste-FW-190-D-9


BMW801:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/193682161/BMW-801-HB-C-u-D-1942

 

By powerful I also ment the armament, it matched the firepower of the Spitfire MKV, and it also corrected the dreaded problem of Me109 with it's landing gear being to close together.

 

Armament:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/182300429/Production-Line-to-Frontline-05-Focke-Wulf-190


http://www.fockewulf190.net/uk/fockewu/equipuk/armebordu.htm

 

There is a good reason it was called The Butcher Bird

 

.... its combat history ?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focke-Wulf_Fw_190_operational_history It entered combat in 1941, and flew till the end of the war.

 

If longevity of service is the measure, certainly there were aircraft longer serving than the 190.

Of course, what you are asking is personal opinion . . . looks, speed, handling, payload, all your (or anyone else's for that matter) opinion without actually being a practitioner.

Fair enough, the 190 is your favorite, no one need challenge you nor should you have to defend your choice.

Not my favorite, of course, but you are certainly entitled to yours without having to come up with some justification.

 

What's your favorite?

 

I like them blue . . . F4Fs, F6Fs, F4Us, F8Fs, that sort. Were you to pin me down, I'd probably point to the F4F. Certainly not the higher performance envelopes of the others, but good enough to get the job done and done well in some very trying times. Not to mention it kept my father alive and thus made it possible for me to play here.

 

The P 38/51 Mustang and its variants operated in the ETO, ATO or in the PTO, I am in favor of this machine.

But I've also a close look upon N1K2J Shiden Kai, since it had proved an all round performance there in PTO(closest rival was P 51d), since it was powerful with its 18 cylinder radial air-cooled power plant enabled to produce max 1625 hp at about 6000 m. Somewhere I read once that hardly 400 of this been produced (maybe the production been disrupted due to the continuous B 29 raids) and it was a good one with armored-armed-maneuverable machine.

But Machines are always required a pair of expert hands!

However, here is my favorite one with its training film :

 

I personally like the Spitfire. I believe it was used in Germany's Blitzkrieg tactics. There is not much about the plane that I like over others, I just feel it played avery important role in history.

There might certainly be better, more significant planes out there that I don't know of, but as far as I'm concerned. This plane helped get Germany far in WW2.

I could have gone more in depth, but I know more about the history of tanks than I do planes. The Spitfire is still my favorite though.

 

Aircraft Manuals:


http://aviationshoppe.com/aircraft-manuals-documents-t-12.html

 

My favorite aircraft from the era is the Japanese Mitsubishi A6M, otherwise known as the Zero. When it first appeared in 1940, the Zero could outmaneuver every airplane it encountered until 1943. That is 3 years Japanese air superiority. Later in the war they resorted to suicide bombings( Kamikaze) and strapped 250 kg bombs to these machines and rammed them in enemy ships/bases.(Pearl Harbor)

 

My favorite aircraft of world war II was the Me-163 Komet, it wasn't the most successful of aircraft, but it was revolutionary for its time. It did have a great armament of 2 x 30mm MK108 cannons, and they fired at 60 rounds per minute. The 30mm cannons on the Komet did rip up the bomber formations, but the Komet couldn't stick around for long, and had many problems with it.

 

My favorite would be the German jet ME-262.
It was ahead of its time, and being faster than all of the other aircraft in the sky at the time. They were greatly outnumbered on all battlefields, but they managed to shot down several times their own downed numbers. If the Germans could start the mass production earlier(if wasn't for Hitler's delay by insisting on making it a bomber), they might be able to turn the tide of the war.

Zeros were maneuverable because they were extremely light due to there is no armor on them. They were in fact extremely vulnerable to enemy fire, and extremely easy to blow up on the slightest hit lol.

Once the Hellcat was out, those Zero pilots suddenly found out the enemy aircraft were almost as maneuverable as theirs while being much more heavily armored (resist to enemy fire).