Description of flying a Thphoon i WW2.

H4831

H4831

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About five years ago I was in contact with a person I knew, who had been a pilot in WW2, then went on to a career in bush flying and helicopter flying. He had flown a Typhoon aircraft in the RCAF in WW2. He sent me a couple pictures from war time of the aircraft, but I don't think I can get them onto this thread.
However, the following, written by a veteran who was there and did it, probably better illustrates a Typhoon aircraft and their pilots, better than could the picture sent me.
Here is a pasted copy of what he sent me, about three years before he passed away.


These will give you some idea of my war-time "mount".It had a Napier-Sabre 2200 hp engine which was as unreliable as you can get.Failures of the sleeve-valves and auxiliary pumps were common in the early models and resulted in a lot of deaths and injuries.Also,due to the excessive speeds generated in dive bombing and rocket attacks there were a few structural failures of the fuselage just aft the cockpit where the tail unit joined the fuselage.This was fixed in later models by 16 or so extra plates riveted around the fuselage,the engine problems were sort of solved when production of the engine was turned over to Bristol,who were the designing them for the later Tempest and Sea Fury.My best wartime buddy was killed just after finishing his tour when the engine packed up just after take-ff on a simple air test !I had one failure on take-off too,but was going slow enough to ground loop it before going off the the cliff at the end of the runway ! We did a lot of good work for the army,taking out mortar positions and tanks and artillery - sometimes we couldn't see the targets so the Army would lay down red smoke on them and we'd go after that.The "Tiffie" was not good at altitude so all of our work was done on the deck or in steep dives and we avoided dogfights if at all possible - the AAA was bad enough without some clown in a 190 trying to blow you out of the air ! I damn near got shot down by Spitfires one day,which was not that unusual,as we did resemble a FW 190 from above .I stsrted my tour with 247 in June of 1943 and finished in Holland in November of 44,then was a staff pilot at a Typhoon OTU for a few months before the war ended.The Tiffie cruised at 285 -300 but only had enough fuel for 1:30 safe with another hour with long range tanks.It also had a very bad rep among fighter pilots-in fact in 44 a call went to all the RAF for volunteers to train on the type AND NOT ONE SINGLE PILOT did the get ! SOOO the RAF press ganged all the old elementary and staff pilots and trained them anyway!!The only good thing about the Typhoon was the rugged construction and wide wheel base-it could take a lot of damage as long as the coolant lines didn' t get hit-one little bullet could could bring you down eventually,like all liquid cooled engines. I would dearly have loved to fly a Thunderbolt (P47) for that reason alone ! God.i better quit rambling . Cheers,Johnny
 
Very cool story. They weren't all winners :) The Tiffy was ahead of the curve on power, but behind the curve on technology.

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There's that row of reinforcing plates just forward of the tail... Looks like the sort of thing Mike Holmes would have fits about.

And here's a dramatic impression of the Typhoon at the office:

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And here's a piece of wartime propaganda around the Tiffy:

[youtube]Iffnw_rbB1Q[/youtube]

They had a bad enough rep with the Germans that naming the Eurofighter Typhoon was initially thought to be a bit insensitive... See this from 1998: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/163092.stm
 
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As innovative as it appeared the Sabre engine didn't make it. The Tempest and Sea Fury that were developed after the Typhoon used the Bristol Centaurus multi row radial engine instead of the "H" pattern liquid cooled format of the Sabre.

Johnny's letter about the conditions speak volumes about the conditions and thinking of the day. It also tends to confirm why the Typhoon was replaced after a rather short service life.
 
One of my school-masters [and ALL of them had been involved either in WW2 or Korea or the Malayan Emergency] had been a Typhoon pilot. After getting shot up engaging in a similar stonk to the one in the painting, and finally running out of air, he was trying desperately not to ditch - a look at that huge chin air-intake would tell you why. He crash-landed on the beach near Folkestone. The nose dug in, and he was catapulted out, leaving both legs behind from the knees down. He survived only because of the steep uphill slope of the shingle. He remained conscious long enough to put his necktie around one stump and his oxygen mask feed tube around the other one as tourniquets.

I'm sure they still make men like that these days, in fact, having been a soldier, I know they do, but he was a nineteen-year-old young man on his very first combat mission who had never been out of England before in his life until that day in 1944. He once told us that he was very glad not to have to do THAT again, especially if the damage was going to work up his legs as the crashes continued...

My math master was a Canadian, BTW, named Dickie Hoare, who did not talk about the war at all. He had a row of metalwork that would have been inpressive even today, when, sadly, an ever-increasing row or rows of medals seems to be a common sight.

tac
 
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cool story, thanks. Brings back some memories of my grandpa, he was a RAF typhoon pilot in the war as well, flew in D-day and battle of the bulge etc.
 
I had the opportunity to speak with a Typhoon pilot who lives at the Veterans Center in Sunnybrook Hospital Toronto, he loved his machine. As he was telling me about the specifications, armourments and accoutrements the plane could be outfitted with, I saw an old man revert in his mind, back to those years of his youth. He was sitting in a chair selling poppies just prior to Remembrance Day last year and as he was speaking his legs opened as though he were in that phantom cockpit, then his hand took the stick and with a glimmer in his eye, he told me about a strafing run on tanks in Holland with his 20mm cannon (he said when he opened up with them the cannons firing would actually slow the plane). The Typhoon was a real "killing machine" he said, then he paused, the gleam left his eye, his hand released the phantom stick, he turned and locked eyes with mine and said "you know, I've never called the plane that before, but that's what it was, a killer; and we were glad for it."

He never had a critical word to say about "his" Typhoon, although it was clear that he still carries over some images/emotions from the war that are just below "his" surface.

I thanked him for his service and leaving him, thought to myself that I too am "glad for it"
 
One thing amazing about the WW2 pilots, is the relatively low number of flying hours they had in the service.
For years after the war a civilian wanting to fly as pilot in command, VFR on bush type aircraft, had to have about a thousand hours, to be reasonably sure of getting the job.
But in wartime, the bomber pilots flew four engine bombers and started their tour with about 300, or maybe 350 hours of total flying time!
And they went right on as pilot in command, because the RCAF bomber crews consisted of only one pilot. No co-pilot. They had a flight engineer who helped the pilot, mainly with the engines.
Bomber pilots who completed a tour of duty might end up with about 800 hours.
Most of the fellows who took their pilot training very early in the war became instructors and never flew on duty command. They could end the war with about 3,000 hours.
 
the later british bombers were single pilot machines due to a lack of manpower, a lot of the flight engineers/navigators were pilot washouts, and could/did bring home the planes
 
"...why the Typhoon was replaced..." Mostly because it didn't perform well above 20,000 feet and the 'Pidgeons' didn't want ground attack aircraft.
"...who did not talk about the war at all..." Very few would. Or they'd talk about all the drinking and carrying on, but absolutely never about combat. Especially to somebody who wasn't there or hasn't been in combat.
"...sure they still make men like that these days..." Yep. The CF is full of 'em.
 
sunray said:
"...why the Typhoon was replaced..." Mostly because it didn't perform well above 20,000 feet and the 'Pidgeons' didn't want ground attack aircraft.
"...who did not talk about the war at all..." Very few would. Or they'd talk about all the drinking and carrying on, but absolutely never about combat. Especially to somebody who wasn't there or hasn't been in combat.
"...sure they still make men like that these days..." Yep. The CF is full of 'em.
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While I did not have service experience to share with Johnny, I had shared another, very important phase of his life and we each knew a whole host of the same people and could talk for hours about it.
That is why he opened up to me.
Something else he shared with me, was sending me a war time aerial picture of the cammouflaged air strip, which was their base. He asked if I could find it, and I couldn't!
I can't figure out how to put the picture from hia copied email, onto the thread.
 
H4831, you have to save his picture on a picture-sharing site like photobucket, and then link to the web address of that picture.

I recall reading another pilot's impression. He said that plane just had killing in it's soul; either the pilot or anything unlucky enough to be found in front of it. Didn't matter to the plane. And that powerful engine drove home the point, that it was like an enraged tiger being held back.
 
Under New Management.

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From Wikipedia:

Captured Typhoons

By 1943, with its change of role to ground attack, the Typhoon was constantly operating over enemy territory: inevitably some flyable examples were to fall into German hands.

The first Typhoon to be flown by the Luftwaffe was EJ956 SA-I of 486 (NZ) Sqn. On 23 March 1943, two aircraft flown by F/O Smith and F/S Mawson were on a "Rhubarb" over France.[nb 8] Just as they were crossing the coast at low altitude, Mawson's Typhoon was hit by light flak. He managed to belly-land in a field near Cany-Barville, but the aircraft was captured before he could destroy it. The Typhoon was repaired and test flown at Rechlin (a German equivalent to RAE Farnborough), and later served as T9+GK with "Zirkus Rosarius". EJ956 overturned and was written off during a forced landing near Meckelfeld, on 10 August 1944.[26][46]

On 14 February 1944, another Typhoon was captured and later flown in Zirkus Rosarius. JP548 of 174 Squadron, force landed after engine failure near Marigny, France; the pilot, F/O Proddow evaded capture. This Typhoon crashed at Reinsehlen on 29 July 1944, killing Feldwebel Gold.[26]

A third unidentified Typhoon (possibly an aircraft of 1 Squadron) was also thought to have been flown by the Luftwaffe.
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And although it's only just barely on topic, I thought this was a very interesting picture:

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I've done some reading about the Normandy invasion and the RAF callout for volunteers to fly Typhoons for ground attack was mentioned. The fitness of the aircraft wasn't the real issue for the lack of volunteers according to more than one source. It was the fact that by 1944 Allied air superiority was pretty much absolute and it was much safer to fly a Spitfire in a fighter role than a Typhoon in ground attack. Most fighter pilots want to engage enemy aircraft in dogfights not do the dirty and dangerous work of strafing and rocket attacks on the ground. Anti-aircraft and random small arm fire brought down more than a few Typhoons in Normandy and when an aircraft is hit at low altitude bailing out is not an option. The Typhoons did great devastation on the remains of the German Seventh Army streaming out through the Falaise Gap in August 1944. One 12TH SS VETERAN said for days the cry of Jabos!!!(Jagdbombers) sent every man running for some sort of cover.
 
Mike Webb said:
I've done some reading about the Normandy invasion and the RAF callout for volunteers to fly Typhoons for ground attack was mentioned. The fitness of the aircraft wasn't the real issue for the lack of volunteers according to more than one source. It was the fact that by 1944 Allied air superiority was pretty much absolute and it was much safer to fly a Spitfire in a fighter role than a Typhoon in ground attack. Most fighter pilots want to engage enemy aircraft in dogfights not do the dirty and dangerous work of strafing and rocket attacks on the ground. Anti-aircraft and random small arm fire brought down more than a few Typhoons in Normandy and when an aircraft is hit at low altitude bailing out is not an option. The Typhoons did great devastation on the remains of the German Seventh Army streaming out through the Falaise Gap in August 1944. One 12TH SS VETERAN said for days the cry of Jabos!!!(Jagdbombers) sent every man running for some sort of cover.
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So bloody true & this theory holds up to this day IMHO. Notice the Aviano commitments in support of NATO peacemaking duties in the Former Yugoslavia finally ending in year 2000-2001, then a lllooonnggg absence of overseas NATO CF-188 Hornet commitments. And the sudden commitment to Operation Unified Protector 2011 to help depose the regime in Libya.
The word is out, main operating bases for Canadian fighter jets or nothing.
The gentlemen don't like getting thier flight gear muddy on the way to the mess hall and they would rather not flee to a bunker during rocket attacks from just outside the nearby wire.

my two bits only
 
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