Hello all, here is today's article posted on TheArmoryLife.com. It is titled “Junkers Ju 87 Stuka Dive Bomber — Nazi Terror Weapon” and can be found at https://www.thearmorylife.com/junkers-ju-87-stuka-dive-bomber/.
Junkers Ju 87 Stuka Dive Bomber — Nazi Terror Weapon
- Thread starter Mike H.
- Start date
Belt Fed
Hellcat
I had one of those as a kid that you flew around on a string. had a small engine in it. looked pretty neat but it didn't do well at flying then either. lol or maybe i got dizzy and crashed it.
The Night Rider
Professional
Snake45
Professional
BET7
Ronin
Man, that’s hilarious. I had the same plane with string, and had the same “crashing” experience. I didn’t get dizzy, but thought the length of string was too short, because it was always faster than my reactions. It’s going too high, I bring it down, now it’s going towards the ground too fast, bringing it up its well over my head, try bringing it down and it crashes into pieces smacking the ground
. It always snapped back together ok, but after that I just hung it from my bedroom ceiling. I loved the look of that aircraft.
Recusant
Hellcat
In the late 1990’s I taught middle school English, and as part of the curriculum my classes read The Diary of Ann Frank. I bought some WWII era German documents that civilians would have had to have at this time to travel about for my students to understand what a tight grip the Nazi’s had on civilian travel. Years later I googled the names on these documents and was shocked to find that I had a Reisepass that belonged to a young man that would become a famous Luftwaffe pilot who would earn a Knight’s Cross. Werner Roell (8 February 1914 – 10 May 2008) was a highly decorated Major in the Luftwaffe during WWII as a Stuka pilot. He was also a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross which was awarded to recognize extreme battlefield bravery or successful military leadership. If you'd like you can click here to listen to an oral history recording where Werner Roell tells his story in his own words, or you can read more: https://falkeeins.blogspot.com/2020/02/maj-werner-roell-french-born-stuka-ace.html
Snake45
Professional
Well, the SBD is generally credited for turning the tide of the war in the Pacific at Midway, so there's that.
Speaking of the SBD, I had the Cox .049-powered control line SBD, from the same series as Belt Fed's Stuka. Well, it was "mine" in name only; I never got to fly it. Dad never thought I was "old enough to handle it," so he flew it the few times it was actually used. He was bigger than me at the time, so I couldn't argue with him about it.
ETA: Looking for an image of it, found out it wasn't a Cox, it was a Wen-Mac. Same basic idea, though.
Recusant
Hellcat
What's also awesome is that it ended up on a vendors table in Richmond, Va. How, I will never know. Even more surprising is that Werner Roell survived the war and lived until 2008.
I had one of those flying models in the P40 version. My dad flew it a couple revolutions and then I could see the pilot induced occultations begin…he got dizzy and then it crashed. I thought that was the coolest toy ever…Man, that’s hilarious. I had the same plane with string, and had the same “crashing” experience. I didn’t get dizzy, but thought the length of string was too short, because it was always faster than my reactions. It’s going too high, I bring it down, now it’s going towards the ground too fast, bringing it up its well over my head, try bringing it down and it crashes into pieces smacking the ground
Snake45
Professional
There were a bunch of them in that series, I think they sold for $10 or $12 or $15 at the time, a small fortune. There was the P-40, a P-51B, a T-6, a P-63, F2G Corsair, I don't even remember them all. Many of them had some "action feature" like dropping bombs or shooting rockets (P-63). They all go for BIG bucks on eBay these days.
Snake45
Professional
Back in the '70s, I succumbed to temptation and bought a Cox P-51D that had a third "control line" that controlled a simple throttle on the engine. It remains unflown to this day, and should still be new in its box, unless The Lovely Mrs. Snake threw it away while I was in the hospital with my stroke, as she did my original 1969 Chevy 15x7 Z/28 Rally Wheels, for which I STILL have not completely forgiven her....