What was the name of that new Fighter pilot show....

....You guys were talking about last night?

Show on Military channel: Air Aces

Show one about George Beurling
Show two about Douglas Bader

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Here ya go, this guy is crazy.

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Makes me want to go fly a Stuka.

I read his book many years ago.

What they don't tell you about that medal Hans Rudel received is that it was specifically designed for him by Hitler. (He had all the others.) When the war ended his squadron decided to surrender to the Americans so they flew to an American base and upon landing disabled their aircraft using a leaver that allowed them to jettison their landing gear. uh Except he didn't do that because he had smuggled his girl friend in the tail of his plane. An American solder armed with a rifle climed up on his plane, saw his medal, and tried to take it. Rudel slaped his hand away and slammed the canopy shut.

Guts right there.

No.42_Hawg wrote:

Makes me want to go fly a Stuka.

Back before Pacific Fighters, when AG-51 was IV.JG51 I loved flying the Stuka...at least until they came out with the 3.7cm gun on the Bf-110.

A funny thing regarding the medal. Another American saw the medal and aghast asked how many lives it had cost us. Rudel replied he had earned it on the eastern front. The relieved American walked away perfectly fine with that.

Yep very good book... "Stuka Pilot". I read something somewhere where they had calculated that he had killed over 40,000 enemy in combat based on his war record.

A very interesting story about his funeral too if you look it up. He was an unrepentant Nazi and very controversial after the war. Was heavily involved with helping former German Military personnel immigrate to other countries especially South America.

By the way it has been estimated that an American pilot, Robert Scott (God is My Copilot), killed around 20,000 enemy in action in the Pacific. We was an ace but was particularly deadly doing ground attacks.

I've heard of his book. Been meaning to get it for some time. Will have to do so. I believe I read somewhere that the designers of the A-10 Warthog took ideas and tactics from his book and came up with the basic characteristics of the A-10 and how it should perform. Heck, Rudel's Stuka's during Kursk and after did carry big 30mm cannon pods on the wings for tank killing. You could say that particular Stuka was the first A-10 so to speak.

I found a PDF version and started reading it the other day. I have to say so far it's not all that good. Assuming its the same version. It's a really bad translation and not well written in general. There are a few interesting spots but not a lot of detail.

I was a little disappointed.

It can't be the same. I remember a very enjoyable and smooth read with as much detail as any of the other first hand accounts I read. And back then I was reading dozens of them.