WarBirds

by

Howard M. Fitzcharles III 

I remember it being hot that day. I had my fan on high and it was just barely doing the job as I sat in front of the PC. It didn't help that I was in the middle of an intense air combat with a friend in a nearby town with a flight simulator.  

This was a PC game or rather a flight simulator that was far more sophisticated then I had seen being used by our air guard thirty years ago when the F-4 was in use. This simulator used World War 2 fighters and bombers with amazing detail. I have a commercial pilots license with a multi engine rating, but I have never flown a WW II fighter. However, from my flying experience, I do believe the handling of these planes is fairly accurate. The only things I noticed missing were crosswinds, thermals or any weather conditions that drastically effect aircraft or the necessary added rudder during high angle of attack positions. For you non-pilots, this is a condition that occurs when a propeller is not moving squarely  through the air, like on lift-off. Regardless, it is a pure blast to fly these planes. Believe it or not, you can even get air sick flying a simulator. I love to fly the P-38L and with counter rotating props, you don't need to feed in rudder anyway. 

 As your skill progresses, you will want to test your skill flying against others. Thus the on-line dog fights. You can for a fee fly in squadrons with pilots from all over the world or just one on one via a telephone connection at no cost at all. I loved flying, but age has crept up on me and I only get rare occasions to actually fly anymore. I thought, "What harm could this be? It is fun and exiting and each time I get shot down, I just click a button and I am up again with a new plane with fresh ammo and fuel in a blink of the eye. Actually with the click of a mouse.   

I had recently bought the components to put together a current high powered PC with a high powered 3D graphics accelerator and the larger monitor, which made it even more realistic. I even had to sit back a little from the monitor so I would not get air sick with so much aerobatics necessary to dog-fight. 

Little did I know, or even imagine the events that were about to take place. In the excitement of the battle I was concentrating too intensely on the Messerschmitt 109 trying to shake me off his tail, to notice that I was too close to his base and I was receiving machinegun fire from the ground. I had the throttle set too high for such a steep dive too. The engines were screaming, (I was flying a P-38L) the whole plane was buffeting and the pinging sound of the bullets hitting the aluminum plane combined with the sweat now dripping off my face and the fan blowing on me, made it seem so real. I pulled the throttles back and slowly pulled back on the stick. A glance at the air speed indicator showed that I was going to be lucky to pull out of this.