Your top three second world war planes.

DavidinSouthampton · Jul 23, 2013

rcf0712 said:
Spitfire
Bishop's Finger
Master Brew

I see what you did there. Never realised there were planes with those names - the second and third at least.

footychick · Jul 23, 2013

My grandad flew Mosquitos in WW2 but was shot down in the sea over Beachy Head

knocky1 · Jul 23, 2013

Cheshire Cat said:
Gloster Gladiator
Bristol Blenhiem
Fairey Battle

Good call on the Gloster Gladiator. A biplane used in many of the battles around the world in the 1940's. China used them against the Japanese. The Fairey Battle though was a disappointment being withdrawn from active service in the 1940's with a 50% failure rate. I like the design though.

daveinprague · Jul 23, 2013

Put the wrong clip up of the raid..when you think a lot of the pilots in our planes during the war were teenagers, and men in their early 20s makes it even more amazing. Tragic regarding the children that were also killed at the nearby school.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5WGkBf0uLE

wunt be druv · Jul 23, 2013

1. Spitfire

2.Mosquito

3.Lancaster

All closely followed by the Hurricane,P-51D Mustang,Republic Thunderbolt,Bristol Beaufighter.
No Bosche or Jap planes as they are far too foreign and flown by baddies.

vegster · Jul 23, 2013

grummitts gloves said:
My Grandad was a Hurricane pilot at Tangmere. Nothing makes a noise like a Hurricane or a Spitfire. Absolutely majestic.

That is where my late uncle was based for a while. My mother remembers hearing a noise like someone trying to break in to the family house at about 6 in the morning, it turned out it was my uncle trying to get in. He had been given a 48 hour leave at midnight and had walked from Tangmere to Mile Oak overnight.

GoldWithFalmer · Jul 23, 2013

Mosquito
Spitfire
Mustang

BRIGHT ON Q · Jul 23, 2013

Mustang
Spitfire
Lancaster

GoldWithFalmer · Jul 23, 2013

I personally class the Mustang as a British aircraft,after all we loan leased them earlier in the war,we experimented with the merlin engine in it and that engine was built under license stateside and was later fitted with the superb griffin engine,so yep the yanks owe us.

jakarta · Jul 23, 2013

Top as in best aircraft must be:

Me 262 - had the Nazis had this a year or so earlier in any volume then the Allied Bombing Campaign and the destruction of the Luftwaffe could well have been seriously derailed which combined with their Atomic Bomb aspirations....

thankfully it didn't happen

Hawker Tempest - read a book authored by Roland Beaumont (Tempest over Europe) who was aside from being a Fighter Pilot was also a post war Hawker Test pilot and flew all of the contemporary Allied and captured German types - he clearly regards this aircraft as the finest piston-engined fighter of WW2

Avro Lancaster - could and did carry far more payload than the B17's and B24's, also was capable of precision attacks such as the Dambuster and sinking of the Tirpitz raids

Honourable mention to the P51 Mustang - probably the best overall fighter aircraft of WW11, the one that broke the Luftwaffe in 1944 and therefore won the war?