Favorite fighter or bomber from World War II

godofthunder9010 said:
Consider the disadvantage of being so easily outrun by your opponent: If you started to get behind the Messerschmitt Me 262, he just has to accellerate and come back at you from another angle. 120kph speed advantage is pretty big for those days. His big disadvantage ... ONLY disadvantage ... was he ran out of fuel faster.
If you were a Me 262 pilot you wouldn't go back, you would look for another more unsuspecting target.
Th advantage the me 262 had over the Allied piston aircraft was its speed, but if it tried to dogfight with them it would lose, its engines were very slow to respond and if it tried to out turn them it would just be playing into their hands.
No, the only sensible tactic for a Me 262 pilot was hit and run. ;)
just wanting to point out that most if not all Me-262 where destroyed on the ground or during landing (either by strafing allied fighters or mishaps) and none during actual head to head combat.
While the majority of Me 262 were indeed lost either landing or taking off, a sizeable amount were destroyed in air combat with allied aircraft.
Either by allied aircraft attacking from a height advantage and bouncing them, or the Me 262 pilots attempting to dog-fight with them( some of them were ex-bomber pilots who were untrained in air combat)


While the Me 262 was possibly the best fighter of WW2 (even though its engines were crap).
My favourite is the best piston engined fighter to see widespread service in Europe during WW2, the Spitfire Mk 14 8)
 
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