WIX Archives

Absolutely!

Posted by Rob Mears on Wed Jun 05, 2002 03:00:34 PM

In reply top Do you ever wonder...... posted by Karen on Wed Jun 05, 2002 08:00:50 AM

I believe vintage WWII-era aircraft will always be the aircraft that define people's understanding of ultimate man-to-man aerial warfare. They populated that last moment in history when men could still look each other in the eye as they fought for that winning angle of attack that would see their aerial opponents weighed and defeated. They also best symbolize the industrial revolution as it pertained to aircraft. They are the original product of that time when hundreds of thousands of machines were produced by hand over a period spanning less than a decade in order to gain victory the greatest war the world has ever known - domination of the skies being the prime key to that victory. There will never again be a war that captures the human factor of aerial warfare the way WWII did, and these were the vehicles that carried countless heroes around the world and into battle. History is completely inundated with heroic accounts from WWII of gallantry and bravery in the face of deadly challenge in the air. In the new age of computer aided composite construction, pilotless fighters, and virtual combat I can't imagine a future conflict that could yield the degree of direct personal understanding of aerial combat like the piston engined aircraft of the 20th Century. Every child at some point in time puts himself into the cockpit and throws himself into the boundless realms of his imagination against an opponent. Nothing better suits that animated fascination than a smoke belching, oil leaking, tracer spitting, 2000-horsepower prop-driven, metal steed! I'll take a sweat and fuel soaked cockpit any day over the sterile reward afforded by watching a blip disappear on a radar screen as a missile finds it mark five miles away. Warbirds have fought for and succeeded at winning a timeless place in the heart of mankind.

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