Trey Carroll wrote:
I'm thinking the next 'Stang to come out of Midwest Aero Restorations would look kick-butt pained as "Down For Double".
Isn't that a great scheme? First time I saw it, I immediately envisioned about 3 or 4 paintings ...
Ah, darn need for sleep!!
And look at that close up of that young jock sitting there with all those swastikas on the side of his kite ... always amazes me thinking about all those young college-age (some barely) kids and what they accomplished.
I am a "casual fan" of the WWI era, and I'm probably overgeneralizing, but from what I gather the "farm boy turned fighter ace and bomber pilot" was more of a WWII thing than WWI. American fighter pilots in the "first unpleasantness" were more a case of college studs looking for adventure, rather than the "kid down the street" types that manned these cockpits in WWII.
Slinging only slightly off topic, read "Donald's Story", by Sandy Merrill. Don Emerson (4th FG P-51 pilot, KIA 12/25/44), to me, typified the young kid who ended up at the tip of the spear back then. Sandy is Don's niece, and she had access to all the family history, et al, plus all of Don's letters home from Day 1 of his training to near the end, just after returning to Debden for his second tour. Highly, highly recommended.
Wade