Octane (#11689),
..."we still don't know why our American friends call them ships! Did they do that in your time training in the US?"...
Ships of the air, I suppose. Yes, in training in 1942, we would speak of "a four-ship formation" And in the RAF, too, in Burma we had a safety poster: a wrecked aircraft with the caption:
"Landings should only finish the trip -
Not damage you, and cripple the ship !"
..."The Betty Grable bit was close to soft porn I thought, fairly outrageous for the time I think"..
. Not at all, even as far back as our distant youth, we'd given up putting frillies on table legs! No one would take offence at that - par for the course, and a favourite pin-up, was our Betty.
Scabrous story: we had in Burma a USAAC Colonel glider pilot Jackie Coogan (child film star - "The Kid", with Charlie Chaplin). Had married (inter alia) Betty: he was supposed to have greeted strangers with "
Shake the hand which held the c##k that f####d Betty Grable.".
..."After watching the P-38 training film do you reckon you could hop in one and take it for a spin?!"...
I sure as hell wouldn't try any asymmetric stuff- what a carry-on! In extremis, I would have a go (on two) - it's supposed to be like riding a bike - you never forget. I do like the little u/c and flap indicator, we had he same thing on our VVs (for u/c only, takes the place of our "Three Greens") and we had a retractible tailwheel, too (on of all aitcraft the one which needed it least).
If you haven't looked up the Vlad YouTube (Page 129, #2561 here) it's well worth a visit - the only known film clip of VVs in the air.
Cheers, Danny.