Tempest V meets Dornier 335

[warshipbuilder]

Excerpt from the book The Big Show by Pierre Clostermann (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Clostermann) This incident happened near the end of the war while the author was on patrol with his section over the Elbe at 2,500 feet.

'Look out, Filmstar Red One, aircraft four o'clock!'
'O.K. Filmstar Red, breaking starboard and climbing.'
An aircraft became visible at tree-top level, approaching rapidly. A curios one, which I couldn't identify. He only saw us at the last moment, because we were just below the cloud base, in the shadows. He broke very quickly and for a moment I had a full view of him. He was obviously a Jerry - he had black crosses on the wings - but what an odd sort of bird!
Throttle full open, I tried to cut inside his turn, bet he was astonishingly fast. Longley was better placed and fired at him, but without effect. The strange aircraft completed his turn and flew off at full speed. He really was an extraordinary customer. His tail plane was cruciform, and it looked as if had not only a normal propeller in front but on top of that a pusher propeller right in the tail, behind the rudder. His front engine was a 'in-line', with a xowling like a DB 603 in a Focke-Wulfe Ta 152C with a ring-shaped radiator;the other engine was buried in the fuselage, behind the pilot. The two long grey trails in his slipstream sowed he was using a supercharger, and the thread of white escaping from his exhausts showed he was using GM-1. I toyed with the idea of bringing my supercharger into action, but even with 3,040 h.p. we wouldn't be able to get him. We were doing nearly 500 m.p.h. and he was easily gaining on us.
I took a film of him, on the off-chance that there might be signs of jet-propulsion, but with this wan light the negative would be to under-exposed to show much. Longley kept after him for a bit, but he soon gave up. He fired one burst at extreme range, but the tracer bullets harmlessly bespattered the countryside.
'Hallo, Red Four, keep your ammo. No use shooting at the bastard.'
Back at Rheine in the I.O.'s trailer we argued over our mysterious planes identity for nearly an hour. In the end it was decided that its characteristics seemed to coincide with those of the Dornier 335, the latest German fighter. As it was the first time this type had been met on ops, I did several sketches from what I could remember for TAF HQ. I wrote a report for the Intelligence services on its probable manoeuvrability and performance.

[Texeiro]

nice reading! Nice to remember hte great Clo Clo!