Curval wrote:I was wondering about the drop tanks too...generally they cause alot of drag and "should" be dropped immediately upon engaging an enemy aircraft.
There could be one possible reason for keeping it though....if the Japanese pilot pictured had bounced the Corsair from a long way above he could be using the drop tanks to avoid "compressing" his aircraft. Compression occurs when the plane is travelling so fast that the pressure on the control surfaces renders them inoperable. The tanks could be used to slow the Japanese plane in his dive to avoid this, and also it appears that he is swinging in behind the Corsair to finnish him off, which would be difficult if he was extremley fast (he would potentailly overshoot)...the tanks would slow him down and enable him to get right on the F4s six o'clock.
Just my $0.02
Good point, although it’s more suitable for Spitfire or Fw-190, but it was Zero, fighter with amazingly poor dive characteristics. With drop tank or without, Zero dives slowly. And I doubt that Zero pilots were sacrificing level speed to gain speed in dive. I can’t image a situation when Zero could be too fast in combat with Corsairs. IJN used different tactics based on Zero maneuverability, they didn’t have a luxury to boom’n’zoom.
btw they were always swinging on 6 o’clock, Zero didn’t have enough firepower to shoot from any position, pilots were trying to hit engine from above or to kill enemy pilot.
Very nice work!
