Aircraft Trivia Quiz

wdolson2 wrote:

T_Terrific wrote: Well if that means it is my turn, as most of you know, I prefer to "keep it simple". Which aircraft is considered to be the world's first stratigic bomber? Tom T The B-17 was the first in the west.  The Russians had one that predated the B-17, but I can't recall it's designation right off.  I can see it in my mind's eye though.  Ugly thing. I believe they had some experiments with it using parasitic fighters, which made an even weirder arrangement. Bill

T_Terrific wrote:

Well if that means it is my turn, as most of you know, I prefer to "keep it simple". Which aircraft is considered to be the world's first stratigic bomber? Tom T The B-17 was the first in the west.  The Russians had one that predated the B-17, but I can't recall it's designation right off.  I can see it in my mind's eye though.  Ugly thing. I believe they had some experiments with it using parasitic fighters, which made an even weirder arrangement. Bill

Well if that means it is my turn, as most of you know, I prefer to "keep it simple".

Which aircraft is considered to be the world's first stratigic bomber?

Tom T

Hey Matt, I woud guess it would be one of these:

MC. 200, or Regianne Re.2000 Falco?

Matt90 wrote:

Was it the very obscure Piaggio P.108 with a 105 mm cannon? Had to dig deep for that one, found my "Aviation Records" book after about 20 minutes of looking.

You got it. If I had made it too easy there would have been no fun to it. Your turn now.

For those wanting more info on the Piaggio here is a link. Just scroll down a bit and it will appear.

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/weapons/q0174.shtml

Sorry but none of the aircraft mentioned is the one I am referring to. Also; my question does not require the aircraft to have seen combat just have the largest calibre gun fitted during WW2. I was suprised by the answer but have found mutiple references to confirm it.

Sorry it took me so long to get back to this. Work has a bad habit of interfering with my pleasures.

In response to the last question. The He 177 at one point had a 88mm gun mounted in the gondola and plans were afoot to place a 120mm (going from memory here, I know it was larger than the 88) in the gondola. I don't recall if it was used operationally or not, but it was planned to use it for ship busting.

The main problem with this thread is that if you get the answer right; you have to come up with another question. So hard.

OK, here is mine. What was the largest calibre gun fitted to a plane during the Second World War?

Best of luck.

Dave Ross

I apreciate your usual insightful input, Bill.

This time Dravos got it

This was an unusual factoid I gleened from a new book I just got publishing the previously classified plans and illustrations of WWII from all players, titled "Graphic War".

Obviously this figure does not reflect total tonneage, as I believe that honor might have actually gone to the later SB-2C Curtiss Helldiver, which actually sank more then the Dauntless near the end of WWII.

Give us a nice one Dravos!

  Tom T

T_Terrific wrote:

You fellas need a hint or two. This single aircraft actually sank more ships than any other in history. The aircraft was not American. This was a single-engine aircraft. More hints later if this drags on.   Tom T

Kate?

The list of single engine aircraft that did sink any ships is pretty short.  I take it you mean ships and not boats, barges, and other small craft.  There were hundreds of those sunk in the Solomons alone. 

I also assume you actually mean total number of ships and not tonnage.  The Japanese sunk a lot of Allied shipping in the Far East in the first days of WW II, but most of those ships were small freighters and warships destroyers and smaller.

I would expect that US carrier planes sunk more tonnage, but a fair percentage of that tonnage would be in a few ships.  1 Yamato class battleship can displace as much as a fleet of freighters.

Bill