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Documentary on PBS

gaetabob

Registered User
pilot
for those interested, there's a great documentary on PBS: "Warplane". It traces the evolution of the military aircraft from pre-WWI to the present. Tonight was the first installment, ending with WWII. Next week on Wednesday, they'll begin with the start of the jet age. There'll also be repeats of the first two episodes from tonight through the rest of week and early next week...
 

scotty008

Back at last
pilot
Very interesting program... seemed like it jumped around a bit, but definitely fun to watch. I especially enjoyed hearing about the evolution of airpower through WWI. Good stuff...
 

Riper Snifle

OCC 194 TBS C 03-07
Did you catch the earlier show -Secrets of the Dead? It was a recount of the dogfight between "Pug" Sutherland and Saburo Satai. They found Sutherland's F4U Wildcat on Guadalcanal and tried to piece together why he did not shoot down Satai. It was a very good program.
 

scotty008

Back at last
pilot
Saw that one too... amazing dogfight. Its pretty incredible that Satai was able to make it back.
 

thull

Well-Known Member
caught the show last night. Saburo, man. That guy was waaay hardcore..to the point that I started laughing out loud as the story was told. First he downs Pug after a seriously intense drawn out dog fight, then continues on his way and spots some more of the enemy off in the distance, decides to go after them on a solo mission and realizes after he's too close to get away that the the planes have radial gunners, decides to go in no holds barred firing like a banchee while taking heavy fire himself, takes a few planes down but also takes a bullet in the freakin head and is paralyzed half way down, makes it out of there but decides he's probably going to die so starts searching for an enemy ship to kamakazi into in a "blaze of glory" but at the last minute opts for a superhuman test of endurance and manages to fly all the way back home, with a bullet in his head blood all over his left eye and half paralyzed, then actually lands the plane (by this time I'm laughing with amazement) and manages to file a report on the whole thing before collapsing on the tarmac! Now that's a tough act to follow.
 
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