The Friday Flyby - 22 March

Oui, Mesdames et Messieurs, it's time for another "Friday Flyby". Just a couple of notes before we get started. The new logo you see above the awesome Phantom picture is something which I have designed specially for the "Friday Flyby". When you see that logo, you'll know it's an authentic Old AF Sarge Friday Flyby and not some cheap knock-off from a sweat-shop in some dirt poor 3rd World nation.

Now in that logo there are two things I want to point out. Though it is very small, the aircraft depicted is the Lockheed P-2 Neptune, in other words, one of these - 

The reason that particular aircraft is in the logo is simple and goes with the other thing I wanted to point out. Just underneath the Neptune, you may be able to just make out the text "H/T to joeh!". (I don't think you'll be able to make this out on a cell phone, unless you can zoom WAY in.) Anyway "joeh" is our own Cranky old man, who gave me the idea for the "Friday Flyby" theme. The next day I mentioned to (not necessarily your) Uncle Skip that I should include some kind of credit to Joe for the idea. This is it.

And the Neptune? Joe mentioned that his brother had been a Captain in the Navy (back in the day) and "was a navigator in a P something-something following Russian subs for probably 12 hour or more shifts". I kind of assumed (given the time frame) that it was probably the P-2 which Joe was referring to. So it's a tribute to Joe's brother as well, who is no longer with us. So that's the introduction to the new "Friday Flyby" logo along with the back story. Now onto the meat of today's post.

Now the really big news today is this:

It has been one year since I started this blog. At the time, I started out with these thoughts rolling around inside my head:

What the Hell am I thinking? A blog? Isn't that like an every-damn-day kind of thing? I must be out of my mind.

Then there was the reason I was starting. To attempt (in my very small way) to honor the memory of a friend who was no longer with us, a friend who was an amazing writer, Naval Aviator, officer, husband and Dad. (Most of you should know of whom I speak, those who don't should be able to figure it out.) So it's something I wanted to try but because of the reason for wanting to try, I didn't want it to, ya know, suck.

Well, it doesn't, as far as I know, suck. I have some very loyal readers who actually take time out of their busy days to read my sometimes unfocused and chaotic musings, ramblings and "war stories". (That's "sea stories" to my aquatic friends. And you know who you are.)

It's also, dare I say it, fun! Well, it can be. Sometimes these posts seem to write themselves. I get a certain spark or idea and then it just starts to flow. But there are those posts which started well, yet linger still in that half-world of the draft post. Still around but sitting there, waiting. Waiting to perhaps one day be completed and published. Or, perhaps given up on and deleted. (I don't do that much, maybe twice in the entire 12 months I've been doing this. I don't like throwing things away. Ask my wife or take a look at my computer room.)

The writing seems to come fairly easily when that creative spark is there. And it doesn't take much to get the creative "juices" flowing. Sometimes it's provided by my accomplices fellow bloggers. They'll write about something, something which lends itself to copying and expanding upon and I'll do so. Posts like this and this are examples of that.

And totally off topic and completely out of the blue - a little something, hand selected by me, for Virgil Xenophon (old Phantom jock and Friend of the Blog)...

497th Tactical Fighter Squadron 8 December 1965 – 16 September 1974 (F-4C/D Tail Code: FP)
8th Tactical Fighter Wing
Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand
(Well it is the Friday Flyby, innit?)

So it's been one year. How about that? For those who wish to reminisce, here's the link to that very first post, one year ago today. One more thing, I just checked, this is post number 301! (Update: No it isn't. Never mind. I went a little dyslexic when I wrote this. It's actually #287, still seems kind of cool to me, but what do I know?)

My hope is that I get to keep doing this and that y'all keep reading. I'll end this post as I ended that very first post, one year ago this very day...

...to honor The Man Himself...

Here's to You Lex!

While Sarge's away....The kids will play!

Back at the dawn of time, when dinosaurs roamed and Sarge started this blog, he used to have a feature called the Friday Flyby.

Then someone got his knickers in a twist and reported him to the copyright police, so he stopped.

But, he's away from the helm stick, and I got a little bored, so we're going to do a Friday flyby redux.

This, of course, was generated by his "Out of here" post yesterday.

We'll call this first one Danse Macabre.  (You may want to click the link and get the music started before starting this video.  I thought it worked.)

Because this is indeed a Dance of Death. The F-22's ability to point its nose at anything is phenomenal. There is no way I'd want to be in that fight with him, in anything but another F-22. However, I would very much like to be outside that fight looking in and loaded with all aspect heaters (AKA Aim-9M or X). He's giving off a lot of heat and doesn't have enough energy to generate any angles to mask that heat. Whomever he's fighting is going to lose, however, the Raptor's chances of leaving that fight are minimal.

Still, it is cool to watch an airplane do a ballet.

For our second taste of Friday Flyby, we'll visit Wales to watch (and critique) a four ship of guys flying my personal favorite.

No, that preview shot is not in the actual video.  The four ship is training in some low fly airspace in Wales called the Mach Loop.  No, it is not cleared for supersonic flight (the speed of sound is called Mach 1).  This nickname is for one of the towns near the airspace named Machynlleth.  No earthly idea how that's pronounced.

These are Air to Air Eagles, F-15Cs.  One of the no-no's about flying low is to highlight your jet with sky as background.  The sky is cool, your engines are not.  Heat seeker's love that contrast.  Keeping the jet with ground as a background complicates the missiles guidance problem.

The video shows the different experience levels of the four pilots.  Theoretically, the lead is the most experienced, 3 is next, then 2 and finally 4.  You can see the difference in how they fly and keep the airplane from being highlighted.  1 does a great job, 3 is pretty good at it also.  2 is getting there, and 4 needs a wee bit more practice.

That having been said...  I wish I were there doing that.

To round out this Friday Flyby quickie, I thought I'd share some Really Low, Really Fast.

There's some classic flyby's in that one.  Loved the rain of umbrellas and such after the first pass, and got a chuckle out of the brave guy standing out there with his back to the Harrier. And #3 in the last pass...Freakin' nuts!

I can neither confirm nor deny that I have done anything like this.

But it is fun. 

The Friday Flyby - August 2015 (La Deuxième Partie) On a Sunday No Less!

Fleet Air Arm Corsair Is at NAS Quonset Point, 1943. (Source)

After some protestations from two of the peanut gallery, er I mean, Loyal Readers, about my not including their favorite aircraft in the inaugural my favorite aircraft Friday Flyby, I have, with graciousness, patience and humility (well, not so much that last one) decided to devote a my favorite aircraft post to the most magnificent and awesome Corsair.

And she is a favorite of mine!

Yes, Old NFO and Murphy, your pleas have been heard at the highest levels here at Chez Sarge, so I hereby grant your wish. (Anyone else who has a favorite aircraft which is not in this post, read that first paragraph again. No, "Hey, I don't see the P-38 in this post! That's a great aircraft!" Once again I would counsel patience. If it ain't a Corsair, or Corsair related, you will not see it in this post. FWIW, I do take requests. But not right now. Also, I did sneak a P-38 in, see the videos...)

So that first photo was an "I had no ideer" sort of thing (with the appropriate tip o' the hat to my dear departed buddy Buck). Fleet Air Arm Corsairs out at Quonset, in Little Rhody? No, really. Too cool. Apparently the Brits would train their Nasal Radiators over there and then they and their birds would ship out on escort carriers. You can read about that here.

Before we proceed, I know that this is a Sunday and the Friday Flyby is, well the name says it all, a Friday kind of thing. But I could not ignore the cries of my people begging for Corsairs. So, this is Part Two (the French bit in the title) of the Friday Flyby from Friday last. Just for Old NFO and Murph. I mean I like those guys, how could I ignore their whining pleas?

Now I've seen Corsairs in person, these guys:

This bird is at Udvar-Hazy. I feel sad that she hangs from the ceiling.

Now this beauty is at Pungo. Note the drip pans, yup she still flies!

And I've seen them in the air as well, most memorably this one at the VE Day flyover in DC back in May.

Missing Man Formation
While the P-40, Avenger and P-51 hold formation, the Corsair does the honors.

I have done Corsair posts before, including this one, dedicated solely to that mighty bird. While researching this post I ran across a few interesting sites dedicated to the Corsair:

• The Military Factory's page on the Corsair. (There's a lot of good stuff at that site!)
• F4UCorsair.com (Of course!)
• Ace Pilots website's page on the guys who flew her in combat. Specs and history. Gotta love it!

Among the other things I found while researching were a crap ton of good videos. I narrowed the field down to four, which one to choose, which one to choose...

Ah, what the heck. Here's all four!

A great aircraft, the Wiki entry on this bird is pretty good. Check it out.

So Old NFO, Murph, we good?

I love this next pic, the old showing the way forward to the new. It's also The WSO's old air wing and Big Time's current air wing, CAG-2.

Lynn Garrison in F4U-7 133693 – N693M leads Corsair IIs of VA-147, over NAS Lemoore, CA, 7 July 1967 prior to first deployment to Vietnam on USS Ranger. The A-7A "NE-300" is the aircraft of the Air Group Commander (CAG) of Attack Carrier Air Wing 2 (CVW-2)

Friday Flyby

This may(be) the first in a series of Friday posts, titled "Friday Flyby", with a big tip o' the hat to Joe over at Cranky Old Man, a fellow I read everyday. He's not as cranky as he makes himself out to be but his blog is one of my "must reads". I was looking for a Friday "theme" (see previous post) and Joe suggested the "Friday Flyby". Being an aviation enthusiast, if you will, it seems a good fit.

So I will probably (in the future) go over the week just past, hit the hi-lights and the low lights and see just what impact the "week that was" had. On me, on you, we'll see where this takes us.

Hey, what's that up there? Yup, it's an F-4 Phantom II jet aircraft in full grunt, vortices and vapors everywhere! I worked on that aircraft for 7 years, here's a picture of the chairs in my "office":

This is the back seat of the F-4. I spent probably hundreds of hours there in the days of my youth. Troubleshooting, aligning and calibrating the fire control system on this bird. Most of the things needed to do this (think switches and controls) were in the rear cockpit.

Now this is the front seat of the jet, where the nose gunner pilot sits. I've spent a number of hours (probably in the hundreds, but much less than in the back seat) here as well, working the aforementioned fire control system. About the only things we did from this seat was observe the pilot's radar display (to ensure it worked!), observed and adjusted the gun sight projected onto the combining glass above the radar scope and pull the trigger.

The trigger needed to be pulled to test the missile systems on the jet. First time I ever got to sit in an F-4 was on the ramp at Kadena Air Base, Japan (on the island of Okinawa). It was an F-4C, may have been a Wild Weasel, I cannot recall. It was a long time ago, least-wise it seems that way. If I had known that I would have a blog someday I probably would've written down the aircraft tail number. For posterity ya know.

But the point of "my first time in the jet" story is this. My sergeant (yours truly being a lowly two stripe airman at the time) was in the back seat running the BIT (Built In Test) checks while I was stowed in the front and told "don't touch anything". Normally I would've been in the back seat with my sergeant (who was supposed to train me up in all things wonderful and true as regards the care and feeding of the fire control system) squatting beside me on the left intake talking me through things.

But that day it was raining (as it is wont to do on that Pacific isle) and my sergeant wanted to check out the write up on the jet, pull parts and get back to the shop. Where it was dry. So Young AF Airman (that would be me) was stowed in the front seat, canopy closed and again told "Do NOT touch anything!"

So we're sitting there. Sarge is in the back running through his checks, Your Humble Scribe is in the front, watching the rain streaming over the canopy, the muffled roar of the Dash-60 in the background, my sergeant's muttering coming in over the headsets we're wearing, for to communicate if need be. Though my job was essentially to sit there, quietly, not touching anything.

(What's a Dash-60 you ask? It's the ground power unit we used to provide electrical power to the jet during maintenance. That's one in the next photo. The red lines indicate where the jet turbine rotors will exit the unit, should the little jet engine inside decide to disassemble itself while in use. FWIW, these things scared the living you-know-what out of me every single time I had to start one up. The first thing many sergeants will teach their young airmen is how to hook this thing to the jet and how to start it. So they don't have to.)

Anyway, there I was. Sitting in the cockpit of a jet fighter without much to do, except avoid touching anything. Of course it WAS a bit boring. So I began to daydream. My hand reaches up and takes a hold of the stick. Then, in my mind's eye, I am high over the skies of North Korea, an enemy MiG in front of me. He is yanking and banking for all he's worth but it's not enough. I am at his six o'clock position and my pipper is on him. I pull just a bit harder and increase throttle to...

"What the Hell are you doing up there Airman?"

"Uh, Sarge, I'm ah, just..."

"You're playing with the controls and making jet noises you dumbass!"

"Uh, uh..."

"It's okay, I did it the first time too. But I remembered to turn off my microphone!"

Yeah, it was embarrassing. But I still remember it, nearly 40 years ago.

Well, I guess I may also reminisce here on "Friday Flyby" from time to time. We'll just have to see how it goes. For now, I'll leave you with a song. An "old school" Air Force song which came out in the '50s for recruiting purposes. I always liked this one better than the "official" Air Force song. There's a story there, which I'll tell. Some day...

Oh, almost forgot, new banner at the top of the blog. Felt it was time for an update. The aircraft in the picture is one I've actually worked on. I believe she's now a static display at the Air Force Academy.

Static display...

Sigh.

The Friday Flyby - 29 November

Douglas C-47 Skytrain

Hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving, I know I did.

We've only returned to Joint Base Chez Sarge within the last hour. Returning from our journey North to the ancestral homeland. Had a great dinner with Mom, the Missus Herself, the Olde Vermonter, Mrs Olde Vermonter, the Young Vermonter, City Girl and of course, the Musician. I need to say that some of us were most appreciative of the Musician bringing along a very nice bottle of Port. Muito delicioso it was!

Now at this point you're probably wondering what the heck any of this has to do with the Friday Flyby. Why nothing dear reader, nothing at all. But due to the Thanksgiving holiday I almost decided to just not do a Friday Flyby this week. I know, I know, perish the thought. But while pondering all this, the words "gooney bird" popped into my head.

DC-3, C-47, the Skytrain, the Gooney Bird. Hhmm. I know, we'll do transports this week. While they're not very sexy, they are of critical importance to war fighting these days. The old saying "Amateurs study strategy, professionals study logistics." is very true.

So while this week's Flyby is somewhat abbreviated, we will pay homage to the transport aircraft. From the Skytrain to the Globemaster, they may not be sexy, but try fighting a war without them!

Ju-52 "Tante Ju"
German counterpart to the C-47

C-46 Commando
Contemporary of the C-47

C-54 Skymaster
Of Berlin Airlift Fame
(My Dad was stationed in Berlin during that event!)

C-119 "Flying Box Car"

C-124 The Original Globemaster

C-141 Starlifter
(I've flown on these a number of times.)

C-5 Galaxy

While the C-141 and C-5 look very similar, in this photo
you can see the rather distinct size difference!
The C-141 is in the foreground.
The C-5 IS the background!

Tankers are a form of transport. Much beloved of the fighter-attack community.

KC-135 Stratotanker

KC-10 Extender

Need to get somewhere for serious medical attention? They don't call her the "Nightingale" for nothing! (Think Florence Nightingale, the nurse, not the bird...)

C-9 Nightingale

The latest addition to the USAF transport family...

C-17 Globemaster III

The Navy has transports too. This one does cat shots and traps! Think critical spare parts and mail. If you've been at sea a while, then especially mail!

C-2 Greyhound, aka the COD
(Carrier Onboard Delivery)

Hhmm, methinks I'm forgetting someone. Let me think, oh yeah, just my favorite transport of all time. I've spent a lot of hours inside this bird. While not glamorous and definitely not comfortable, she'll take you there and bring you home again.

C-130 Hercules

She can play rough too!

AC-130H Spectre Gunship

Oh yeah, she can be a bada$$ when necessary!

A Day Late

There are three things I like about Fridays:

1. it's the last workday of the week,
2. preparing the Friday Flyby
3. heading over to the daily timewaster and checking out c w's latest Friday Open Road

Well, today (for those not paying attention) is Saturday. Note the title of the post. Now with these clues, you should be able to figure out what the heck I'm talking about.

Well, lately c w puts up a link to the Friday Flyby at his place and I put up a link to the Friday Open Road at my place. Note that this didn't happen on my side yesterday. I'm guessing c w put the Friday Open Road up after my bedtime, or through the mystery of the web of worldliness, I just didn't see it before I wandered off to watch Netflix.

So after all that rambling, here's that link to the Friday Open Road, a day late, yes, but still well worth your time. It's one of those Friday things I look forward to. It's something that makes be sit back, relax and say, "Ah Friday..."

Even if I am a day late!

Update: Be sure to watch the video. People having fun on surf boards and enjoying life on the beach. Those surfers are amazing!

And:
Say "Welcome Aboard" to our newest FNG, Mohave Rat, who provides us with his "two cents worth" over at his place. So everybody say "Hi" and then Mohave, you need to run down to the Class Six store and pick up some beer. I think Old NFO drank the last few in the fridge. (Keep an eye on him!)

Sorry Mohave, those are the rules, FNG buys the beer.

Damned Spammers

(Original)*

Well, it finally came to pass. I had to remove an old post from the active roster because of idiot spammers.

I had this post, written back in October of 2013, nearly 4 years ago. It was a beautiful post, a wondrous post, a post about our British and Commonwealth cousins back during the Great War. It was a post about aerial aces, it was, in short, a Friday Flyby. A series I used to do until somebody came along and claimed "Sarge used one of my pictures," to Blogger. They, not wishing to be sued, I guess, reset my post to draft status.

There had been an anonymous comment (anonymous mind you, no name, no handle, nothing, just Sumdood hiding behind the cloak of Internet Invisibility claiming that I should expect a BIG INVOICE, not a bill mind you because, heaven forfend, I allegedly used one of "his" photos. (An invoice? Seriously? How about a bill, or a rejoinder to "not use that one.") Which photo, I asked the faceless Blogger minions, hath offended the AnyMouse Faceless owner of said photograph?

Crickets. Chirping.

Then there was a later comment (again anonymous) from someone acting like it wasn't "him" who threatened me with financial disaster, with a link to an article about lawyers seizing assets and property and putting people out in the street, etc., etc. Again, anonymous. No indication of what photo (for what it's worth I did searches on each photo in that post and each yielded multiple places on the Internet where that photo was used, none attributed) was the offender. Easy, peasy, I could remove that photo (or give it proper attribution) and move on. But no, it's easier to just take stuff down and trust the anonymous complainer that "Really, it's my photo."

Oddly enough, that too was a Friday Flyby, a post about the Battle of Britain and the British and Commonwealth pilots who saved Western Civilization so that the modern goons of political correctness and hurt feelings could attempt to destroy it again in the 21st Century.

Hhmm, someone out there doesn't like the RAF methinks.

Once upon a time I used a photo which a fellow actually sent me an email about. Said, "Hey, you got that from my website, can I at least get a link?" And yes, yes, he could. Great dude, does a nice website on WWII aces. (Aces of WWII, it's linked over there on the sidebar, down at the bottom as it's a website and not a blog. Hhmm, I think I need to do some rearranging over there.) When we work together, stuff gets done, when we complain anonymously, it's 1984.

Ahem, gentlemen and ladies do not complain anonymously. Cowards do.

Anyhoo, on with today's rant. (Does the loss of that Battle of Britain post still rankle? Why yes, yes it does.)

So the Any Mouse crowd has been very active lately. Not Paul, Tennessee Budd, Alemaster, or the cuppla others who comment anonymously on current posts. You guys are fine. I know you. No, there are a bunch of spammers out there who, for some reason, think that people are reading comments in my old posts from 2 to four years ago. Seriously.

What in the name of all that is holy possesses these punk bastards to leave comments on old posts? All it really does is piss me off. I have to go into the spam filter and clear them out, with their offers to sell me Nikes and other crap, or with their hideously bad English "Hey, I'm just now finding your most extravagant blog and my cousin on my mother's side sent me here to..." - blah, blah, blah.

Then one day (Monday actually) I noticed that many of these spam comments were on that old Friday Flyby. So I renamed it by adding an X to the title, which changes the character-based URL but apparently not the numerical URL. Ya know that 123.456.789.111 stuff that computers understand.

No effect.

So I reset the post to Draft status, which means y'all can't see it. (I can use "y'all" because I grew up in the south. South Vermont to be precise. No? It doesn't work that way? Why bless your heart...)

Spam comments are way down now. Almost non-existent. (I've had one since I took the post down.)

But still, it pisses me off. Damned spammers, it's why we can't have nice things.

Here's what I'd like to do to spammers, all of 'em...

via GIPHY

Does that make me a bad person?




* With apologies to Willie and Joe.

Repeat Please...

Hawker Hurricane at RAF Uxbridge
Painted as Witold Urbanowicz's aircraft of 303 Squadron
(Source)

Labor Day weekend, the summer is winding down, I'm playing the "carefree" bachelor as The Missus Herself is forward deployed to California to mind the bairns while Big Time and The WSO head off to Tailhook '17.

As I'm also on this 303 Squadron kick to commemorate the start of WWII 78 years ago, I thought I would share this old Friday Flyby from three years ago. Yes, it's about the Poles and yes, I was rather happy with the way that particular Friday Flyby turned out. The Battle of Britain was an important milestone in the war, it deflected Hitler and his thugs to the East, where the Russians tore them apart. The West survived and survives still. If only barely.

When you see a Pole, thank them. They may save us again someday. I believe that the spiritual descendants of King Jan would love to pitch into the heathens again.

Jan III Sobieski
King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania
(Source)

Guess where I got the title of this Sunday re-run from?

Hurricanes of No. 303 ("Kościuszko") Polish Fighter Squadron
303 Dywizjon Myśliwski "Warszawski im. Tadeusza Kościuszki"

It seems that yesterday's post has left me in a Polish frame of mind. So to speak. Besides which, the fame of No. 303 Squadron lends itself naturally to my "series within a series" of Famous Aviation Units (as part of the Friday Flyby).

The Royal Air Force (RAF) Museum's website has this to say about No. 303 Squadron:

The Poles were keen to fight but the RAF would not at first let them fly operationally. This was because few of the exiles spoke English and there was concern about their morale. What the British did not yet realise was that many of the Poles were excellent pilots. Having come through the Polish and French Campaigns, they had more combat experience than most of their British comrades and they employed superior tactics.

As the Battle of Britain wore on, and the shortage of trained pilots became critical, the exiles were accepted into RAF squadrons and two Polish fighter units, Nos. 302 and 303 Squadrons, were formed. Once committed to action, the Poles flew and fought superbly, shooting down 203 enemy aircraft for the loss of 29 pilots killed. No. 303 Squadron became the most successful Fighter Command unit in the Battle, shooting down 126 German machines in only 42 days. Czech Sergeant Josef Frantisek, also of '303', was the top scoring pilot with 17 confirmed victories.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, who led Fighter Command, would later write:

"Had it not been for the magnificent material contributed by the Polish squadrons and their unsurpassed gallantry, I hesitate to say that the outcome of the Battle would have been the same."

Air Chief Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding
Commander of RAF Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain

In the same vein, RAF Uxbridge, which was the headquarters for No. 11 Group of Fighter Command which was responsible for the aerial defence of London and the south-east of England during the Battle of Britain has this as one of it's static displays -

Hurricane of No. 303 Squadron

You can tell this is a Polish aircraft by the Szachownica z kirem (chessboard with a pall) insignia on the nose of the aircraft just under the exhaust stacks.

Szachownica z kirem

Of course, there is this wonderful scene from the film Battle of Britain...

I think I have seen this movie 20 times and that is one of my favorite scenes!

Undaunted by Odds
by Robert Taylor

RAF fighter squadrons all had a distinctive 2-letter code painted on the side of the aircraft, No. 303 Squadron's code was "RF". The third letter on the side was the letter code for the individual aircraft within the squadron.

Squadron Leader Witold Urbanowicz's Hurricane MkI of 303 Sqn during a combat over Beachy Head in the summer of 1940 -

CHANNEL
by Piotr Górka

No. 303 Squadron Spitfire Mk.Vb RF D of S/Ldr Jan Zumbach with Donald Duck nose art.

No. 303 Squadron was one of 16 Polish squadrons in the RAF, No. 303 was the highest scoring RAF squadron during the Battle of Britain. Here are some squadron statistics for WWII.

No. 303 Squadron downed 126 German aircraft ("Adolf's") during the Battle of Britain.

No. 303 squadron pilots in 1940. From left: P/O Ferić, F/Lt Kent, F/O Grzeszczak, P/O Radomski,
P/O Zumbach, P/O Łukuciewski, F/O Henneberg, Sgt. Rogowski, Sgt. Szaposznikow.

F/O Bronisław Kłosin holding an aerial gunnery contest award, on the left side of him, Flt Lt Bieńkowski, on the right side Flt Lt Zumbach.

Some of the high scorers of No. 303 Squadron were:

• Squadron Leader R G Kellett DSO DFC, Original CO of 303 Sqn during the Battle of Britain, (five claims)
• Flight Lieutenant John A. Kent, Canadian Flight commander during the Battle, (11 claims)
• Sgt Josef František, Czech pilot flying with 303 Polish Squadron, was one of the top fighter pilots of the Battle of Britain, with 17 confirmed kills.
• Flying Officer Witold Urbanowicz, Polish commander of 303 Squadron from 5 September 1940, scored 15 kills during the Battle of Britain (17 or 19 + 1 + 0 total)
• Pilot Officer Jan Zumbach, commander of 303 Squadron from 19 May 1942, scored 8 kills during the Battle of Britain (12 1/3 + 5 + 1 total)

Sgt Josef František

Flying Officer Witold Urbanowicz

Pilot Officer Jan Zumbach

P/O Zumbach's Spitfire
The last thing you'd want to see on your Six, if you were German in 1940!

King George VI visited the unit during the Battle of Britain on September 26.

In that photo above, just to the left of the King, partly visible is S/Ldr Urbanowicz, who took over after S/Ldr Krasnodebski was wounded. Presenting pilots is S/Ldr Kellet. The King shakes hand with P/O Januszewicz, on who's his right has P/O Henneberg, F/O Cebrzynski and F/O Paszkiewicz. To the left of Januszewicz are: P/O Grzeszczak, P/O Zumbach and P/O Feric. (Source)

That source linked above is an excellent website dedicated to No. 303 Squadron during the Battle of Britain. They start with this -

It must be said, that before the two Polish squadrons and one Czech entered the battle, the British Command regarded their Slavic allies as inferior pilots to their own, with broken morale, hindered by language incapability. Except for the language they were completely wrong.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you No. 303 Squadron of the Royal Air Force - 303 Dywizjon Myśliwski "Warszawski im. Tadeusza Kościuszki".

Dobra robota!

Repeat please...
Proszę powtórzyć