The winner is....
INSIGHT! With
13 correct, and
10 bonus answers (including the flubbed NRA one) correct! Congrats! I'm amazed at how many you got, a few were almost word for word from my old 'about me' page on my website- which I thought (and hoped) was gone... ??? where the HELL did you find that? - :laugh:
For a valiant effort, TKOEPP will recieve cigars for each bonus question he got right... 9 (also including the flubbed NRA one). Tim got 11.5 questions right (man, I
WISH I could get a flight in a F4F Wildcat...you got the B-17 right but missed wth the Wildcat - that's the .5 question)
(On the really subjective question #12, my book collection, I went with who was closest - TKOEPP)
I'll have DC numbers tomorrow.
Ok... I know this is a hard contest, with some answers that can only be gotten by guessing. But my reason for this was to try and make a few guys research this and learn some things about WWII Aviation. It played a huge roll in WWII, and has started to fall by the wayside... very little is taught about it in schools anymore. Sad, too... WWII was a pivotal time in history. And one of my biggest gripes is that kids look up to sports players as heroes, and they get paid
millions. And yet very few would give that up for going to war - like Pat Tillman did. </rant off>
So here are the answers.
1) What is my favorite WWII airplane? (bonus cigar - which variant?)
Chance-Vought F4U Corsair. As a kid I remember watching
Baa Baa Black Sheep and thinking that plane was soooo cool. Favorite Variant? -1C due to the 4 devastating 20mm cannons. (A blast to fly online).
2) How many Medal Of Honor pilots have I met? (bonus cigar for EACH pilot named)
Four (4) -
Joe Foss,
Jefferson DeBlanc,
James Swett,
Robert Galer - all USMC Aces in the Grumman F4F Wildcat, a huge feat since the Wildcat was totally outclassed by the Japanese Zero except in firepower and ruggedness.
3) I work with the grandson of a famous WWII pilot- who is the pilot? (hint... grandson is Eric Taylor) and why was he famous? Lt. Ken Taylor was one of two pilots that got their P-40 fighters off the ground and attacked the Japanese at Pearl Harbor - he shot down 4 enemy planes. The other pilot was George Welch. Sadly, Ken Taylor just passed away a few weeks ago. But I was able to meet him when his grandson brought him by the firestation I work at to talk to me.
4) What WWII flight sim do I fly online?
UbiSoft's
IL2 Sturmovik series - everything you would ever want in a WWII combat flight sim.
5) What is the maneuver or technique I am known for online with my group of friends? (hint- bombing technique that is hard to do) Skip Bombing(<- LINKY ALERT!), but I'll accept Bounce Bombing or DamBusting since they are the fore runner to this method and my hint alluded to it... it's really tough to do - drop too soon and the bomb sinks- too late and it'll go over the target or explode above a waterline.
6) What WWII era planes have I really flown in, in real life? (bonus cigar for EACH city named in which I flew them in - there's 2) B-17 'Nine-o-Nine' in
Seattle,
B-24 'Dragon and his Tail' in
Anchorage. (for anyone wondering about the hint 'ragged' and 'irregular' refers to the 91st Bomb Group, the 'Ragged Irregulars' in which the B-17 'Nine-o-Nine' was assigned to.)
7) I am a member of the American Fighter Aces Association - how many yearly reunions have I been to? 7
8) What has been my function at the last few reunions? Bartender... best job there since everyone comes to me for a drink. Met more pilots and hear more stories doing that...
9) What was the reason for my trips to Germany, and how many times did I go? I was the invited guest to
attend the annual reunion of the Gemeinschaft der Jagdflieger, the German Fighter Pilots Association. I wrote to a number of Luftwaffe pilots and one invited me to attend with him as his guest. I ended up going two years in a row. We also drove around Germany meeting other WWII fighter pilots that he knew, for 2 weeks each trip. I'll accept Luftwaffe reunion or German Fighter pilots reunion (or gathering...)
10) What NRA president(s) did I meet at an AFAA reunion? (bonus cigar for the name or even the initials of the local ALASKAN past VICE-president of the NRA I met) Charleton Heston,
Joe Foss and
Wayne Anthony Ross(WAR) from Alaska- a
VICE-president (my bad). Mr. Heston was a gunner in the Aleutian campaign aboard B-24 bombers and was the guest speaker one year. Mr. Foss was a member of the Aces association and attended reunions. Mr. Ross was a guest of Joe Foss one year as Foss was helping him campaign for Alaska governor (he didn't win)
11) My wife's cat is named for a manufacturer of WWII airplanes- what is his name? Grumman Aircraft Corporation produced Navy and Marine planes in WWII - all named with cats- Wildcat, Hellcat, Tigercat, Bearcat... so his name is
Grumman (and he
is a hellcat)
12) How many books are in my WWII aviation collection? (bonus cigar is you can number how many are signed by pilots, even a BALLPARK percentage) my book collection runs
495 books- of which 376 are signed (
76%)
13) Why did I start my website, and what is the address? 2 reasons, really- and I'll accept either. First was I started playing a flight sim in 1992- Dynamix's Aces of the Pacific. The manual was huge (not like games today) and was filled with technical info, pilot interviews, etc. I read more and more, and wanted to find out all I could. But there was no real great source of info to be found. So I started collecting books and that lead to starting the website once the Internet got in full swing. the other reason is I looked at my nephews history book and there was very little info on WWII - everything was more current events.I didn't think that was right since there was a huge stake in winning WWII, and since my interest was with aviation, I focused my site on that. I wanted to help keep the memory alive and teach people about what happened in the air war.My site is
http://www.web-birds.com
14) I met Charles 'Chuck' Older of the Flying Tigers fame. He made 'Ace' with more than 5 Japanese kills. What was his other, more commonly known, claim to fame? He was the judge that presided over the Charles Manson trial - he liked coming to the Aces reunion because he'd rather talk about planes that Manson, or so he told me!
15) SUPER EXTRA CREDIT (2 cigars per correct answer): My wifes father was a friend to 2 WWII famous people... who were they?(HINT: one was a Flying Tiger, one was a Dooolittle Raider - be careful, they may not have been Americans!) My father-in-law worked at GE, in the aviation engine area. He worked alongside 2 WWII vets, that were rather interesting and unusual. one was
Tung Sheng Liu, the other was
Gerhard Neumann. Liu was a 24yo Chinese man that spoke english, and assisted the Doolittle Raiders escape after they crash landed after their raid on Japan. In doing so he risked his life and that of his family - the Japanese reportedly killed more than 250,000 Chinese in the area as suspected helpers of the American crews. He came to America and finished his schooling and became an American Citizen. He has attended every Doolitle Runion. Neumann was a German national that was stranded in Hong Kong at the outbreak of WWII. Fogotten by Germany, he joined Chennault's Flying Tigers as a mechanic and was instrumental in rebuilding a crashed Japanese Zero to flying condition, for flight testing and evaluation of it's flying abilities and weaknesses which was a HUGE break for the American pilots as it helped to show them how they could defeat the Zero in a fight. After an AMAZING trip across Asia in a surplus military Jeep (you have to read his book!!!!) he came to America and was instrumental in aviation Jet technology.
EDIT: I transposed two numbers in the bonus cigars awardings... fixed now.
