ARR and guncamera

My mistake - I just realized that in the 1st picture posted by Victor, the enemy plane is see from its 7 ock and not from its 1 ock.

Yea , from the front it looks like a Petlyakow PE-2 but from the rear hard to tell its a PE-2 especially the 3rd photo

Alex

Well, the aircraft (from the front) looks like a Tupolev SB-2M100 in the 1st photo. Notice the big engine naceles with its frontal radiators that give a false impression of radial engines. Furthermore, the aircraft seems to be painted in a light colour - most SB-2M100 in Soviet service were left in natural aluminium or painted in an uniform light grey colour.
The canopy is, of course, different. One can see, albeit with difficulty, the nose glazing (which housed the twin 7,62mm ShKAS that made up the frontal defense of the bomber).

Ruy

ok, is the 1st pic taken from 1 ock of the enemy plane or from its 7 ock ? If it is taken from its 1 ock then indeed the engines look like SB engines, but it could be taken from the plane's 7 ock and what we see as engines are in fact the two vertical stabilizer - remember that SB did not have twin vertical stabilizer and if you look closely in the other 2 photos you will see twin vertical stabilizer.

In the second photo is got to be a P38, it can't be a Pe 2 becose it has the engines at a bigger distance from the cockpit and the pe2 has Y tail, which rises on vertical, the p38 loks just like that.

The gun camera was in the wing.

Mytzu: I know the SB bomber family had a single fin... I am still looking at the picture and it reminds me heavily of one of those Tupolev twin-engined machines. It is not for sure an Ar-2 (an improved development of the SB, with a sleek design), because the nose looks too rounded, not pointed enough...

Cipiamon: As for the other shot, it can indeed show a P-38, but the engine naceles look somehow too big and round... On the other hand, the horizontal stabilizer of the Yak-2/Yak-4 had a very slight diehedral, unlike the more pronouced one seen on the Pe-2, so maybe the image might show one of these small twin-engined recon/light bombers. The other Russian aircraft I can recall are prototypes and simply do not fit in this context! So, after all it may well show a P-38, if we fail to find more likely candidates!

This post has been edited by Ruy Aballe on December 08, 2004 07:08 pm

I have some difficulty in what pertains to the twin-boom layout of the P-38...
The vertical fins don't seem aligned with the nacelles...
It is easy to understand many misidentified claims made by pilots in the heat of a dog-fight!

Edit: photo courtesy of cdor. Eusebie Hladiuc

This post has been edited by Ruy Aballe on December 08, 2004 07:08 pm

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Good hint, that diminues the chances to be a p38.

Yes, but it enhances the mystery about the true ID of this bird...

I looked again at the guncamera shot and the aircraft shape begun to look suspiciously familiar... it looks like a Ju-88A!
There are still some strange things about it, namely the appendage that looks like a tail skid (which I marked with interrogation marks...). Any thoughts??

Ruy

Photo courtesy of cdor. Eusebie Hladiuc

This post has been edited by Ruy Aballe on December 08, 2004 09:50 pm

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nice one Ruy, a ju88, this was the first that crossed my mind when i saw the first image, and i meen when i saw the engine, the ju88's engine is verry specific.

Maybee two pilots played "hunter and hunted".

I think in the first photo the enemy plane is with nose pointing to the camera.

The third photo excludes the possibility of an exercise.

I'm supporting the Junkers 88 hypothesis.