Busy week, it's Friday and I've got a little time...and a pencil. Hence the Study of the P-47 above. It's a 'Bolt from the 353rd Fighter Squadron of the 354th Fighter Group.
A few years ago, I was a guest to a demonstration of low-level flying, featuring a P-47. We were at a place called "Bodney" in East Anglia, England; our hosts were pilots, crew and staff of the 352nd Fighter Group. My vantage point was one that wouldn't have flown here in the States. The P-47 came down low and the action was not 'out there' over Airshow Center but 'right here', over our heads!
'You know how jets seem to approach in silence? The P-47 was similar - I vaguely recall her engine's mid-timbre rumble bouncing around in our little tree-lined field...then VwwwwMMMMPHH! We ducked, a quick slap of wind and the Jug slingshot into the opposite horizon as if attached to the sun by a rubber band.
Of course, I thought about what it must have been like to have been a German soldier who's life is marked by retreat, looking up and seeing...
