Polish F-16

[Gurm]

Hells yes, the guy from Wolfenstein - he's Polish, and he can beat up ANYONE - even if they're undead!

[Nowhere]

Or Starsky?

As for the jokes...not sure if "polonia" (people around the world with strong Polish heritage) likes it. (yes, some are quite good, but "universally" good (cjolley )) But you need to remember one thing - from what I know generally and from my encounters with those people, especially from the North America (most of them emigrated looong time ago) they are totally out of touch with reality here and don't have much in common, culturally and ideologically, with what's happening in Poland. One of the most irritating aspects of this is that many of them strongly support right, conservatist parties (I guess they didn't notice political system change...). Oh, and you'll gonna love this one - Radio Maryja (wiki) is in large part financed by Polonia.

Actually calling them Polish is something similar to calling KvH German, I guess...

Also...seems that such jokes originate from partitions period and WW2.

PS. And as for the pilots...apparently their instructors describe them only in superlatives (when flying F16). Of course that might just be "the right thing to say"...
Also about WW2 episodes - did you know that use of Mustangs for long range escort was in large part accelerated by Polish pilot? He disobeyed orders and took his Mustang (after carefully analising tech specs) on little air raid to Norway. On the other hand - initially the were few accidents due to former way of doing things (throttle in pre WW2 Polish fighters worked "backward". And...they had "static" wheels (soory, not in the mood for looking up translations of techincal terms ))
September campaign in Poland also wasn't bad - a lot of kills (apparently 40% of Germany air strenght was lost, though that's total, not only by PL Air Force) even though fighters were slower than German bombers.

BTW, husband of sister of my grandmother (ufff...) was in 302. But they were a bit out of main fighting area so not so many kills. (And he died in Africa when a plane for unexplained reasons cought fire during landing and crashed...)
OTOH WW2 fighting history in my family can be a bit "comical" - for example my grandfather, even after fighting in one of the biggest/most famous battles of September 39, was released to home because somebody in military administration noticed that my grandgrandfather was basically German...


edit: Oh, and as for the joke...I suppose this has something to do with armpits?

[Nowhere]

Small/totally unimportant update

Few (I believe 4 at this point...) planes are already here, and they were "baptised" as Hawk (which in itself is a bit unusual - historically only planes built in Poland had their offcial "nickname"). And I think I've seen one in the sky (their base is basically in my city ) - or at least something with a bit unusual shape/changing course and high a bit too quick for passenger plane.



BTW, fun tidbit - one of the first people who flew the first PL F-16 (photos at the beginning of the thread) was...our defense minister. A bit Putin style?

PS. MultimediaMan, in every official materials there are very "strong", very clear sentences saying that polish F-16s are versions with most advanced avionics and are all weather, night & day fighters.

[Dr Mordrid]

In terms of WW-II heroes let's not forget the brave men known as "The Tuskegee Airmen"; African-American pilots who flew as the 332d Fighter Group of the U.S. Army Air Corps.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Airmen

Prior to the Tuskegee Airmen no U.S. military pilots had been African American. However a series of legislative moves by the United States Congress in 1941 forced the Air Corps to form an all-black combat unit, much to the War Department's chagrin. In response they set up a system to accept only those with a level of flight experience or higher education that they expected to be hard to fill, a half-hearted effort to eliminate the unit before it could begin. This policy backfired when the Air Corps received numerous applications from men who qualified even under these restrictions.
>
By the end of the war the 332d had claimed 113 Luftwaffe aircraft shot down (including 3 Me-262 jets), a patrol boat run aground by machine gun fire, and numerous fuel dumps, trucks and trains.

The group flew more than 15,000 sorties on 1,500 missions, and they never lost a single bomber to enemy aircraft (only to flack) in their role as escort fighters. The unit received recognition through official channels, and won two Presidential Unit Citations, 744 Air Medals, 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses, fourteen Bronze Stars and several Silver Stars.

In all, 994 pilots were trained in Tuskegee from 1940 to 1946. About 450 deployed overseas and 150 lost their lives in training or combat.