Скачать или смотреть German Pilots Tested Captured P-47 Turbo — Refused to Believe 2,300 HP From Radial Engine

Early September, nineteen forty-three.
At Rechlin-Lärz Airfield, the Luftwaffe’s top secret Erprobungsstelle—its central flight testing facility—was unusually quiet. A light fog rolled across the Mecklenburg plain, muffling the echo of footsteps on the concrete apron. A dozen men stood in a semicircle, their breath visible in the chill air. Among them were some of Germany’s finest test pilots—men who had flown everything from the lithe Bf 109F to the raw prototypes of the Me 262 jet. Yet their attention was fixed on a single, alien-looking machine parked before them.
It bore no swastika, no Balkenkreuz, no trace of German lineage. Its silver-gray fuselage was dented and scorched, its engine cowling patched crudely with captured aluminum. On the tail, the faint outline of a white star and bar had been painted over with temporary Luftwaffe markings. A handwritten note on the fuselage read simply: “US-Jagdflugzeug – P-47C Thunderbolt.”