German Pilots Flew a Captured Mustang—Then Shockingly Admitted No Luftwaffe Fighter Could Match 444

Comments · 17

• PL

  @PlaneCommand-ut5 · 4 months ago · pinned

  &quot;I’m 68 years old, and my father flew B-17s out of England in 1944. He used to say the thing that scared him most wasn’t the flak — it was looking out and seeing those silver Mustangs turning back for home while his formation kept going deeper into Germany.<br>This story about Major Lerche hit me hard. Here was a German test pilot who flew our P-51, measured it honestly, and wrote the truth in black and white: 442 miles per hour at altitude. Faster, higher, longer-ranged than anything they had. He told his superiors exactly what they needed to know.<br>They didn’t want to hear it.<br>Fifteen hundred pilots paid the price for that denial. Not because they lacked courage, but because someone at the top chose comfort over reality.<br>What stayed with me most was Lerche himself. He respected the machine and the men who built it, even though they were his enemy. After the war he flew for NATO, worked with American and British engineers, and spent the rest of his life being the same kind of man — honest, professional, and unwilling to lie about what the numbers said.<br>We could use more people like that today.<br>To any of you who flew in those years, or whose fathers and uncles did… thank you. And to the ones who told the truth even when it was dangerous to do so — may we never forget what ignoring it costs.

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• GA

  @galenhaugh3158 · 3 months ago

  German fighters were rattle boxes. &nbsp;They generated no confidence whosoever!!

• GA

  @galenhaugh3158 · 3 months ago

  Yes, truth matters!

• 鷲こ

  @鷲こんな人 · 3 months ago

  もう30年以上前竜ヶ崎で零式とP-51Dが飛行するのを見た。P-51Dは低速以外全てで零式に勝っていたと感じた。ウォーバードで1番好きな機体だ

• GA

  @galenhaugh3158 · 3 months ago

  B-25 Mitchell is NOT a Mustang!!

• ST

  @stevewhite3424 · 4 months ago

  You have to love the censorship that causes in the photograph of Galland the swastika being obscured by a red dot on his two medals. &nbsp;somehow, censorship, failing again, as it simply highlights what it&apos;s trying to censor rather than causing it to go away or pretending it&apos;s not there.

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• DE

  @denisivanov6871 · 2 weeks ago

  Мустанг не был быстрее всего что было в германии. Осенью 1944 года немцы уже имели реактивные самолеты и воевали ими. Например ме 262.

• CH

  @charlesmuli2581 · 3 months ago

  You do not explain how the Germans got the P51. I do not believe this story.

• GA

  @galenhaugh3158 · 3 months ago

  Goering was Hitler&apos;s most counterproductive Nazi.

• BA

  @balancedactguy · 4 weeks ago

  Given that this is just a random collection of OLD PICS from WW2..this seems like AI SLOP to me! So HOW did they get a P-51 Mustang?? The image at <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntOdYFkN6Do&amp;t=787">13:07</a> seems COMPLETELY FAKE! &nbsp;This is FAKE AI TRASH!

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