Comments by "wayne antoniazzi" (@wayneantoniazzi2706) on "Hermann Göring's Aircraft Collection Today" video.

I agree, WW1 aviation should get more attention than it does, the men in those days were the pioneers and incredibly brave, but like much of WW1 the aviation aspect's been over shadowed by the vaster scale of WW2, especially here in the US. It's a shame. I first learned of the air war of 1914-1918 during the 50th Anniversary of WW1 in the 1960's and have been fascinated by it ever since. And you know it's been said, and it's probably true, that when the last WW2 era aircraft are gounded do to lack of spare parts, metal fatigue, or lack of funding (they are VERY expensive to operate) the WW1 replicas will still be in the air. So WW1 aviation will have the last laugh in the end!
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That's a bit of a mystery to this day. Goering had a fine collection of Maerklin toy trains which apparantly weren't removed with the rest of his collections as the Russians approached in 1945. The domestic staff at his Carinhall estate were told they could help themselves to anything left behind before the estate was blown up. So it's possible some of the trains may still exist out there somewhere with their original ownership unknown. The Maerklin company still exists today and does admit Goering was one of their past customers, but one they're not particularly proud of.
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@Gamble661 If you want to see a superb reproduction of a Fokker Dr1 Triplane (I can't call it a replica, that wouldn't be fair, it IS a Fokker Triplane, it's just not 100 years old) do a YouTube search for Mikael Carlson/ Fokker Dr1. Not only does Mikael fly it, he shows EXACTLY what that airplane's capable of. You'll be amazed. I can't give a YouTube link, they disappear after a few minutes, but you can find the Carlson videos with just a little effort. You won't be sorry!
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The German home front was in chaos due to war-weariness and the German Army wanted the war to stop before any Allied forces penetrated German territory. The knew they couldn't stop them anyway and the end was inevitable. So they asked for an armistice, a "cease-fire" that would lead to a permanent one. They were beaten and they knew it.
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I don't know if he's got any originals, but he's got an astounding collection of incredible replicas. In fact, I'd say it's unfair to call them replicas, they ARE WW1 airplanes, they're just not 100 years old!
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@Gamble661 I'm not sure how many Triplanes were built during WW1, I've seen estimates that range from 150 to 350. What is true is when the superior Fokker D7 began showing up in numbers the Triplanes were withdrawn rather quickly.
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Guderian wasn't shy about speaking his mind which is why of all the top German commanders he never made field marshal when he probably should have, he rubbed a lot of his contemporaries the wrong way. The troops would follow him anywhere but he continually butted heads with his equals and superiors. He was also one of the few German generals who wasn't afraid to argue with Hitler. I don't know if that story of what Guderian said after meeting Goering is true, but I wouldn't put it past him. Guderian didn't suffer fools gladly.
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Good question! Camels were exported to various countries so it's possible it came from one of them.
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@domusdebellum3042 Yes, primarily. Mostly various hardwoods for airframes and linen was the usual fabric covering, although the Italians preferred silk on the airplanes they built. (As a result they had a little problem with their pilots "appropriating" some of the silk to have shirts made out of it!) Fokker pioneered using welded steel tubing for fuselages, which was a major labor-saver. Junkers also pioneered aluminum for fuselage and wing contruction by 1918. The Albatros company used plywood on their fuselages. There was quite a bit of amazing progress in aircraft construction during WW1.
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@YoloBagels The rule among aircraft restorers for WW1 era aircraft, maybe even for WW2 ones was as long as SOME of the airplane is original it counts as an original. Needless to say there's going to be some arguments over that. At any rate, original WW1 airplanes are so rare and so valuable now both as historic artifacts and money-wise flying them may not be the best thing to do anymore. There's bound to be arguments on that too. Personally I don't know what to think.
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All the fighter planes by the end of WW1 were pretty darn good, the French SPAD XIII, the British Sopwith Camels and Snipes and the SE5a, and the Fokker DVII. What determined the winner in a dogfight, then as now, was who the better pilot and tactician. However, the Fokker DVII was SO good the Allies wanted to get their hands on them for testing and evaluation to see what could be learned from them.
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Did you know Major Francesco Baracca's personal insignia of a rearing horse survives today as the Ferrari car company's logo? It's true. Baracca's mother was a big auto racing fan and Enzo Ferrari was her favorite driver. When she got to meet him she gave Enzo a fabric section of one of her son's planes with the rearing horse painted on it, I believe in Italian it's called the "Cavallino Rampante," feel free to correct me if I'm wrong everyone. Ferrrari was so touched (He knew who Baracca was) he made it the symbol of his car company. Major Baracca's a very interesting man, a great soldier and combat pilot in addtion to being a fine, very decent man to begin with. A true hero.
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I've heard of that Curtiss Hawk restoration, but nothing about it in years. Has it been restored to flyable condition and is it flown on occasion?
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@Gamble661 It's interesting all right! If you're like me and you've only seen Triplane replicas involved in simple tail-chasing dogfights at airshows you'll be astounded at seeing one really put through it's paces. There's several Mikael Carlson videos, so you may have to look a bit before you find the "right" one.
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@toadamine Yeah, a replica alongside the original (and the replica wouldn't even have to be flyable when you come down to it) wouldn't be a bad idea. But as I said that'd take money. Museums frequently seem to have too little or sometimes (but not often) too much. It all depends on where the funding comes from.
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There's only two originals surviving that I know of, one in the British Imperial War Museum collection and one in the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Maybe there's a few others but those are two I know of.
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That's interesting. Here in the US post-WW1 the US Army, Navy, and Marine Corps operated captured D7's but only grounded them when the engines wore out. Some lasted re-engined into a lot of Hollywood films of the 1920's and 1930's. I've never heard of any groundings due to structural failures.
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The American South was kicked hard after the Civil War and we wound up with the Ku Klux Klan. Not a very nice organization either but the lesson is don't kick people when they're down and can't kick back, nasty things can happen.
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@jonkoenigs99 Yes, and it's made him a military legend!
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Right, but here's the thing, fuselages alone are better than no airplanes at all. MAYBE the Poles might do full restorations in the future but that's a judgement call on their part and undoubtedly it's going to take big money to do it.
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@kellybreen5526 That's interesting, where did you get that information from? The reason I'm asking is I know there were quality control problems with the wings of the early Triplanes, it was a Fokker sub-contractor who was to blame, and quality control issues again with the wing of the DVIII's, again early production, but I've never heard of issues with the DVII's. One problem I did hear about with the DVII's was when Albatros was ordered to build them Fokker had no plans to send, they sent a complete airplane and Albatros had to make their own plans! Albatros did find some quality issues with the DVII they recieved but I've always wondered if that was a bit of Fokker's revenge on an implacable rival. Obviously Anthony Fokker would never admit publicly if that was the case.
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@kellybreen5526 Thanks! I did a little Googling on the DVII last night and found some Fokker-built airplanes had problems with wing fabric failures, that is some but far from all.
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That's a good observation but all American students of combat aviation know Goering was a fighter pilot in WW1. They also know that doesn't excuse his later actions.
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@44lucas That makes sense. It's been said that if an airplane doesn't live to fly does it really live at all? But on the other hand the wise thing to do is if an airplane is so scarce that essentially it's the last of its kind the wise thing to do is ground it and put it in a museum where it can be enjoyed by all. I concur with the latter point.
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Don't be hard on yourself, most 14 year olds want to see those sexy jets, not those farty old WW1 antiques. You're older and wiser now, it's OK.
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I don't doubt your word, but as the saying goes "Where there's a will, there's a way." bigger and more fragile things have been moved sucessfully. I'd be willing to bet the owner's just not ready or willing to give it up. I don't remember just where it was but there was a farmer in Canada years ago who had a large collection of WW2 training aircraft, both single and twin engine, and who absolutely refused to sell any of them. His heirs did. People can get strange with some of the things they posess, it's as if they think they can take it with them when their time on Earth is over. It didn't work for the Egyptians.
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The "Geschwader Stock" was actually a tradition started by Manfred von Richtofen. When Richthofen was killed it passed to his sucessor Captain Rheinhart, then to Goering when Rheinhart was killed in a crash. The baton Goering carried in WW2 was a custom-made one for his rank as Reichsmarshall, a variation on the standard German Army field marshal's baton. When a German officer made field marshall a baton was part of his uniform. It was a bit impractical to carry all the time, so a substitute called an "Interimstab" was typically carried, it looked a bit like a stretched-out riding crop or swagger stick. Rommel's usually seen carrying one in films.
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@dr.wilfriedhitzler1885 The Luftwaffe strategic bomber program died with General Walter Wever, it's main advocate who died in an air crash. Without the dynamic Wever's influence strategic bombing was forgotten, and then when the idea was revived it was too late.
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They do look a bit crude and fragile, but years ago I watched a filmed interview with WW1 aviation veteran and historian Arch Whitehouse who said calling WW1 airplanes "flimsy and rickety" was a bit unfair. As he put it "Certainly a WW1 airplane is no F-4 Phantom, but they WERE made of the best materials available at the time and with the best engineering and craftsmanship available at the time. They were far from deathtraps. We weren't concerned about it then, although certainly none of us would want to go into combat with them now!"
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@kurtvonfricken6829 Certainly not in my case, my grandfather was born in 1897 and served in the Italian Army in WW1. My father, his son, was born in 1928 and I was born in 1953. Unfortunately Grandpa died in 1962 before I had any idea of WW1 and could ask him about it.
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The P-61 "Black Widow" was a good airplane, but wasn't too popular with it's pilots. The placement of the engines meant the propellers were directly opposite the pilot and co-pilot. If the plane had to make a belly landing the prop blades would shear off and go right into the cockpit either killing or badly injuring the pilots. P-61's disappeared pretty quickly after the war and that was one of the reasons, if not the main reason.
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