A Pilot Carries Out a Personal Vendetta in the Middle of a War
It was a bad day for 1st Lieutenant Harold Fisher. It was World War II and he was on his 20th bombing mission, coming back from Italy. His B-17 “Bonnie Sue” was barely flyable. Two engines were gone, and he was seriously considering ditching the plane. He had the crew throw everything out — guns, ammo, flak jackets, anything that could lessen the weight of the aircraft, hoping to stay aloft long enough for a miracle.
“Toss the bombardier last!”
They got one — a familiar American P-38 fighter came by to cover him. Fisher radioed him asking for assistance, and his comrade happily obliged and pulled alongside to escort him home. Everything was at last looking up.
Until a minute later, when Fisher was shot down by the very P-38 that was supposed to be covering him.
This was before enemy units glowed red on the mini-map.
Instead of an American pilot behind the controls, this particular P-38 was piloted by an Italian named Guido Rossi who had captured it on the ground. Fisher attempted a water landing with his aircraft and, as far as water landings go, it was pretty successful. Translation: Every single person on board wasn’t killed. Fisher survived the emergency landing and was eventually rescued by the British.
His plane was dredged up, repaired and sent off to spend its retirement in Air Force One’s harem.
As it turns out, Fisher wasn’t Rossi’s first or last victim, but would prove to be the one who would lead to his undoing.
The Petty Revenge:
Fisher went to his commander, Colonel Bill Hall, and asked permission to borrow an experimental YB-40 aircraft. A YB-40 was essentially a B-17 with the bombs taken out and a ridiculous amount of guns added.
The YB-40 “Flying Arsenal”
There were no YB-40s in Africa, so they had the Brits fly one out there, for the sole purpose of taking down Rossi. The Allies had essentially just condoned a private vendetta using experimental aircraft just to quell the hijinks of one Italian fighter pilot.
After hand-picking a crew, Fisher went out in search of Rossi, but the slimy bastard never showed. Meanwhile, Rossi was still off somewhere in his undercover plane, pulling his ruse and shooting down B-17s left and right.
Fisher wasn’t going to give up. He pored over intelligence documents and found something interesting: Rossi’s wife, Gina, was located behind friendly lines. Fisher quickly searched her out and found her. After seeing what she looked like, Fisher got a painter to paint a picture of her on his aircraft and put her name on it. All just so he could piss off Rossi even more when he shot him down.
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Above: 1,000 percent more tasteful than the nose of Fisher’s plane.
On the next bombing mission, Fisher was getting ready to become a pretend straggler again when he all of a sudden was shot and became an actual straggler. Who among us hasn’t been there before? After ordering his crew to dump everything except for ammunition, they flew on. Soon enough a P-38 pulled up alongside, but they couldn’t tell if it was Rossi or not. Thinking this time it was a legitimate P-38, he ordered ammunition dumped overboard as well, until a curious question came across the radio.
“Pretty girl, Gina. She from Constantine?”
Suddenly thrust back into reality, Fisher ordered his men to keep their ammunition and guns and carried on with his conversation with the P-38 pilot, steering the discussion toward cutesy stories about how nice it was to be straight up boning Mrs. Rossi.
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“Enjoy the syphilis, Mr. Fascism.”
This infuriated Rossi to the point that he flew far ahead of the bomber and attempted a suicidal head-on attack. Waiting until the last minute, Fisher ordered every gun on board his aircraft to fire on the P-38, which was literally shredded away around Rossi from the massive amount of gunfire.
Rossi was picked up by Allied Rescue crews and became a POW for the rest of the war. Meanwhile, Fisher was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, and his entire crew Air Medals for their incredibly hilarious revenge campaign against one Italian pilot.
It did wonders for the morale of the men Rossi hadn’t already killed.
Which one of them actually ended up boning Mrs. Rossi while her husband was a POW is still unclear, so we’re going to assume they all did.
At-Home Flight Simulator: Air traffic controller and private pilot James Price has spent 12 years of free time converting the nose of a Boeing 737 into a full-on flight simulator in his California garage. Price did all of the simulator’s programming himself, and about 90 percent of the gauges and displays in the cockpit actually function. Price is one of only several in the U.S. to own and operate such a device.
[mercnews]
Bill and his wife Blanche go to the state fair every year,
And every year Bill would say, “Blanche, I’d like to ride in that helicopter”
Blanche always replied, “I know Bill, but that helicopter ride is fifty bucks, And fifty bucks is fifty bucks!”
One year Bill and Blanche went to the fair, and Bill said, “Blanche, I’m 85 years old. If I don’t ride that helicopter, I might never get another chance.”
To this, Blanche replied, “Bill that helicopter ride is fifty bucks, and fifty bucks is fifty bucks.”
The pilot overheard the couple and said, “Folks I’ll make you a deal. I’ll take the both of you for a ride. If you can stay quiet for the entire ride and don’t say a word I won’t charge you a penny! But if you say one word it’s fifty dollars.”
Bill and Blanche agreed and up they went.
The pilot did all kinds of fancy maneuvers, but not a word was heard.
He did his daredevil tricks over and over again, But still not a word…
When they landed, the pilot turned to Bill and said, “By golly, I did everything I could to get you to yell out, but you didn’t. I’m impressed!”
Bill replied, “Well, to tell you the truth I almost said something when Blanche fell out, But you know, Fifty bucks is fifty bucks!”
An airline pilot was scheduled to take a flight from New York to Los Angeles. The weather was too bad in New York to allow his usual on-time departure. The weather in New York finally cleared, and the pilot asked for his departure clearance. He was very dismayed to hear that he had another delay due to the increased traffic now leaving New York.
Sometime later he finally received his clearance and decided he would try to make up the time lost by asking for a direct route to Los Angeles. Halfway across the country, he was told to turn due south. Knowing that this turn would throw him further behind schedule, with some agitation he inquired to the controller about the reason for the turn off course. The controller replied that the turn was for noise abatement.
The pilot was infuriated and said to the controller, “Look, buddy, I am already way behind schedule with all the delays you guys have given me today. I really don’t see how I could be causing a noise problem for pedestrians when I am over six miles above the earth!”
The controller answered in a calm voice, “Apparently, Captain, you have never heard two 747s collide!”
A flight from Seattle to San Francisco was unexpectedly diverted to Sacramento along the way. The flight attendant explained that there would be a delay and if the passengers wanted to get off the aircraft the plane would re-board in 50 minutes.
Everybody got off the plane except one lady who was blind.
You could tell the lady was blind because her guide dog lay quietly underneath the seats in front of her throughout the entire flight. He could also tell she had flown this very flight before because the pilot approached her and calling her by name, said, “Kathy, we are in Sacramento for almost an hour. Would you like to get off and stretch your legs?” The blind lady said, “No thanks, but maybe Buddy would like to stretch his legs.”
All the people in the gate area came to a complete standstill when they looked up and saw the pilot walk off the plane with a guide dog for the blind! Even worse, the pilot was wearing sunglasses!
