Plane? I don't need no stinking Plane!

November 19, 2016 7:47 PM

While there are many aces of the air enshrined in history, perhapps the oddest aerial victory came when 2d Lt. Owen Baggett shot down a Japanese Zero fighter with a pistol, while hanging from a parachute in mid air.
posted by pjern (21 comments total)

That's a great story.

But man, that guy's bouncing up and down and his constantly moving hands popping in and out of frame are hard to watch.
posted by jonathanhughes at 8:03 PM on November 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

Cool story, bro. Great tag, too.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 8:08 PM on November 19, 2016

How did that NOT get made into an obnoxiously patriotic movie starring The Action Hero of the Week sometime in the last 70 years?
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:10 PM on November 19, 2016 [6 favorites]

It would have been a very short patriotic action movie. Shorts don't do well in general release.
posted by Bringer Tom at 8:36 PM on November 19, 2016 [2 favorites]

I haven't even clicked through the links yet and already I have a visual in my brain of Bruce Willis doing this.
posted by rtha at 8:36 PM on November 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

If it was a German plane the line would be Yippie kai-yay mister Fokker.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 8:53 PM on November 19, 2016 [18 favorites]

If you have some difficulty with that video, as I did, and hear "45,000 ft" and think, that's 25,000 ft higher than Everest, no wonder someone passed out, it's 4 to 5,000 ft.
posted by figurant at 8:56 PM on November 19, 2016 [4 favorites]

That guy in the video sounds exactly like computer generated voice. But seems to be a real person.
posted by Brockles at 8:59 PM on November 19, 2016 [1 favorite]

There came a point in the war, even with the mighty Jugs, Hellcats and P-38s, where Allied Admirals and Generals flat out announced they would no-kidding court-martial any pilot trying to dogfight a Zero, especially turn-for-turn. In terms of flight dynamics, it was the best fighter of the war.
In terms of armor, top-speed, and altitude... not so much. The American fighters mid-war could pretty much take what the Zero gave, and had a whole hell of a lot of friends at 12-o-clock high, diving down.

It was so poorly armored, we got a Metafilter post out of when a guy in a parachute shot one down with a Colt .45 sidearm, which is another smug point for armchair generals... a .9mm Parabellum didn't shoot anything out of the air.

Even so, the Zero was unequaled in its maneuverability, and a terror to the Allies until the very end.

A fun hobby is looking at French interwar tanks and aircraft, and realizing how fucked the Germans were if France had built them in the numbers they needed them in, and how screwed the USA was if Japan had solidified its hold in the resource-rich Far East islands (Java is what, three times Brittan's area by itself?) earlier than it did rather than raid Hawaii and the Aleutians.
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:00 PM on November 19, 2016 [8 favorites]

People should mention this maneuver when they're greatest-generationing.
posted by furtive_jackanapes at 9:40 PM on November 19, 2016

People should mention this maneuver when they're greatest-generationing.

Oh, we relive this moment all the time in Battlefield. But it might slowly embellished over time.
posted by pwnguin at 9:59 PM on November 19, 2016 [5 favorites]

Cool story, bro. Great tag, too.

I agree that it's a great tag, but in the described situation, is said metallic undercarriage really required? What is the downside to taking a shot?
posted by fairmettle at 1:10 AM on November 20, 2016

Here's a transcript of the video content for those who prefer it.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 4:03 AM on November 20, 2016

Love this, the whole headline reads like COOL. This is good mefi because I'm like "no way" a pistol! Read more!
posted by clavdivs at 5:30 AM on November 20, 2016

C'mon man, of course it was from a chute, you know how hard that would be from the cockpit?
posted by Bovine Love at 7:03 AM on November 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

So, what you're saying is that Chuck Norris wears Owen Baggett pajamas?
posted by theora55 at 7:14 AM on November 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

C'mon man, of course it was from a chute, you know how hard that would be from the cockpit?

Not if he was inverted.
posted by peeedro at 8:37 AM on November 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

This reminds me of the Blackburn Roc, a shitty, slow, British intra/early war fighter that inexplicably flew around with a full turret embeded in the airframe. It was such a terrible fighter it was swiftly relegated to sea rescue, behind the lines ground support, and literally target practice. But somehow one managed to record a confirmed kill on a German JU88, for a time the world's fastest bomber.
posted by T.D. Strange at 8:56 AM on November 20, 2016 [1 favorite]

Not if he was inverted.

(cough) bullshit (cough)
posted by Ghidorah at 4:38 PM on November 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

I agree that it's a great tag, but in the described situation, is said metallic undercarriage really required? What is the downside to taking a shot?

Well, if you're playing dead, shooting 4 times at the pilot slowly circling you and missing would be a fairly strong indicator that you are not in fact dead.
posted by pwnguin at 5:28 PM on November 20, 2016 [3 favorites]

Good shot.

Anyhow, there I was at 9,000 feet, with nothing but a silkworm and a sewing machine.....

(parachute rigger's tale)
posted by mule98J at 12:31 PM on November 21, 2016 [1 favorite]