Galland's Emil

Credited with 104 aerial victories by the end of WW2, all of them on the Western Front, Adolf Galland was one of the highest scoring aces of the war. A true gentleman, as well as warrior, Galland seemed to have a sincere mutual respect for his adversaries, as well as his own peers.

One story tells of an instance concerning the capture of RAF Ace Douglas Bader after he was forced to bail out of his stricken Spitfire over St.Omer, France. Bader and Galland were both well known to each other, each of them high scoring pilots in there respective air forces. Bader was taken into custody by none other than the men of JG26, and entertained by Galland and his comrades for several days afterward.
Gallands recognition of the elevated status of  his "guest" prompted him to allow Bader to check out in the cockpit of one of the Geschwader's Bf 109s, under escort of course.
Bader somewhat cheekily asked if Galland wouldn't mind him taking the plane for a short flight around the airfield, to which Galland kindly replied that he feared that Bader might try to escape, and that he would have to give chase, and they would just have to start shooting at each other again.
Bader and Galland would go on to become good friends after the war.

Of all of the different planes that Adolf Galland flew during the war, the one that comes to mind most readily, for me anyway, is the Bf 109E-4 that he used while serving as the leader of JG26 in 1941.
The Emil, as it came to be known, was probably the most elegant fighter plane in the Luftwaffe. It's lines and graceful styling made it as beautiful as it was deadly, and many RAF pilots would attest to both.
Armed with two Rheinmetall MG17 7.9mm machine guns under the nose cowl, and two Oerlikon MG/FF 20mm cannons in the wing roots, the Emil was a hard hitting weapon against the Spitfires and Hurricanes during the Battle of Britain.

The Bf 109E-4 was powered by a Daimler-Benz 1175hp DB601A inverted V-12 liquid cooled engine, and could reach a top speed of 348mph. The rather narrow landing gear mounting and resulting wheel track however made the 109 quite a handful on the ground, and a deft touch on the rudder pedals was essential for smooth and stable maneuvering when taking off and landing. Quite a few 109s were lost in ground accidents, and  pilots killed because of this one shortcoming in the plane's design.

Yellow cowls, tails, and sometimes wingtips became the order of the day for many Luftwaffe Fighters as a recognition aid for AA crews, that they might not shoot there own airplanes down. The planes of JG26 were almost famously known for their yellow noses in particular. The Jagdgeschwader known unofficially as the Abbyville Boys by allied pilots; JG26 being based for a time near Abbyville, France, was to prove itself as a deadly efficient fighter group. After establishing itself among the other squadrons, and deep in the psyche of the allied bomber and fighter crews as a team of top guns, any German Fighter encountered afterward sporting a yellow nose would be considered to be one of the Abbyville Boys, whether it belonged to JG26 or not!

The plane depicted here is a Bf 109E-4, flown by Oberstleutnant Adolf Galland, during cross channel operations in 1941. Replete in it's bright yellow nose and rudder, and Gallands personal emblem, a Mickey Mouse like character packing a pistol and an axe just below the cockpit, this Emil made for a very colorful mount indeed. Ahead of the mouse is the scroll with the stylized "S" denoting the official name of the Jagdgescwader, Schlageter. 57 kill marks are painted on the rudder.
This model was built from a 1/48 scale Pegasus kit.