Luftwaffe Test Pilot: Flying Captured Allied Aircraft of World War 2

This book is based on the author's wartime logbooks, which chronicle some of the most remarkable aviation episodes of the war. The author flew all the major German warplanes from the six-engined Junkers 390 to the Messerschmitt 109 fighter, as well as many of the minor and experimental types. He specialized, however, in flying Allied aircraft which fell intact into German hands --- the Avro Lancaster, B-17, B-24, B-26 Marauder, and Wellington bombers and the Spitfire, Mustang, Thunderbolt, Hawker Typhoon, Tempest, Yak-3 and Lavochkin La-5 fighters.

Lerche had no flight manuals for these aircraft and had to fly them by intuition. It was a task that demanded the utmost concentration, adaptability and an inborn flying ability. Throughout his career, Hans-Werner Lerche did not crash or even seriously damage a single aircraft --- a unique testimony.

Among Lerche's more hair-raising exploits was flying a captured Avro Lancaster over Berlin in August 1944 to test experimental night-fighter radars, when the radio failed shortly before an incoming RAF raid --- when even the large German crosses and yellow markings would have been of little used in identifying friend from foe.

This book gives a fascinating insight into the Luftwaffe's war effort and the qualities, good, bad or indifferent, of the many types that Lerche flew. The appendix lists the total of 125 types flown by the author and the book is illustrated with rare and fascinating photographs.

Text: English, German (translation)