They Called His Plane Obsolete — Until He Shot Down 34 Soviet Fighters

Описание: Tiiksjärvi Airfield, June 1941. The Brewster B-239 Buffalo is widely considered the worst fighter of World War II. It is squat, heavy, and nicknamed the "Flying Beer Barrel." To the US Navy, it was a disappointment; to the RAF pilots over Singapore, it was a death trap. But in the frozen skies of Finland, one man is about to prove that there are no bad planes—only pilots who don’t understand them.

Warrant Officer Eino Ilmari "Illu" Juutilainen doesn't see a brick. He sees "Taivaan Helmi"—the Sky Pearl. While the rest of the world mocked the Buffalo, Finnish mechanics stripped it of its heavy naval gear, transforming the American hog into a Nordic wolf.

Flying aircraft BW-364, Juutilainen faces a sky black with Soviet I-16 Ratas and Hurricanes. He knows he cannot out-turn them. Instead, he masters the "Pendulum"—a tactic of trading altitude for speed, slashing through enemy formations, and zooming back up before they can react. He fights in the vertical while his enemies are stuck in the horizontal.

This is the story of how Juutilainen achieved the impossible: 34 kills in an "obsolete" aircraft. It is a masterclass in deflection shooting, energy management, and the "Skid"—a rudder maneuver that allowed him to fly sideways and force enemies to overshoot.

Juutilainen would end the war with 94 confirmed kills, the top non-German ace of all time. But his most impressive statistic isn't what he hit—it’s what missed him. across 437 missions, his aircraft was never hit by enemy fire. Not once.

Join us as we climb into the cockpit of the most underestimated fighter of WWII and learn how a "garbage" plane became a legend.

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#WW2 #AviationHistory #Dogfight #BrewsterBuffalo #FinnishAirForce #WarStories #AcePilot #MilitaryHistory #Documentary

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