Luftwaffe Test Pilot: flying captured allied aircraft of WW II

[AeroFranz]

I recently picked up this book, previously unknown to me, and I wanted to share some info.
It seems like the perfect complement to Eric Brown's "Wings on my sleeves", but seen from the German point of view. Whereas I found quite a few books on Allied test pilots, this is one of the few on their German counterparts.
Hans -Werner Lerche was a test pilot working at Rechlin, and got the chance to fly some 125 different kinds of allied and axis aircraft.
I can't say his book is as fun or witty to read as Eric Brown's, but it's interesting to see what Germans thought of enemy aircraft. In general, Lerche is very complimentary of American and British planes, especially the B-17 and B-24, which he flew extensively. For fans of Italian aircraft, there are a few pages spent on the SM.91 and SM.92.

I was puzzled when he decided to spend kind words for the He 177, which I thought was strange! has the "Luftwaffe's lighter" been unjustly maligned? Apparently, not even Ernst Heinkel was fond of that bird.

Anyway, i'm two-thirds of the way through the book, but so far it looks like it's a worthy buy if you like the topic.

 

[Jemiba]

Ah, after about 33 years there's an english translation ! Had it for quite a number of
years and as I remember, it was quite a good reading, especially when he mentioned
the difficult circumstances under wich he often had to work, very often left on his own.
About the He 177, I didn't read nasty comments about its flying characteristics, just
about its engines. Perhaps it could have been a really good aircraft with a less troublesome
propulsion system.

 

[Foo Fighter]

I suspect that, rather like the Avro Manchester siutation, you are correct. One more aviation mystery we can posit a solution for but not guarantee.

 

[Pasoleati]

Speaking of the Lerche book itself, it was a big disappointment to me. I expected similar concentration on the actual flying of the various aircraft with accurate information, but it is unfortunately more concentrated on "chatting" about various events.

The very same problem is virtually with every German pilot memoir I have ever read. Especially compared to American and British pilot memoirs the German ones have extremely scanty detail on the flying characteristics or quirks of various types. Perhaps German forumites can suggest why so?