Badly damaged aircraft that returned home safely

[aferguson]

thought it would be interesting to start a thread on aircraft that were heavily damaged but managed to return home.

I submit this one of a beaufighter in north africa; it lost several feet of its right wing during a strafing attack but managed to fly home and land safely (narration says it lost 3 feet but it's clearly a lot more than that as the whole aileron is missing...more like 8 feet missing). Beaufighters had a reputation for being able to absorb astonishing amounts of damage.

Zip forward to the 2:33 mark in the video and you'll see it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsUdbzQCm_Y

[456THBG]

Great post! Thanks...

[aferguson]

here is a whole site of damaged b-17's.

http://www.daveswarbirds.com/b-17/contents.htm

[aae83]

In 1983, an Israeli F-15 was involved in a mid-air collision that took off the starboard wing; the fighter returned safely to base. Here's a link to a History Channel video. A lot of the video is not true footage of the aircraft but constructed from other sources, but there are some real photos of the plane starting at around 4:10 or so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHADAKreoPY