[Pic deleted by J-Doc]

Here's an excerpt from the book about this exciting aerial dual ;

Suddenly a glint of color against the black cloud caught Pitt’s attention. It
was a bright yellow plane. It banked sharply, suggesting high maneuverability,
and dived through the smoke. Pitt slipped the throttles backward to reduce the
speed of his sharp angle of descent and prevent the PBY from overshooting his
strange adversary. The other plane materialized out of the opposite side of the
smoke and could clearly be seen strafing Brady Field.
“I’ll be damned,” Pitt boomed out loud. “It’s an old German Albatros.”
The Catalina came on straight from the eye of the sun, and the pilot of the
Albatros, intent on the business of destruction, did not see it. A sardonic grin
spread on Pitt’s face as the fight drew near. He cursed the fact that there were
no guns waiting for his command to spout from the nose of the PBY. He applied
pressure to the rudder pedals and side slipped to give Giordino a better line of
fire. The PBY thundered in, still unnoticed. Then, abruptly, he could hear the
crack of Giordino’s carbine above the roar of the engines.
They were almost on top of the Albatros before the leather helmeted head in the
open cockpit spun around. They were so close Pitt could see the other pilot's
mouth drop open in shocked surprise at the sight of the big flying boat, boring
down from the sun—the hunter became the quarry. The pilot recovered quickly and
the Albatros rolled sharply away, but not before Giordino drilled it with a
fifteen shot clip from the carbine.
The grim, incongruous drama in the smoke-ridden sky over Brady Field reached a
new stage as the World War II flying boat squared off against the World War I
fighter plane. The PBY was faster, but the Albatros had the advantage of two
machine guns and a vastly higher degree of maneuverability. The Albatros was
lesser known than its famous counterpart, the Fokker, but it was an excellent
fighter and the workhorse of the German Imperial Air Service from 1916 to 1918.
The Albatros twisted, turned and zeroed in on the PBY’s cockpit. Pitt acted
quickly and yanked the controls back into his lap and prayed the wings would
stay glued to the fuselage as the lumbering flying boat struggled into a loop.
He forgot caution and the accepted rules of flying; the exhilaration of
man-to-man combat surged In his blood. He could almost hear the rivets popping
as the PBY twisted over on its back. The unorthodox evasive action caught his
opponent off guard, and the twin streams of fire from the yellow plane went
wide, missing the Catalina completely.
The Albatros then made a steep left hand turn and
came straight at the PBY, and they approached head-on. Pitt could see the other
plane’s tracer bullets streaking about ten feet under his windshield. Lucky for
us this guy’s a lousy shot, he thought. He had a weird feeling in his stomach as
the two planes sped together on a collision course. Pitt waited until the last
possible instant before he pushed the nose of the PBY down and swiftly banked
around, gaining a brief, but favorable position over the Albatros. Again
Giordino opened fire.
But the yellow Albatros dived out of the spitting hail from the carbine and shot
vertically toward the ground, and Pitt momentarily lost sight of it He swung to
the right in a steep turn and searched the sky. It was too late. He sensed,
rather than felt, the thumping from a river of bullets that tore into the flying
boat. Pitt threw his plane into a violent falling leaf maneuver and successfully
dodged the smaller plane’s deadly sting. It was a narrow escape.
The uneven battle continued for a full eight minutes while the military
spectators on the ground watched, spellbound. The strange aerial dogfight slowly
drifted eastward over the shoreline, and the final round began.
Pitt was sweating now. Small glistening beads of the salty liquid were bursting
from the pores on his forehead and trickling in snail-like trails down his face.
His opponent was cunning, but Pitt was playing the strategy game too. With
infinite patience, dredged up from some hidden reserve in his body, he waited
for the right moment, and when it finally arrived he was ready.
The Albatros managed to get behind and slightly above the Catalinia Pitt held
his speed steady and the other pilot, sensing victory, closed to within fifty
yards of the flying boat’s towering tail section. But before the two machine
guns could speak, Pitt pulled the throttle back and lowered the flaps, slowing
the big craft into a near stall. The phantom pilot, taken by surprise, overshot
and passed the PBY, receiving several well placed rounds In the Albatros’ engine
as the carbine spat at near point-blank range. The vintage plane banked in front
of Pitt’s bow, and he watched with the respect one brave man has for another
when the occupant in the open cockpit pushed up his goggles and threw a curt
salute.. Then the yellow Albatros and its mysterious pilot turned away and
headed west over the island, trailing a black streak of smoke that testified to
the accuracy of Giordino’s marksmanship.

Awesome drawing Jet Doctor! :) w:

:blink: :blink: :blink: Dang, you are good! You could probably make money selling those.

:o yike: :o yike: :o

WOW Michelle that is impressive, you are extremely talented - WE WANT MORE!!!(hehehehe)

Wow! Very impressive, and fantastic attention to detail!

HOLY COW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! yike: yike:

You are one awesome artist Michelle.
Do you do portraits? ;)

b: that looks cool jet doctor th: n: so:

WOW th: You are amazing beer:

I like it,I like it alot!!

Many, many THANKS!!! :)

w: Now that's what I call art! Fantastic!

-Steve cop:

i like it, i love it, i want some more of it! that is just awsome! beer:

Nice, but the question is, can you draw Summer? ;)

I swear Michelle, when I get around to writing those childrens books, I'm going to tap you for illustration! th:

LOOKS GREAT JET DOCTOR....HOW ABOUT A SKETCH OF DIRK? w:

We have a sketch of Dirk Pitt all ready to go. It'll be loaded soon. This sketch will be from a different artist.

Tony, would that be the sketch that Rob Greer's friend did of Dirk coming out of the hole in the ground?

Thats the one!

The CCCS has given us the ok to post that one and more.

Cheers ... p:

th: That would be great! I would love to see a sketch of Pitt.

Great picture, Michelle!

Here's a link (I hope it works) to a part of the Doxa forum showing some paintings the forum moderator (Dr Pete Millar) commissioned for himself, with the first one being Clive wearing his Doxa.Doxa forum, sub300 link

j: th: that pic is brilliant we want more

Very good, thank you!

Searambler, Thanks for the link, but I did see those paintings when Pete posted them on the SSBB. (You might know me on the SSBB as "MissClaudia.") I loved those paintings and they were terrific. I haven't dabbled much with water colors but plan to try them out eventually. I am mainly a pencil person and haven't dabbled in paints in years. :)

wow looks great!

Fantastic th: th:

The DOXA Sahara painting looks good too.