Immelman Turn

Album: A Beach Full of Shells (2005)
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Songfacts®:

  • Back in the '70s, Al Stewart wrote a song called "A Perfect Immelmann Turn" but changed its name to the more alluring "Flying Sorcery". Here, he revisits the title but without the magic.
  • This run of the mill ballad is called either "Immelmann Turn" or "The Immelmann Turn"; the maneuver itself is named after its inventor, the German World War One fighter pilot Max Immelmann. Born at Dresden in 1890, he was awarded the Iron Cross in 1915 but was killed in action the following year.

    The song is not about him though but about stunt pilots in the United States in the aftermath of World War One, the barnstormers. >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Alexander Baron - London, England, for above 2

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