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Any one of the airplanes can kill a novice, and fast. Even experienced warbird operators have been killed in everything on the list. While I haven't flown any of them, I have been around them long enough to see how they take-off, land and handle approached in crosswinds, etc. I would say the P-39 would be the "easiest" of the list because of the tricycle landing gear and single engine. That alone makes take-offs and landings safer because of visibility. I don't know how it would be CG-wise with the engine behind you, but I have spoken with vets that flew P-38s and P-39s and they liked the way the P-39 flew.
Too much power on a Mustang will torque-roll the aircraft, even at cruise. On landings, it will kill you fast. Mustangs are beautiful warbirds, but like any older airplane, can be tricky.
The 51 and AT-6 are the only two I ever flew and the litany of don'ts from my instructor father focused around low speed/high rpm screw ups. The comment about cruise above was one that I didn't experience except when I combined 20 degree of flaps and ran the throttle from 46" to 61" because the instructor-dad wanted to make a point about what NOT to do in a Missed approach. That mistake is not recoverable over the threshold.
The Mustang required trimming for just about every 'new' flight speed and profile and certainly required respect re:torque - particularly on take off or landing - anything at low relative speeds and reduced control effectiveness.
I didn't particularly like cross wind landings above 15 kts but I thought the AT-6 was worse!
56 hours does not make me an expert. It was a delight to fly
I have heard that a Lightning with an engine out on takeoff or landing can be a real handful. One of my P-38 veteran friends stated that if he had had an engine out in his first 20-30 hours of flying the type, it probably would have killed him.
Any tail dragger is a pain to taxi. The wide track of the P-47 makes it even trickier on narrower taxiways. That is why you often see the crew chief on the wings for taxiing in the old war movies. It's big and it's heavy too.
I will add that the narrow track of the landing gear on the spitfire and the 109 make landings quite an experience, and ground loops are much easier to get into with the Spitfire and the 109. Add the off-camber angle of the 109 and you have a real handful.
In accident statistics the P-39 stands out like the proverbial sore thumb, in that it was the most dangerous plane to fly.
From Army Air Forces Statistical Digest (tables 174 and 214), continental US only :
ACCIDENT RATES, rate/1000 hours
Plane deaths accidents wrecked planes
P-38 0.42 1.54 0.83
P-39 0.61 2.98 1.33
P-40 0.20 2.04 0.55
P-47 0.19 1.28 0.47
P-51 0.18 1.07 0.46
I've been told that the P-40 was notorious for over-heating while on the ground...so the rule was, get moving or get seized.
I'm looking at the chart (table 214) that Timppa mentioned and I see that the figures seem to reflect a total loss number for all continental incidents since it doesn't break the categories down into sub-cats (i.e.: training, combat simulation, transport/ferry, etc).
Also looks like the biggest killer of pilots was the P-47 while the least goes to the P-51 for the years of 1942 through 1945.
The chart is here: http://www.usaaf.net/digest/t214.htm
By the way, check out the numbers of the "Advanced Trainers" category found on the lower half of the chart...
No comprehensive twin engine aircraft training early in the war - engine out and you're toast!I'm surprised about the P-38 being difficult to fly - seems like it would be on relatively easy to operate.
Wow, you guys are impressive. I realize it was a potentially arguable, perhaps even unanswerable, topic. But I was curious is all. I also understand that any plane can kill you.
I guess what I was getting at is this: Most fans like the bada$$ fighters like the P-51D, F4U-4, FW-190 and Mark XIV. And if money were no object, one of those is the warbird most would be likely to try and purchase. But maybe that same fan has only ever flown Cessna's and Mooney's.
So I assume his (or her) first step would be to begin "fighter training" at one of the modern schools specializing in Warbird training... perhaps in a AT-6, right? And then I guess you'd advance to oral training by a current pilot of the type you purchased?
Most of the 'oral' training from the old pro's would boil down to 'don't do it' but if you must then dual time in the bird of choice - (mostly 51's) in which they spend 20-30 hours showing you how easy it is to screw up... THEN you get time in an AT-6 so he show you how both can kill you..then back to the 51 until he thinks you can solo the bird w/o ruining his reputation.
Since the TF-51 is pretty much the only dual-control fighter in this case, most of your advanced training wouldn't be "hands on," so to speak, would it? Do they use simulators for advanced (F4) Corsair training, for example?
Simulators would be great but I'm not aware of any available. The one I flew at DM for the A-10 is multi million dollar facility where you can program just about any flight, failure or weather condition.
With thorough and proper training, how much more dangerous would it be to land and fly out of your own private airstrip in, say, a F4 Corsair than in a Cessna 185? Like everything else, I imagine it would get easier with repetition, right? I mean, by the end of his tour the ('43-'44) VMF-214 vet probably thought the Corsair was the easiest plane in the world to fly, eh?
Not after they got back in their Cessna 182 or Beech A-36
Anyway, thanks for the comments thus far! It's been very interesting and educational. Btw, didn't the P-39 rely on a long shaft that was known to malfunction on occassion? Could that account for some of the accidents in the data?
Fred B.