Greatest aviation myth this site “de-bunked”.

[SaparotRob]

I picked the B-17 but I was wondering if any of the larger aircraft of the Second World War were surprisingly pleasant to fly and perhaps more maneuverable than one might think.

 

[pbehn]

I heard a scientist (biologist I think) on a radio programme say that half of what he was taught at university 20 years ago is now wrong. He says by the time he retires he will have seen virtually everything he was taught be superceded.

I used to have a book on welding produced by the British Welding Institute. When I worked on a 13% Chromium pipeline it told me "13% Chromium steel is not weldable", when I worked on a super duplex stainless steel pipeline using Electron Beam welding it told me "this process is only used in academic research". When I worked on a bi metallic catenary riser pipeline which used Electro Slag welding it told me "the electro slag process is used to join rail lines". I threw the book away.

 

[ThomasP]

I have read in many places that the Halifax and Wellington also used the 'corkscrew' maneuver. I do not know if the Stirling did, but I do not think there is any reason it could not. Same for the B-17 and Lancaster, although the US bombers might have to watch the G load a bit more than the UK bombers.

Some ultimate load factors from official UK documents:

Mosquito___8.0 at 18,500 lbs
Wellington__4.2 at 36,500 or 11 at 24,500
Lancaster__ 4.5 at 63,000
Halifax_____4.5 at 60,000
Stirling_____4.0 at 70,000 or 4.5 at 62,500
Sunderland_4.2 at 58,000

B-17C_____ 4.2 at 53,200
B-24D_____ 4.0 at 56,000

UK 2-engine bombers were required to meet a 6.0 G ultimate load at design weights, with 4-engine bombers meeting a 4.5 G load at design weight. I do not know what the design specification G load limits were for the B-17 or B-24, but I have read that the original specification G limit was the same for both.

 

[ClayO]

The ball turret was the safest position in a B-17 or B-24. Casualty records show more or less the same number for ball turret gunners as for other positions. That thread is from about 2010, but I can dig up the link if anybody's interested.

 

[Greyman]

It would be interesting to see the thread -- all I have is a small table from 'Gunner: an Illustrated History of World War II Aircraft Turrets and Gun Positions'

1,117 air-battle casualties tabulated.​

8th Air Force B-17 and B-24 Bomb Groups.​

Crew Position -- Killed/Wounded
Bombardiers -- 196: 17.6%
Waist gunners -- 233: 20.9%
Tail gunners -- 140: 12.5%
Navigators -- 136: 12.2%
Radio operators -- 95: 8.5%
Top gunners -- 94: 8.4%
Pilots -- 83: 7.4%
Co-pilots -- 74: 6.6%
Ball turret gunners -- 6: 5.9%

Dates/source unknown

 

[Koopernic]

It would be interesting to see the thread -- all I have is a small table from 'Gunner: an Illustrated History of World War II Aircraft Turrets and Gun Positions'

1,117 air-battle casualties tabulated.​

8th Air Force B-17 and B-24 Bomb Groups.​

Crew Position -- Killed/Wounded
Bombardiers -- 196: 17.6%
Waist gunners -- 233: 20.9%
Tail gunners -- 140: 12.5%
Navigators -- 136: 12.2%
Radio operators -- 95: 8.5%
Top gunners -- 94: 8.4%
Pilots -- 83: 7.4%
Co-pilots -- 74: 6.6%
Ball turret gunners -- 6: 5.9%

Dates/source unknown

Is this related to the amount of armour the crew members were provided with?

 

[pbehn]

Is this related to the amount of armour the crew members were provided with?

Partly, but there are many "dynamics" at play. For example the loss of two waist gunners doesn't affect anyone elses chance of survival, the loss of pilot and co pilot almost guarantees no one goes home unless they can successfully bail out. The statistics don't state whether they are for all servicemen involved in raids or just those who landed back where they came from.

 

[Juha3]

Back in '44, one of the first Allied encounters with a Me262, was a PRU Mossie.
They spotted an enemy aircraft closing on them (at 30,000 feet) and they opened the throttle, getting up to 400mph and the enemy was still closing. The enemy A/C was the unknown Me262, so they had no way of knowing what they were up against and when it opened fire, landing hits, they took violent evasive maneuvers.
One tactic they did, was a descending spiral which caused the Me262 to bleed off speed (the Mossie's saving grace) and then it would close again and they continued every trick in the book to shake it and this went on for nearly 15 minutes and then suddenly, the Me262 broke off.

So I would surmise that the Mosquito's pilot, by an astounding stroke of luck, found the 262's shortcomings in the first encounter: force the Me262 to slow down and run it out of fuel.

Mossie was a PR XVI, MM273, it was attacked by an Me262 which made some six firing passes. Eventually the Mosquito was able to escape into the clouds at 16,000 feet over the Tyrol. It landed at Fermo in Italy. No hits, outer part of a hatch was torn away by intense maneuverings. The crew flew the plane back to RAF Benson on the next day. After the war MM273 was passed to the Royal Navy and was lost when it crashed onto the sea off Malta in October 1950.

Very probably it's end was on October 31st 1950
CORDWELL, Victor H M, Lieutenant, killed
JOPLIN, Arthur, Commissioned Pilot, killed
728 Sqn FAA, HMS Falcon (Hal Far), landing back and turned steeply to port on one engine, crashed

 

[ClayO]

It would be interesting to see the thread -- all I have is a small table from 'Gunner: an Illustrated History of World War II Aircraft Turrets and Gun Positions'

1,117 air-battle casualties tabulated.​

8th Air Force B-17 and B-24 Bomb Groups.​

Crew Position -- Killed/Wounded
Bombardiers -- 196: 17.6%
Waist gunners -- 233: 20.9%
Tail gunners -- 140: 12.5%
Navigators -- 136: 12.2%
Radio operators -- 95: 8.5%
Top gunners -- 94: 8.4%
Pilots -- 83: 7.4%
Co-pilots -- 74: 6.6%
Ball turret gunners -- 6: 5.9%

Dates/source unknown

So you don't have to go through the whole thing, here's a chart posted by fubar57 on that thread:
Most Dangerous Position on a WW2 Allied bomber?

The chart is from this page.

Also, sorting the casualty list of the 449th BG (H), by position, ball turret gunners account for 41 out of the 458 listed, which is about 1/10th of the total.

I wonder if the data showing fewer ball turret casualties included units that removed the B-24 ball turret, like Topper of the 467th BG (H)?

 

[Barrett]

The Tuskegee airmen never lost a bomber under their escort.

I tracked that myth when writing "Forgotten Fifteenth." Turned out that it was published in the black press around the time the 99th FS had flown numerous missions. The notion was repeated in perpetuity assuming that the same record applied to the 332nd FG. Of course, other TA myths included the "Nazi destroyer," one or two aces, and much-much exaggerated claims ref. 262s. My conclusion: the TAs showed up when they didn't have to and they did a good job. But by actual Google count they (as RTs, 332nd, etc) have more google hits than the other groups in the 15th AF combined.

 

[nuuumannn]

but I was wondering if any of the larger aircraft of the Second World War were surprisingly pleasant to fly and perhaps more maneuverable than one might think.

The Short Stirling. Pilots liked it and said for such a large aircraft it was easy to throw about the sky.

 

[nuuumannn]

A thing I wanna add about aviation myths on this site being debunked, well, I'm certainly not claiming to debunk anything, but I would like to pour cold water on the statement that the Fw 187 was a multi-role aircraft that would have been capable of doing everything, such as a Zerstorer, dive bomber, night fighter, high altitude fighter all in one airframe. Becos, folks, THAT AIN'T TRUE (most of you probably knew that anyways).

All one needs to do is look at the Fw drawings of the different variants of the Fw 187 that are supplied in the Hermann and Petrick book to see that each different incarnation had entirely different fuselage and engine combinations to each other. Not only that, but the airframe is simply too small to be able to carry all the equipment necessary to do so many things in one aircraft. For example, the night fighter variant was a single-seater with no provision for radar visible. German radar aerials were mounted in the nose of their aircraft, the Fw 187 couldn't do that for two reasons, 1, lack of space and 2, the propeller arc's proximity to the nose prevents it. It also had a different fuselage to the Fw 187C that Fw was preparing for production when it was ceased in August 1942.

That aircraft would have been capable of a day fighter bomber role, but that's pretty much it. There is no provision for drop tanks in the drawings either. The book states that it could serve as a night fighter, bad weather fighter and armed reconnaissance aircraft, but there is no space at all for mounting cameras in the fuselage, nor is there any space for extra avionics or radar, needed in a night/bad weather fighter, not to mention the location of engine instrumentation OUTSIDE the aircraft and the confined space in the cockpit, which would have made IFR flying a nightmare.

So, overall, I feel that, based on the evidence in the book that the Fw 187 would have been very much a one-trick-pony; EITHER a night fighter, albeit a bad one, OR a Kampfzerstorer, albeit a faster, more manoeuvrable but less capable one than the Bf 110, OR a high altitude heavy fighter, again, a fast one, OR a dive bomber, but a totally different airframe to the others, BUT NOT a reconnaissance aircraft, because there is nowhere to put cameras, unless you remove the back seat and/or fuselage fuel tanks/rear mounted avionics in the proposed single-seat heavy fighter.

The problem is that Hermann and Petrick, for all their hard work and research have painted an uneven appraisal of the aircraft and have ignored some of the evidence that Tank produced and that they used for their book, thereby, leading the fanatics astray in painting their own view of the aircraft as being the best thing since Nazi Schokolade...

MoF 85

 

[GrauGeist]

The Fw187 was originally to be a single-seat, twin engine fighter (like the Grumman XF5F), but in typical RLM tradition, they wanted it to do everything except be a single-seat, twin engine fighter.

To be honest, I think the RLM was the Luftwaffe's greatest adversary...

 

[nuuumannn]

To be honest, I think the RLM was the Luftwaffe's greatest adversary...

Agree and Funny!

 

[Koopernic]

A thing I wanna add about aviation myths on this site being debunked, well, I'm certainly not claiming to debunk anything, but I would like to pour cold water on the statement that the Fw 187 was a multi-role aircraft that would have been capable of doing everything, such as a Zerstorer, dive bomber, night fighter, high altitude fighter all in one airframe. Becos, folks, THAT AIN'T TRUE (most of you probably knew that anyways).

All one needs to do is look at the Fw drawings of the different variants of the Fw 187 that are supplied in the Hermann and Petrick book to see that each different incarnation had entirely different fuselage and engine combinations to each other. Not only that, but the airframe is simply too small to be able to carry all the equipment necessary to do so many things in one aircraft. For example, the night fighter variant was a single-seater with no provision for radar visible. German radar aerials were mounted in the nose of their aircraft, the Fw 187 couldn't do that for two reasons, 1, lack of space and 2, the propeller arc's proximity to the nose prevents it. It also had a different fuselage to the Fw 187C that Fw was preparing for production when it was ceased in August 1942.

That aircraft would have been capable of a day fighter bomber role, but that's pretty much it. There is no provision for drop tanks in the drawings either. The book states that it could serve as a night fighter, bad weather fighter and armed reconnaissance aircraft, but there is no space at all for mounting cameras in the fuselage, nor is there any space for extra avionics or radar, needed in a night/bad weather fighter, not to mention the location of engine instrumentation OUTSIDE the aircraft and the confined space in the cockpit, which would have made IFR flying a nightmare.

So, overall, I feel that, based on the evidence in the book that the Fw 187 would have been very much a one-trick-pony; EITHER a night fighter, albeit a bad one, OR a Kampfzerstorer, albeit a faster, more manoeuvrable but less capable one than the Bf 110, OR a high altitude heavy fighter, again, a fast one, OR a dive bomber, but a totally different airframe to the others, BUT NOT a reconnaissance aircraft, because there is nowhere to put cameras, unless you remove the back seat and/or fuselage fuel tanks/rear mounted avionics in the proposed single-seat heavy fighter.

The problem is that Hermann and Petrick, for all their hard work and research have painted an uneven appraisal of the aircraft and have ignored some of the evidence that Tank produced and that they used for their book, thereby, leading the fanatics astray in painting their own view of the aircraft as being the best thing since Nazi Schokolade...

View attachment 610317MoF 85

No one has painted the Fw 187 as anything but a lost opportunity to produce a twin engine high speed long range fighter that would have been excellent and provided the Luftwaffe an capability it lacked, in that role if produced with DB601/DB605. The subsequent attempts, described by Hermann/Petrick to reengineer it into a dive bomber and zerstoerer are seen universally by Fw "proponents" as waste of time and worth reviewing to understand why Luftwaffe procurement policy had lost its way.

 

[GrauGeist]

But everything the RLM wanted the Fw187 to do (besides being a pure fighter), they already had.
Dive-Bomber: Hs123, Ju87
Photo recon: so many to choose from - where to start?
Fighter/bomber: Bf109, He112, Fw190

And this doesn't include the bombers that ALSO had to do everything on the list.

 

[pbehn]

But everything the RLM wanted the Fw187 to do (besides being a pure fighter), they already had.
Dive-Bomber: Hs123, Ju87
Photo recon: so many to choose from - where to start?
Fighter/bomber: Bf109, He112, Fw190

And this doesn't include the bombers that ALSO had to do everything on the list.

Bombers also had to be troop transports, cargo planes and medical evacuation vehicles. To be fair the allies did the same, most fighters were used for ground attack, with the Typhoon that was its main role. The Mustang Mk I was fitted with cameras for its main RAF role and there were dedicated PR versions of the P-51 too.

 

[GrauGeist]

Bombers also had to be troop transports, cargo planes and medical evacuation vehicles. To be fair the allies did the same, most fighters were used for ground attack, with the Typhoon that was its main role. The Mustang Mk I was fitted with cameras for its main RAF role and there were dedicated PR versions of the P-51 too.

But the USAAF and RAF didn't hamstring production of the type to make changes, they pulled an airframe off the assembly line and spun the variant from that...the RLM demanded changes beforehand, causing delays and in several cases, atrophy.

 

[nuuumannn]

No one has painted the Fw 187 as anything but a lost opportunity to produce a twin engine high speed long range fighter that would have been excellent and provided the Luftwaffe an capability it lacked, in that role if produced with DB601/DB605.

Actually that's not true. Enter "Fw 187" into the forum search engine and you'll see that every mention of it in a thread talks about how awesome it would have been as a multi-role machine capable of doing everything and being a Mosquito Killer and, and, and. Even you have expressed how it would have been a long range fighter/night fighter/recon machine, yet the evidence says it wouldn't have been capable of all those things in one airframe, which is why I have placed this here.

Was it a lost opportunity? Again, I'm on the fence about this. It kind'a made sense for the RLM to not continue with it bearing in mind the fact that one airframe could not have done all that was (and is) being said of it. The Bf 110 was slower and less manoeuvrable (that's one thing about the Fw 187 that I agree with you on, its excellent performance), but the Bf 110 was far more versatile, and that's what the RLM was asking for. Also the production side of things - what's not being produced? It made more sense to concentrate on the Fw 190/Ta 152 airframe as a fighter interceptor, or ground attack aeroplane.

 

[tomo pauk]

...

Was it a lost opportunity? Again, I'm on the fence about this. It kind'a made sense for the RLM to not continue with it bearing in mind the fact that one airframe could not have done all that was (and is) being said of it. The Bf 110 was slower and less manoeuvrable (that's one thing about the Fw 187 that I agree with you on, its excellent performance), but the Bf 110 was far more versatile, and that's what the RLM was asking for. Also the production side of things - what's not being produced? It made more sense to concentrate on the Fw 190/Ta 152 airframe as a fighter interceptor, or ground attack aeroplane.

RLM was wrong (certainly not the last time they will be wrong until VE day). Should've picked Fw 187, that is being build instead of Bf 110, Me 210 and Me 410. Probably no Fw 190 either, better have Focke Wulf whip up a 1-engined jet fighter for 1943.
Fw 190, good as it was, played no part in air war of 1939, 1940, and in 1941 it was present only in ETO.