Greatest aviation myth this site “de-bunked”.

All 62 of the 48 Seafires carried by the British Pacific Fleet were destroyed in landing accidents.

Hi

Myths are persistent mainly because people 'like them', the 'truth' is rather 'boring' in many cases. Aviation myths are still around from the First World War let alone the Second. For example the ever popular "8000 British pilots killed in training" out of "14,166 pilots who lost their lives in the war". The problem is of course is that the numbers of British and Commonwealth air service personnel that died is 9,350, that is all ranks, men and women, all causes of death, so 8000 killed in training is a bit problematic! We do have the names of the dead (see 'Airmen Died in the Great War 1914-1918' now on DVD-ROM so searchable), looking through these I have found around 1,600 killed in Training Units, that is all aircrew not just pilots. If we could add those killed when 'training on squadrons' we would still be under 2000 probably, out of a total of 2844 Killed Whilst Flying (accidents) with 3,592 KIA (not just air crew). However, even in 2016 we have Dr James S. Corum writing a chapter 'Air War over the Somme' in the book 'The Battle of the Somme' (ed. Matthias Strohn, Osprey) that states about 'British' training:

"This informal and haphazard approach to training by the RFC killed far more British pilots than the Germans - the biggest cause of death for British airmen in World War I was training accidents. A total of 8,000 British aircrew were killed while training in the UK - a record of casualties per training hours that exceeded that of the Germans, French and Americans by several times."

If you start your analysis with 'false figures' then the result is going to be incorrect. So how does the 'British' figure for training deaths compare with the German one,? According to Major G P Neumann in 'The German Air Force in the Great War' (1920), the figures were:

"Among those on home service alone, most of whom were engaged on training duty either as pupils or instructors, we lost 1399 pilots and 401 observers between August 1914 and October 1918. These figures require no comment."

In number terms there is not much difference in 'British' and German training deaths although the 'British' trained more air crew than the Germans.

Another myth is that the Junker J.I was an armoured ground attack aeroplane, when it was actually an Infantry aeroplane undertaking what the British called 'Contact Patrols', these were to locate the front line of your own troops. For this it had wireless, flares etc. and armed with one machine gun in the observer's cockpit. It was not manoeuvrable enough for ground attack missions and was also under powered. German ground attack aircraft in the 'Schlachtflieger' units were generally either un-armoured or had much lighter armour protection as they needed to keep up their performance to undertake ground attack missions and carry the weapons for that purpose.

I suspect any 'Myths busted' on this forum will still appear elsewhere and be believed even by 'History professors' let alone the general public, that is the nature of a 'myth'.

Mike

MikeMeech said:

Hi

I suspect any 'Myths busted' on this forum will still appear elsewhere and be believed even by 'History professors' let alone the general public, that is the nature of a 'myth'.

Mike

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I think thats a particualry serious problem in academia (as it is these days anway), for a start nobody has time to do proper research as they`re all busy trying to get grants or publishing their quota of papers so they dont get sacked, so they just copy-paste stuff from the other "big names" each all hoping the others did their job properly (when none of them did).

Also history profs cant really say anything too contentious as they`ll now be deplatformed from twitter.

(disclaimer, I do rate Prof David Edgerton at Kings College London, he writes pretty good stuff like "Britains War Machine")

Snowygrouch said:

I think thats a particualry serious problem in academia (as it is these days anway), for a start nobody has time to do proper research as they`re all busy trying to get grants or publishing their quota of papers so they dont get sacked, so they just copy-paste stuff from the other "big names" each all hoping the others did their job properly (when none of them did).

Also history profs cant really say anything too contentious as they`ll now be deplatformed from twitter.

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My folks worked in academia. That was their experience as related over the dinner table. Sorry, no documentation.

buffnut453 said:

British-produced Merlins were hand-crafted until the US auto industry showed the Brits how to set up a production line. Oh...and Packard-built Merlins were better than RR-built Merlins.

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My brother once chatted to a fellow who claimed to have worked on both who said that Packard parts were more interchangable due to better machining tolerance.

That kinda fits with the Packard line being set up with the benefit of hindsight, but doesn't equal significantly better.

gruad said:

My brother once chatted to a fellow who claimed to have worked on both who said that Packard parts were more interchangable due to better machining tolerance.

That kinda fits with the Packard line being set up with the benefit of hindsight, but doesn't equal significantly better.

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Nope no mein nada no. All RR Merlin V1650 and Packard Merlin engines were built to the same very exact tolerance. Rolls Royce despite the myth did not build Merlins by carving it out of a block of aluminium.

This myth has been busted so many times I think it's time it should be burnt at the stake.

GrauGeist said:

Yep, that's pure "Caidinism" - the Luftwaffe pilots usually referred to them as "Lightnings" and the American pilots (my great uncle Jimmy included) were the ones who called the P-38 the "".

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The Germans called Lightnings Gabelschwanzteufel after they met them in Tunis .The translation would be Fork-tailed Devil.

Nuyttens said:

The Germans called Lightnings Gabelschwanzteufel after they met them in Tunis .The translation would be Fork-tailed Devil.

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No, they did not. The myth was started by am author named Martin Caiden. The Germans never ever called it. Not in Tunisia, not in Germany, not anywhere.

Maybe we should re-title this thread "Greatest aviation myth this site thought it had "de-bunked""?

Nuyttens said:

The Germans called Lightnings Gabelschwanzteufel after they met them in Tunis .The translation would be Fork-tailed Devil.

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Teufel is not linearly translatable to devil and is often used as a cuss word so Gabelschwanzteufel could also be translated to Fork-tailed F--ker

Nuyttens said:

The Germans called Lightnings Gabelschwanzteufel after they met them in Tunis .The translation would be Fork-tailed Devil.

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The Germans referred to the various Allied types by their known names (B-17: Boeing, Spitfire: Spitfire, P-38: Lightning, Hurricane: Hurricane, P-51: Mustang, etc.).
Tthe American pilots were calling the P-38 a "Fork-tailed Devil" starting around '41/'42 when it was starting to go into service.

The P-38 didn't show up in the Tunis area until '43...

ssnider said:

Teufel is not linearly translatable to devil and is often used as a cuss word so Gabelschwanzteufel could also be translated to Fork-tailed F--ker

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GrauGeist said:

The Germans referred to the various Allied types by their known names (B-17: Boeing, Spitfire: Spitfire, P-38: Lightning, Hurricane: Hurricane, P-51: Mustang, etc.).
The American pilots were calling the P-38 a "Fork-tailed Devil" starting around '41/'42 when it was starting to go into service.

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Perhaps P-38 drivers who were experiencing hypothermia or engine failures at high altitude behind enemy lines in Europe, or got locked up in compressability during dives called the plane "Fork-tailed F--ker."

GrauGeist said:

The Germans referred to the various Allied types by their known names (B-17: Boeing, Spitfire: Spitfire, P-38: Lightning, Hurricane: Hurricane, P-51: Mustang, etc.).
Tthe American pilots were calling the P-38 a "Fork-tailed Devil" starting around '41/'42 when it was starting to go into service.

The P-38 didn't show up in the Tunis area until '43...

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...and now we know. Myth Busted!

gruad said:

My brother once chatted to a fellow who claimed to have worked on both who said that Packard parts were more interchangable due to better machining tolerance.

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That would explain why Rolls-Royce engines were broken down to provide spares for P-40Fs in North Africa.

The most egregious (IMO) are on the WWII "documentaries" on TV where the narator claims this or that subject of the show "undoubtedly shortened the war by 'X' amount of time." To paraphrase one wag: "If you add up all these 'shortened the war by ...' assertions then the war would have ended 20 years before it started."

yosimitesam said:

To paraphrase one wag: "If you add up all these 'shortened the war by ...' assertions then the war would have ended 20 years before it started."

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Despite being funny, it's quite plauseable. The end of the Great War and Germany's treatment subsequently had an enormous impact on those seeking to go to war in Europe twenty years later...

gjs238 said:

We busted the myth that Greg is Greg. We now know for certain that Greg is not Greg. Indeed, Greg himself stated that he is not Greg.

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Put an umlaut somewhere in Greg's name and he becomes Uber-Greg, far superior than Allied Gregs and a Mosquito killer...

nuuumannn said:

Despite being funny, it's quite plauseable. The end of the Great War and Germany's treatment subsequently had an enormous impact on those seeking to go to war in Europe twenty years later...

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True. The demeaning (and naive) Versailles Treaty coupled with the economic ravages of the Great Depression were fertile ground for a generation of Germans to turn to radical politics for an answer.

Don't forget that despite other Central Powers being involved in the great war, it was Germany who was the "last man standing" when the armistice was signed and the war reparations imposed on Germany were staggering.

fastmongrel said:

Nope no mein nada no. All RR Merlin V1650 and Packard Merlin engines were built to the same very exact tolerance. Rolls Royce despite the myth did not build Merlins by carving it out of a block of aluminium.

This myth has been busted so many times I think it's time it should be burnt at the stake.

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As I understand the two companies simply took different ways of manufacturing an engine to the required tolerances.

In the UK, with cheaper labour and (generally) shorter production volumes they'd produce components to looser tolerances, then after manufacture get these groups into matching assemblies with the required tolerance.

In the US, with more expensive labour, larger production runs and presumably a more highly developed capital raising system they'd spend more on production machinery that produced tighter tolerances in the first place, without requiring the manual sorting and matching.

Both were valid for their particular circumstances.