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This is the difference in german statistic between built and despose (here, reconstruction and repair count too), but from my logic, you can only loosse an a/c one time. Because also the repaired or reconstructed a/c is the old one built a/c and not an other one.
If one a/c (for example Nr. 1000) was three times heavily damaged and got three times a big indusrty repair, this are not three losses to my logic, it is a loss, when it is not anymore repaired but scraped.
DonL,
I'm on the fence regarding how a military accounts for an airplane. If a plane is shot down, say he dead sticks it in, and is subsequently repaired and flown then:
Does the "kill" get rescinded? Does the opposing force count that plane as destroyed and the repaired one as "new"? Does the military that owened the airplane never strike it off or does it?
The reason I ask is I've seen the USAF take two different F-15's, that suffered some event, and "mate" the good sections together to make an aircraft they put back in the inventory. How would you handle that accounting wise?
Cheers,
Biff
Hi Biff, very interesting questions.
For your F15 example, to me one a/c is lost and one is repaired, which one depends on the manufactor and which indenfication number the new one is flying.
The other question is tricky and I think it is the issue why I started the discussion with parsifal.
If someone claimed an Airforce had over 150000 total losses to all causes, but only 123000 a/c's were built something is wrong. If you count/add the repair and reconstruction numbers, the numbers will nearly match and perhaps are accurate.
But at which time then you specify a loss as a loss? Everytime an a/c will be send back to the industry to got a repair (so it is for tihs time out of service)?
For example, Marseille's 17 killes at one day, are heavily discussed all over the world and many people didn't accept that 17 kills, because 4-5 aircrafts managed to got back heavily or very heavily damaged, some were written off some were reapaired.
A written off a/c is to me a loss, a repared a/c is to me no loss from logic.
Kill still counts. Repaired aircraft are considered "new" but typically the measure is available front-line strength rather than a total profit/loss count across a country's aircraft manufacturing and air combat activities.
I should have cottoned onto this earlier. Many times aircraft are "written off" but are salvaged to create a "new aircraft. Sometimes this mighht inolve canibalisation of one damed airframe to ressurrect two other airframes written off.
it explains a lot for me.
Spitfires used Lewis Machine guns?
i'd take the spit. i know of a mustang pilot who while coming back from a mission over the channel saw a spit on patrol and decided to play with the guy and bounced him. the spit ended up playing with him instead. he walked away with a little more humility and a lot more respect for that plane.
The only figure I can find for the Hellcat says it cost about $50,000 flyaway, probably late-war but noit so indicated. People who quote price usually take the lower number for some reason.
Also, the costs of many WWII items were sometimes reported minus GFE (government furnished equipment), such as engine, propeller, radios, and AGE (aerospace ground equipment) such as generators to help start a dead-battery aircraft and the like. Many times the government supplied the instruments so they would be standard, including gunsights and any radar / avionics that were used.
The Hellcat is not complicated and is easy to repair, but uses a complex engine (R-2800). To me, $50K seems very likely for the airframe minus the GFE cost but installed anyway.
Yup co pilot climbed out onto wings to reload them !