How dangerous was it to fly ww2 era aircraft even without ever seeing combat.

swampyankee · May 4, 2019

mad_max said:
As I listened to a video of [Bob] Peterson he mentioned that flying a WW2 aircraft was flying a high performance machine and they would bite you if you weren't attentive. My father who was a Navy Pilot Instructor said the worst time for a low time pilot was around 200-250 hours of flight time. That's the time that young pilot's thought they had complete control/understanding of their aircraft and they would let their heads get big.

This experience range is also considered the "danger zone" for non-military pilots: with fewer hours, they're still uncertain enough of their skills to be very careful and with [enough] more, they're sufficiently knowledgeable to keep out of trouble. In that experience danger zone, their confidence exceeds their skills and judgement.

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To address the original topic, of course high performance military aircraft were more dangerous to fly than contemporary civil aircraft, for both cultural reasons -- one expects a certain number of combat pilots to die as a consequence of their job, but not pleasure or commercial pilots -- and engineering reasons -- combat aircraft tend to be on the bleading edge. Also, of course, combat aircraft were pushed even farther during wartime, not infrequently being overloaded, flown into and out of marginal fields, and operated in weather conditions that would ground the very same aircraft and pilots in peacetime.

Greg Boeser · May 4, 2019

Not to mention operating aircraft with faults that would ground them in peacetime. A number of bomber crews returning from the Alaska theater with their planes had them immediately grounded upon arrival in the States. These aircraft had been flying combat missions a week before in some of the most inhospitable conditions but needed complete overhauls before they were considered safe for training.

michael rauls · May 4, 2019

The Basket said:
While at my local church graveyard I came across a military headstone.
Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve Aged 19
HMS Blackcap RNAS Stretton
Died 1944.
I did some research and the kid was killed on take off.
Freedom ain't free.

RNAS Stretton has long closed but you can still see the runway.
Google Earth

To me this is one of the most tragic kinds of death of all. A young man, 19, volunteers
and is killed before being able to at least make a contribution to the effort. I think it's pretty universal that if people are going to die young they at least want it to count for something.

gumbyk · May 5, 2019

ThomasP said:
Hey guys,

I used to hang out with some older gentlemen, several of whom flew in WWII. A couple of them mentioned that they had trained in the P-40 just before they were assigned to their initial operational types (if I am using the term correctly). I have always assumed from this and other things they said that the use of th P-40 as a high performance training aircraft was probably the cause of the unusually high accident rate (if I am reading the statistical digest data correctly the P-40 had the 2nd highest accident rate and the highest number of accidents. The A-36 possibly being an aberration due to the relatively low numbers of service aircraft). Does anyone know for sure if this is correct?

I know that the use of the P-40 as a trainer is correct, at least it was done here in New Zealand before transitioning to the Corsair. That was where a lot of fatalities were - not necessarily unable to handle the aircraft, but pushing beyond the aircraft limits. e.g. instructor says don't go over 400 in a dive, so student pilot decides to find out why you can't...

BiffF15 · May 9, 2019

Jug Pilot said:
How I checked out in a P-47, My first test was that I had to fly the T-6 from the back seat, not a problem for me. Then spent more than a few days sitting in the P-47 cockpit and studying the P-47 Manual. Nest came a blindfolded test where items were called out and I had to touch them or locate them, Mag switch, gear handle, flap handle, throttle, etc. Then the actual first time flight with the Group Commander as my wing man. A beautiful take off and some air work followed. Then the fun part ??? the 360 deg approach to landing. As I lined up with the runway and off to my left was a fast approaching rain squall driftng across the runway. My reaction was that this did not look like good conditions for the first landing, there was no hesitation as I poured on the coal, cleaned up the airplane and came around for a second 360 overhead. Meanwhile my instructor wingman was on me for going around like I did. In retrospect, he probably nodded in approval. (Gusty x-winds, poor visibility, wet runway, poor braking etc ) My take away was that I absolutely loved the P-47 (JUG) and in many subsequent flights, as all good fighter pilots do, I went to the edge of the envelope and beyond, Testing my and the airplanes limits. Let me know if you want to hear more ???

Jug Pilot,

Very cool and I'm envious! Please share! I'm curious what you had flown prior and your path to the Jug!

Cheers,
Biff

PS: Pictures if you can would be much appreciated!

jetcal1 · May 9, 2019

Slightly off topic and even more ironic, in Hickey's Warpath across the Pacific, in the appendices there is a death documented of a gunner who died after his last mission when he fell out of a truck and hit his head. (The mind boggles.)

The Basket · May 10, 2019

One issue is no 2 seaters.
So the first time you flew a Spitfire was solo. Throw in bad weather and mechanical failure and short range and poor visibility and poor navigation aids and the question could be how did anyone survive!

swampyankee · May 10, 2019

The Basket said:
One issue is no 2 seaters.
So the first time you flew a Spitfire was solo. Throw in bad weather and mechanical failure and short range and poor visibility and poor navigation aids and the question could be how did anyone survive!

A second issue is that, even if there were a two-seater, a small aircraft like the Spitfire would probably have its handling significantly changed in a two-seat variant, which could make it ineffective as a trainer

GrauGeist · May 10, 2019

There were two seat Spitfires, the T.Mk.VIII and T.Mk.IX although they were mostly late/post war.

Shortround6 · May 10, 2019

jetcal1 said:
Slightly off topic and even more ironic, in Hickey's Warpath across the Pacific, in the appendices there is a death documented of a gunner who died after his last mission when he fell out of a truck and hit his head. (The mind boggles.)

Still happens, A friend of mine's son-in-law was retired out of the Army (he was a Captain) when there was an accident unloading bleachers from a truck. Both back and brain injuries.
This was in the very late 1980s but I expect, with the size of the US forces, that there are several deaths per year of an 'industrial nature" (falls from vehicles/structures or other routine operations.)

jetcal1 · May 10, 2019

Shortround6 said:
Still happens, A friend of mine's son-in-law was retired out of the Army (he was a Captain) when there was an accident unloading bleachers from a truck. Both back and brain injuries.
This was in the very late 1980s but I expect, with the size of the US forces, that there are several deaths per year of an 'industrial nature" (falls from vehicles/structures or other routine operations.)

My condolences, I hope he's had a decent quality of life and no one tried to deny him any benefits.
As far as the "industrial nature"? If we had less than 10 killed during workups through the end of the deployment, I considered it to be a safe cruise. (Counting aircrew deaths as well. Please remember, we're also talking about 5,000 people over a 12 month period.)

As far as the gunner, I could only imagine the folks packing up his PE and the CO writing that letter:
"Dear Mr. and Mrs. X, your son survived 25 harrowing missions against the Japanese at Lae and Salamaua."

The Basket · May 12, 2019

I would say a two seater Spitfire even it did have handling difference would still have been very worthwhile. Less of the jump in the deep end.

Also no escape mechanisms when it goes bad. Lose an engine on take off and I'm sure life can turn sour.

In the UK the weather is usually poor. And the aircraft like the Gnat have ranges which can best be described as empty and getting emptier. So bad weather and limited range and poor navigation is just asking to be a lawn dart.

Sometimes the question is not why so many died but how did so many survive!

mike cunningham · Jul 2, 2019

tyrodtom said:
Slightly off topic, but when I took WOFT, Army flight training in 1970, in my one company we started out with 120-125 students, 3 students and one instructor was killed just in the 110-120 hour primary flight part.
That one instructor, like all our instructors, a veteran of a Vietnam tour. Probably over 2500 hours. Ironic that he could safely get back from a combat tour and die instructing a student in the pre-solo stage of flight training.
I'd heard more than one instructor comment that they considered instructing more hazardous than combat.
Maybe they were just jerking our chains, or maybe there was some truth in the statements.

I'd heard more than one instructor say " Hodges, you trying to kill me ? " or words to that effect.

Near the end of primary flight we were asked to critique our flight training.
My beef was we had so much to do that you either couldn't get it all done, or you lost sleep. I'd actually partly nod off in class, had a hard time staying awake during class room instruction, but always managed to stay wide awake during inflight training.
Luckily I was already pretty well versed in what they were trying to teach us in the classroom, I'd immersed myself in aviation since about 10 years old.
But the actual flying part needed time.

My critique got answered . I was told, in writing, that flight training was intended to be a pressure cooker environment , it was better to weed out those who couldn't make the grade, or take the stress, early, than to give a gentle instruction program that never prepared the student for what he'd actually face in combat operations.

They were right.

What I'm trying to say is maybe military flight training is probably never going to be like civilian flight training, it's always going to be a competitive, pressure cooker environment , even more so when a war is going on.

mu uncle james was a very experienced civilian pilot; he then joing CRAF and flew as an instructor, then joined the air corps in 1942 he was in the ferry command and was killed flying a b-26 in florida trying to transport it to the west coast jusdt thought his experience was relevant he was by all accounts an extremely accomplished and experienced pilot all on board also were killed

Kevin J · Jul 2, 2019

special ed said:
Somewhere in one of the threads here was a list of flights or accidents or something but what I took notice of was a formation flight south where all aircraft crashed into the mountains of Venezuela because of fuel depletion. At this time I think they were A-17s being delivered. Obviously poor navigation aids and unfamiliar territory cost five, or was it seven, aircraft and lives.

Same thing happened flying Kittyhawks up from New South Wales to New Guinea in 1942.

Kevin J · Jul 2, 2019

gumbyk said:
A lot of the danger wasn't necessarily inherent to the aircraft or training.
Don't forget, you had 18-20 year old guys strapping on 2000 Hp aircraft and taking them to (and sometimes beyond) their limits. That's a recipe for disaster.

I remember watching this RT program about training civil aviation pilots in Russia, they had been losing commercial planes at a high rate due to pilot error, and it was like anyone in Swindon can get a taxi licence after 3 years driving. The only problem is that no one will insure them. These kids in Russia were flying commercial airliners in their early twenties. I thought to myself, no, no, no.

fliger747 · Jul 3, 2019

I saw a figure that is probably in error, that 20,000 were killed in stateside aviation training accidents. Of course a lot of bombers ran into mountains, go lost and whatnot, so crew included. My dad said that about 5% got killed in Navy training.

20,000 is probably way high, that would be 5% of total US war dead!

GrauGeist · Jul 3, 2019

The Sierra Nevada mountains on the border between California and Nevada has considerable WWII-era wreck sites that are still being discovered.
There's wreckage of B-17s, B-24s B-25s and much more. Just a couple years ago, some hikers discovered the wreckage of a long lost P-40 near Kenny Meadows on the south fork of the Kern River. The P-40 was part of a flight of nineteen that flew into a storm, five of which were lost.

pbehn · Jul 3, 2019

fliger747 said:
I saw a figure that is probably in error, that 20,000 were killed in stateside aviation training accidents. Of course a lot of bombers ran into mountains, go lost and whatnot, so crew included. My dad said that about 5% got killed in Navy training.

20,000 is probably way high, that would be 5% of total US war dead!

Well the Army airforce lost 13,621 United States World War II Aircraft Loss Statistics during Flight Training

Crimea_River · Jul 3, 2019

And for a Canadian RCAF perspective, here are numbers covering losses between 10 September, 1939 and 31 December 1946:

Killed or presumed dead due to flying operations: 13,036
Killed or presumed dead due to training accidents: 3,076
Injured (not fatal) in training accidents: 356

So, training accident fatalities were almost a quarter of operational RCAF deaths and interestingly, only 10% of those involved in training accidents survived.

Figures are from "The RCAF Overseas: The Sixth Year" by the Toronto Oxford University Press, 1949.

P-39 Expert · Jul 3, 2019

pbehn said:
Well the Army airforce lost 13,621 United States World War II Aircraft Loss Statistics during Flight Training

Oh man.

How dangerous was it to fly ww2 era aircraft even without ever seeing combat.

Chief Master Sergeant

1st Sergeant

Tech Sergeant

Master Sergeant

Tech Sergeant

Staff Sergeant

Senior Master Sergeant

Chief Master Sergeant

Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung

Major General

Staff Sergeant

Senior Master Sergeant

Airman

Banned

Banned

Senior Airman

Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung

Colonel

Marshal

Non-Expert

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