CobberKane
Banned
- 706
- Apr 4, 2012
Being an Aussie I'm surprised his first reaction was a sense of loss of the six pack he had stashed under the seat...
How emotionally attached were the pilots to there planes?
- Thread starter [SC] Arachnicus
- Start date
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Being an Aussie I'm surprised his first reaction was a sense of loss of the six pack he had stashed under the seat...
Sydhuey
Airman
As Der Adler and other ground staff/techos said , the pilot just flys it , it belongs to the ground crew/crew chief , if you look back on alot of successful aircrew they picked there groundcrew/crewchiefs and they followed them around they knew the key to a good aircraft was the groundies and the more dedicated the groundcrew and the better the plane the better the chance of survival, when I was in you would dread some aircrew that come in to take an aircraft because you could just about guarantee they will bring it back broken, so when I had the task of assigning aircraft to various aircrew for exercises when I was the line supervisor, the d--k h--ds got the sh-t boxes and the good crew got the gems.
buffnut453
Captain
Rather than emotional attachment, I suspect it's highly likely that pilots had a "lucky" airframe. A number of pilots had superstitions and undoubtedly felt that they had better "luck" in a particular airframe. I don't think of myself as particularly superstitious - no rabbit's feet or lucky charms in my house (not even the cereal for the latter!) - but when I was learning to fly, we had a beautiful, fairly new airframe and yet every major trip I had in her was a disaster. Nobody else had the same problem, indeed everyone else preferred to fly the new, shiny bird. Conversely, we also had a tired old clunker, the oldest airframe in the school, that had none of the bells and whistles of the previous-described airframe, and yet every trip I took in her was an absolute joy and tremendously successful.
mike siggins
Airman
i know my jeep dont fly but i love that piece of crap and wanted to kill my wife when she wrecked it
soulezoo
Senior Airman
As a former Crew Chief, agreed- you pretty much nailed it. However, in my experience, there were definitely different levels of pride taken when your name was on the side. (This "esprit de corps", in my view, has declined over the years with ensuing generations- entitled, lazy kids) When it was noted that "your" aircraft was lacking in that "pride of ownership", your name was promptly removed and you were assigned as an assistant somewhere else.
On the USAF "heavy" side of things (fighters are different) Operations assigns crews to missions and the make-up of the crews is rarely the same. Everyone is plug and play for the different assigns. On the assignment of tail numbers to the missions, that is largely left to the flightline Production Superintendent (or Pro-Super) to assign the airframe to be used (in conjunction with planning who also charted engine hours, major inspection schedules and etc). Pro-Super was another job I had for a number of years- the Pro Super was the big dog on the flightline.
Soulezoo,
I was a scheduler in almost every squadron I was in and concur the Pro-Super is definitely the go to guy. He is picked for having very pertinent skills. I learned a lot from the Pro-Soup's I worked with, and found that the better the relationship was between the pro-soup and flight ops the better the schedule flowed.
Cheers,
Biff
From what I have read WW2 fighter pilots were attached to a particular type, many Spitfire pilots said the mk I/II was the most pleasant to fly, as it got more powerful and faster it also got heavier and tricky to fly especially take off and landing. Bomber pilots on the other hand doing a specific number of missions on a tour where many losses were pure chance had the feeling some planes were lucky
We used 10 different aircraft (B-17) on 14 missions. I don't recall that being an emotional problem. However, I am sure some aircraft performed better than others. On one the "greenhouse" was riddled with patches from the day before and that was a little concerning.
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Peter Gunn
Master Sergeant
Yeah, I'd say that would give one pause for thought.We used 10 different aircraft (B-17) on 14 missions. I don't recall that being an emotional problem. However, I am sure some aircraft performed better than others. On one the "greenhouse" was riddled with patches from the day before and that was a little concerning.
Not WW2 but family trivia - during the Korean War my father was an armorer for F-82's and later F-94's. During a boy scout trip to San Antonio in the mid-1970's we stayed on Lackland Air Force Base. While touring the base we ran across a F-94 on display, my dad looked at it and said ' that's my plane'. We pulled out the photos when we got home, and yes his plane, F-94 FA -356 was on display. It's been moved in recent years for restoration.
MIflyer
1st Lieutenant
Mark A. "Doc" Savage describes in his book, "Those Were the Days" his experiences in flying A-36A's in combat and then as ferry pilot in the Med area. Thus he flew quite a variety of airplanes, none of them long enough to be "his"after the A-36. But he describes flying a brand new P-51D from Casablanca to Pomigiano, Italy and thinking just how nice the airplane flew and that it was the best feeling P-51 he had ever flown. He made it to Pomigiano and as he stood there telling the receiving officer just what a lucky guy the pilot for that Mustang was going to be, they towed it over to a place where there were junked airplanes, punched holes in the fuel tanks with axes and cut the engine off with a big guillotine. "Too many airplanes here." explained the officer, "We have been told to get rid of some of them."
He was sure emotional about THAT one!
As for me, I kiss my airplane good-bye every time we have a hurricane evacuation.
He was sure emotional about THAT one!
As for me, I kiss my airplane good-bye every time we have a hurricane evacuation.
Glider
Captain
The first glider that I flew with any regularity was a Pirat. It was a club machine, had a reasonable for the time performance and basically I learnt how to really fly when going up in it. Even when I moved on to better gliders I still used to like taking it up every now and then, it just felt right. Soon after I stopped gliding I read that someone had written it off when landing out, by running out of room and going through a hedge. I remember being surprised how angry I was about that, after all it wasn't even mine.
I would imagine that my allegiance to my aircraft would end shortly after it bursts into flames.
I would think flying a glider would be special. They look so graceful in the air. Never experienced that thrill. However, I did make two hot air balloon flights and they were a lot of fun. When the burner was off you could carry on a conversation with people on the ground. Trying to get to a designated landing spot was a real challenge. Reading and using the wind direction at various altitudes was the only way to control direction. The pilot carried two bottles of cold champagne on board. He said they came in handy if he damaged something on landing. A drink with the owner of the damaged property usually did the trick.
If not needed for damage control it was shared with the chase crew in celebration of another safe flight.
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The fighter pilots even trained the same way. My Dad was Navy. From the N2Ss on up, they drew the same numbers, sometimes, but it was random chance.We used 10 different aircraft (B-17) on 14 missions. [...]
