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...
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"I'm ashamed to admit that my first reaction on hearing the news lacked any sympathy for the pilot."
There's an honest man!
Steve
That is how it is today quite a bit as well. Our aircraft were never assigned to pilots. Us Crew Chiefs were assigned the aircraft, and it was our names that were on the side of them. On any given day, different pilots would fly with it, but for the most part the Crew Chiefs always flew on their assigned aircraft. Not so much when down range. There we flew whatever aircraft we were assigned to that day, but we still had our aircraft that was assigned to us, and we were responsible for maintaining.
Exactly...
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.
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.
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.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.
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. [...]