wuzak
Captain
The Manchester, from which the Lancaster was developed, was designed to be launched by catapult at maximum take-off weight. That would probably account for the strength in the Lancaster's airframe.
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Very tough airframe after looking at pictures and havent seen most of those before
For various reasons I would challenge that interpretation of statistics. edited G gruad
1 They weren't flying the same missions, The Lancasters first mission was the longest low level daylight raid of the war, if you get hit at low level you dont bale out.
2 The Lancaster was the weapon of choice of 617 squadron, raids on the dams and canals were also at low level and many others involved crossing the coast at low level, you dont survive incidents at that level.
3 As the war progressed raids became longer range, the Stirling and the Halifax were progressively removed from the longest raids, so Lancaster crews were the ones who had furthest to fly back with flack or nightfighter damage.
4 Hitler issued a directive that "terror fleigers" should be killed on sight by the civilian population, this applied mainly in Germany itself and at that time in the war most were Lancaster crew. Statistics only record the crew that baled out and then survived the war, some were executed in between.
5 Harris worked by different metrics. If dropping ten tons of bombs on Berlin requires 1 Lancaster 2 Halifaxes or 5 Stirlings for the same effect you will lose 2 times as many Hallifax crew members and 5 times as many Stirling crew. (these aren't literally exact ratios, just an illustration of a principle).
6 When on the same mission Stirlings and Halifaxes were more likely to be shot down anyway.
I have read accounts of both pilot and co-pilot requiring the strength of them both to control a damaged aircraft, as well as accounts of injuries to pilot/copilot requiring one's arms and the other's legs to fly the aircraft.
Is this called "Harry meets Meghan"?
So have I. However it also happened in Lancasters and Halifaxes, other member of the crew helped, they don't have to be pilots. Having two navigators may have helped, we don't know how many didn't make it back because the navigator was killed, same with engineers and wireless operators. In well over half of cases of a plane being lost no one got out, so that is a huge number of extra pilots lost for the few times having two got the plane home. US daylight operations needed two pilots, the forming up process took a long time so missions were longer and flying in close formation is mentally and physically tiring.I have read accounts of both pilot and co-pilot requiring the strength of them both to control a damaged aircraft, as well as accounts of injuries to pilot/copilot requiring one's arms and the other's legs to fly the aircraft.
I was just pointing out reasons why the stats are not correct. The cases of Lancasters hitting the ground doing things that Halifaxes were never asked to do are part of it, as are the cases of crews abandoning perfectly good aircraft because they couldn't find an airfield in fog prior to FIDO being used.Yes, you are going to use your best aircraft on the most dangerous missions, but 617 and 9 squadron were the exception rather than the rule.
BC evened things up for the Halifax by putting it in the middle of the stream with a much lighter bomb load 30 to 50% of the Lanc.
Again there were deaths from the German population killing baled out crew, but the Luftwaffe were keen to protect crews as they wanted reciprocal treatment.
The Lancaster was a much better aircraft than the Halifax with one flaw, the escape hatch was too small. A young lad took on this problem and eventually got a larger hatch installed but too late for the end of the war.
There are images but not so many, I don't know whether that means they didn't return with damage (actually they certainly did) taking photos was generally frowned upon.
Not having a co pilot on daylight raids probably would increase losses, if forming into a box formation was needed, simply because the raids were so much longer.
When they started putting grand slams on the Lancaster, the radio operator was taken out with his equipment, but radios had moved on, other equipment was carried to allow the pilot to do pretty much the same job.The Lancaster was designed so that the pilot had a reduced work load over equivalent USAAF aircraft:
"The cockpit compartment, like earlier British heavy bombers,
is arranged for a single pilot and a flight engineer, the engineer's
station being directly behind the pilot while the usual co-pilot's
position is primarily a passageway to the bomb aimer's "greenhouse" in
the nose but is provided with a folding jump seat. The layout has been
fully planned for arrangement and simplification that is so desire
able for night operations. All controls fall readily to hand and are
easily identified. The trim controls operate in the correct plane and
are conveniently located. Many automatic features add to the simplicity
of operations of the Lancaster. The engine radiator shutters are
automatically positioned and the mixture controls have been eliminated
completely by using automatic carburetor settings selected from boost...
D. - Recommendations.
1. The vision qualities, automatic features, bomb-bay arrangement,
and other excellent items of this airplane should be closely studied by
our engineers for possible improvement of our own equipment."
http://www.wwiiaircraftperformance.org/Lancaster/Lancaster_Eng-47-1658-F.pdf
. . . if you have a 3.2% bigger chance of being shot down on one mission, on a tour of 30 missions your life chances are massively reduced . . .
When they started putting grand slams on the Lancaster, the radio operator was taken out with his equipment, but radios had moved on, other equipment was carried to allow the pilot to do pretty much the same job.
Exactly. The Nuremberg raid of 31 March was catastrophic for a big raid, but the difference in loss rates with the Halifax was a constant, for many reasons. An average loss rate of 4% was the maximum that could be sustained by the RAF and USAAF, the difference between the Lancaster and Halifax was almost that in itself, and as I said it frequently carried half the bomb load.At a constant mission loss rate of 5% of the attacking force, a crew would have about a 60% chance of surviving 10 missions, a 37% chance of surviving 20 missions, and a 21% chance of surviving 30 missions. Of course, in reality loss rates were never constant, but fluctuated over time.
A 5% loss per mission, while sounding small, is actually a huge. Assuming a starting force of 100 bombers, losing 5% of the bombers sent each mission would see that attacking force reduced to 63 bombers after just 9 missions.
An average loss rate of 4% was the maximum that could be sustained by the RAF and USAAF, the difference between the Lancaster and Halifax was almost that in itself, and as I said it frequently carried half the bomb load.
The pilot's low chance of survival was down to him having to hold the plane steady while the rest of the crew bailed...I think what you have there is the statistical opposite of survivor bias. The statistics are for crews surviving bailing out. If any member of the crew is killed, the pilot can fly the rest home, if the pilot is killed the rest have to jump out if they can.
Survivability by crew position:
Lancaster
09.6% = pilot
13.8% = navigator
11.9% = wireless operator
12.4% = flight engineer
13.2% = bomb-aimer
08.5% = mid-upper gunner
08.0% = rear gunner
10.9% = overall
Halifax
20.8% = pilot
36.2% = navigator
32.5% = wireless operator
34.0% = flight engineer
31.4% = bomb-aimer
27.3% = mid-upper gunner
23.4% = rear gunner
29.0% = overall
Wellington
14.6% = pilot
21.0% = navigator
18.5% = wireless operator
18.5% = bomb-aimer
14.6% = rear gunner
17.5% = overall
Source:
Bomber Command Headquarters, 'An examination of the emergency escape arrangements from Bomber Command operational aircraft,' 19 May 1945, DHist 181.003 (D4598)
The following excerpt from Target Berlin by Jeffrey Ethell and Alfred Price may be of interest (p.29-30):
The weather forecasters expected aircraft above 23,000 feet to leave condensation trails; these would make it more difficult for bombers to hold formation and easier for German fighters to find them. To avoid this nuisance bomber formation leaders were ordered to stay below 21,000 feet.
The Lanc was used as a daylight escorted bomber for raids supporting the Normandy Invasion in June 1944. Oddly enough, when they got past the range Spitfires could handle they were escorted by Mosquitoes.