Poor flight discipline and use of checklists in different WW2 AFs (20% accidents!)

[mhuxt]

If not storage, how many went to other nations, such as the USAF's Night Fighter unit (416th/425th), 802nd recon (8th recon sqdrn/8th weather recon) and the 25th BG?

Yes, as noted, the numbers of Mossies going to the USAAF was relatively limited. That said, 369 of the total production Nov '44 to Apr '45 was in Canada, another 48 in Australia - the Australian production won't have gone to the UK, and 88 of the Canadian units were Fighter-Bomber units which I don't believe made it to the RAF's Western Commands in anything more than onesey-twoseys. Hard to tell with the Canadian-produced bombers, though my sense is most of them headed across the Atlantic, though some were retained in Canada for Operational Training Units.

I always have difficulty posting in this thread because of your avatar. I find it very distra dis



distra.....







hang on.....

 

[GrauGeist]

lol...that avatar has been a real crowd pleaser for years...

I'm afraid that if I change it, it'll create civil unrest, so there it remains to preserve the peace

 

[mhuxt]

there it remains to preserve the peace

very wise, very wise





indeed





very....









what was I saying... ?

 

[Glider]

Very Interesting paper on a subject that hasn't really been covered as far as i can see by anyone.

A suggestion would be to compare the accident loss rates between two aircraft which had very different pilots notes for the same aircraft. Here I am thinking about the Mustang III/P51D and the F4

I doubt if anyone can really remember the 50 pages of emergency procedures under 90 subheadings for an F4. When things go wrong they go wrong quickly and if the RAF 9 pages and 17 headings was easier to remember and effective, then that would be the better option. In life sometimes less is more. Comparing the loss rates would help provide evidence one way or the other.

On a less complex aircraft such as the P51 then it might well be that the USAAF manuals were better

On the RAF one change that was made just before the war was the standard six instrument panel which included the artificial horizon.

The vast majority of my experience is in gliders and we used to go by memory and CBSIFTCB A will always be burned into my memory. I am not trying to pretend that this is sufficient for a WW2 heavy bomber.

The impact of the war situation was a major factor. USAAF pilots were trained in a basically peace time environment no enemy action to worry about, first class training aircraft and no fuel issues. However accidents caused by the transfer of aircraft to the front line need to factor in other things namely the weather. RAF pilots trained overseas were given time to learn to fly in the UK weather in aircraft they were familiar with, normally Hurricanes for fighter pilots and Hudsons for bomber pilots before going to 'proper' OCU units. USAAF pilots didn't have this advantage.

Weather and training are still a factor today. I think I am right when I say that USAAF pilots training in Gliders are grounded at the first sign of rain due to the impact it has the on the flying characteristics of the Glider. In the UK at my club once they were deemed experienced we delibertly took them up into rain showers to give them experience of flying in rain. Clearly there is extra risk involved but the end result is a glider pilot better able to handle changes in the weather when doing a cross country or flying in cloud.
Note - I am more than happy to be corrected on my view of USAAF Glider Training

Good work and I look forward to the final version.

 

[mhuxt]

View attachment Spitfire Fates.zip[

Don't know if these will help or not.

Easy one is the jpg which the perennial Internet Good Guys Mike Williams and Neil Stirling kindly made public, which details RAF front-line strength in the West by aircraft type by Command by month from Nov '44 to May '45. It's what I used for my strength numbers in the post above. I don't know if Mike has this for other months.

Second is a listing of every Spitfire ever produced ("Spitfire Fates.zip"), which can be found at Spitfire downloads , and which I've arranged, using some Excel-fu, in ascending order of the month of the last entry. (The very early and very late losses have "garbage data" for the loss date, as the function looks for a final date in the 40's, mea culpa.) Apparently the website is a transcription of the data found in "Spitfire The History", though I've not checked. That's the same website which provided a lot of the base data for my Mosquito stuff, though in the case of the Mossie I believe it is a transcription of the data found in the Air Britiain Serial Number books.

There's about 3,500 Spits with a final listing from November '44 to April '45, allthough Nota Bene, there are a number of aircraft which were finally struck off charge in those months after having suffered an accident some time prior, don't quite know how you'll deal with that issue.

There is a list of abbreviations used provided on the airhistory.org website.

You can determine which units were front-line pretty easily, as I believe they were all numbered, though to check which Command the squadrons were with at the time you can use the list provided at RAF Commands 1939 - 1945

Don't know if this helps or hinders.

 

[mhuxt]

You *might* also be able to convince this fellow to share his Lancaster and Manchester data with you, although as you see he's been ripped off in the past:

Lanc Fates Menu

 

[Reegor]

Very Interesting paper on a subject that hasn't really been covered as far as i can see by anyone.

A suggestion would be to compare the accident loss rates between two aircraft which had very different pilots notes for the same aircraft. Here I am thinking about the Mustang III/P51D and the F4
.

I like this idea, if it's feasible to get data on specific aircraft accidents from anywhere. (All I found for the US was continental US losses - 100% of which were accidents, presumably.) But I'm not sure of the interpretation. So many things differ besides the pilot's manuals:

• If you have have a chance to look at the section on Fighter Pilots, a lot depended on how many risks the pilots took when they were "fooling around". Richard Bong flew his P-38 down Market Street in San Francisco - and didn't get courtmartialed.
• Training overall
• Use of checklists (what we are trying to study)
• Weather and operating conditions.
• others?

So, I will be wary of saying that different accident rates are due to different pilot's notes per se.

I guess what would be ideal would be something like the following: For pilots who had between 200 and 500 hours of flight time (in other words, after fully trained but not fully experienced), what were their accident rates? That might be a good measure of whether checklists mattered. That particular data is probably impossible to find for WW2. Possibly, it could be done for fatal accidents.

Which raises an intriguing question: how to test the effectiveness of checklists in general? The US Navy section has some very striking numbers on overall accident rates in the 50s and 60s. Conceivably there is a way to analyze it to shed some light on this. If I can get good enough data, there are lots of statistical tools for this sort of purpose. Thank you for starting me thinking about this. Even today, it's a relevant question in areas like health care.

 

[Reegor]

I doubt if anyone can really remember the 50 pages of emergency procedures under 90 subheadings for an F4. When things go wrong they go wrong quickly and if the RAF 9 pages and 17 headings was easier to remember and effective, then that would be the better option. In life sometimes less is more. Comparing the loss rates would help provide evidence one way or the other.

On a less complex aircraft such as the P51 then it might well be that the USAAF manuals were better
.

Glider, this is another important point. In the 70 years since 1940 there have been different schools on this. Even today, there is dispute about whether commercial pilots should do checklists from memory, ever. Basically the eventual US solution was to distill the "50 pages of procedures" into detailed checklists, which they then read in an emergency. It's a requirement to read emergency checklists if you have time, and especially in crewed aircraft. Secondly, military pilots are also drilled on memorizing quite a lot of checklist material, and tested on it, for situations where you do not have time to look things up. (I am describing the formal system. Whether reality fits it, I don't have much insight although there is at least one good book on use of non-emergency checklists in practice.)

But getting back to your original point, my impression is that the USAAF procedures covered more contingencies than the RAF ones. Certainly that has been the trend over time - emergency manuals in the 2000s cover all kinds of obscure problems. I will go back and line the RAF and USAAF Mustang/P-51 manuals up side by side and check this out. Again, thank you for raising the issue.

 

[Reegor]

An offer if people want to investigate any issues about checklists and manuals:

I have now collected approximately 150 manuals and checklists from 1937 to 1945. They cover fighters, bombers, and a few trainers, mostly USAAF but also USN, RAF, and other countries. One of my goals was to get both the earliest and the last WW2 manual for a given aircraft, as well intermediate dates.

Some of these manuals are purchased and I cannot share them, but many are from public sources. If anyone is interested in a particular aircraft or group of aircraft, I can look into putting either the manuals themselves, or URL links, up on my blog.


(BTW, I am now starting to collect for the 1950s to today. If anyone wants to send me obscure manuals, I would be grateful. Commercial airliners as well as military. My biggest need is for non-US manuals.)

I will leave this message "posted" for a few years. I can also be reached via my blog, Art2science.org.

 

[Glider]

Its a personal view but checklists I see as being essential on large complex aircraft. Simple aircraft such as the example of the glider are different and the CBSIFTCB A example is valid.

That said it doesn't mean that you shouldn't study the manual. Differing gliders have different weight limitations, best gliding speeds, takeoff landing limitations, G limits and so on, these need to be studied and learn't. Also they may have different feaures such as water ballast and retacting u/c again details that are in the manuals.

 

[bobbysocks]

you have to remember a couple of things. at that time most of your pilots were 19 - ~22 years old. you ever work with people of that age? they are strong, have fast reflexes, great endurance but tend to have brain farts at a higher rate. they are full of P!$$ and vinager and so are more daring and will take chances just for the fun of it. couple that with a machine that will travel 8 to 10 times faster than any car they have driven and has a few quirks. i can see 20% accident rate very easily even with the best training and mechanical support. what is the precentage of auto accidents for that age group compared to the whole?

 

[FLYBOYJ]

A most interesting thread!

From what I understand, Charles Lindberg pioneered the use of checklists and I think he eventually sold the AAF on their use...

I know there has always been resistance to checklist use (at least in the past). Some disciplines would want a pilot to memorize certain aspect of the checklist. Memorization is "ok" to a point but when my life depends on it, use the checklist!

Not to knock our British friends across the sea, but I have always been amazed on how sparse some RAF flight manuals are, especially when looking at emergency procedures. Some US aircraft weren't much better but the content of US manuals seemed to expand later int he war.

IIRC - one of the first notable major accidents probably due to not having a checklist (evidently there was no check for full movement of all flight controls prior to take off)

http://www.nationalmuseum.af.mil/factsheets/factsheet.asp?id=2478

 

[GregP]

It was 22 Jan 1968 and the pilot was LTJG Ron Lambe out of Miramar, flying under the command of Cdr. Paul Gilcrest, later Admiral Gilcrest. A very interesting story ... Lambe was an F-8 Crusader pilot and took off without first unfolding the wings. Seems Lambe had an electrical failure and couldn't read his checklist ... and forgot to unfold the wings!

He made it down and the checklist was updated from "It is customary to unfold the wings before flight" to "Unfold the wings before flight," and the Navy recognized that an electrical failure resulting in no cockpoit lights could be VERY dangerous. From then on, if you wanted to abort for no cockpit lights at night, it was OK with the Navy.

 

[tyrodtom]

It certainly doesn't appear to be too dark to read a checklist in that photo.

 

[GregP]

Yah, actually Ron Lambe's flight was about midnight. This pic is the OTHER time someone successfully flew a Crusader without first unfolding the wings.

 

[tyrodtom]

Even us dumb ole crew chiefs carried flashlights.

 

[GrauGeist]

There's quite a few things I wouldn't mind being famous for...flying a Crusader with folded wings is NOT one of them...

Or this great example:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YffmapFxt0M

From the "about" section of the video:

Pilot was so busy gabbing on final that he failed to drop the gear.. To those involved in aviation, this is actually more common than you might think. You hear this horn enough times and it becomes background noise. For some it takes bending a prop and possibly replacing an engine and other expensive components to learn this lesson, but learn they do!

ALWAYS FLY WITH A CHECKLIST, PERIOD.

 

[tyrodtom]

What i'm saying is I don't buy that excuse. Just how thorough could his preflight walk around check be with no flashlight ? Of course he might have borrowed the crewchief's.
All those multitude of pockets on flight suits were meant to carry more than just maps and cigarettes. Most of the pilots I knew carried little flashlights to check every little dark nook on their preflight checks.
Some checked pretty close, but some you could tell were just going through the motions, and that seemed to be reflected in their general attitude to flight safety.
Sadly, some didn't last long. And I just hoped they wouldn't be assigned to my aircraft when their luck ran out.

That, to me, is what flight discipline was about .

 

[GregP]

Sorry Tyrodtom, I asn't too clear.

Ron had completed a flight around the pattern in which his cockpit lights had failed and he had to follow another F-8 around the pattern to land. But he hadn't completed his night trap set and the controller told him he either had to continue or schedule another night ... and he was just about to deploy.

So ... his crew chief got the lights on and as he was taxiing out, they failed again in the middle of the checklist and the tower cleared him for takeoff. After being interrupted, he resumed his checklist mentally at the same point but actually he had skipped the "lower wings" step.

You can Google "F-8 Crusader flies with wings folded" and find the tale.

 

[Wendovertom]

Great topic - my only concern is that I do not see very many primary sources (specifically interviews) listed as references - did I just miss that? I agree that training was an issue. Having done research at Maxwell AFB mainly looking at training accident records for B-17 and B-24 aircraft there were a number of mishaps that were due to training errors. One in particular that I recall was when a co-pilot feathered both right engines on take off in a B-24! he thought he had a hold of the landing gear control lever - the results were disastrous to the aircraft and crew. Not only that, the ensuing crash destroyed the east-west rails coming through Wendover and a freight train followed the crash by only minutes. One railcar contained brand new wrist watches and it's contents somehow vanished in the following day or so but everyone on base had no excuse for being late to anything!

To follow that up, and I am sure there are others here with greater knowledge, the US Navy greatly changed its Carrier emergency OPS after the USS Enterprise and USS Oriskany accidents. One report pointed out that some of the firefighting crews in the accidents were shirtless and many serious burns were caused by this action.

From first hand accounts within the civilian jet warbird community - there are a number of "wheels up" landings that could have easily been avoided IF the checklist would have been used - thankfully no fatalities other than the bruised ego!