The airplane that did the most to turn the tide of the war.

[Navalwarrior]

Yes it does requires a good education.
Have you ever been to flight school especially learning all the terms to keep a plane aloft.
Engineering, designing and machining parts. Reading blueprints understanding assembly processes.
Then there is the navigation and understanding a compass. Time, Distance, position of Sun and the time of year.
Triangulation, altitude, temperature, air density etc...All require a good bit of arithmetic and math.

It requires a good Education!

All the time!

Resp:
War was brewing. Most countries needed more pilots, and they needed them immediately. Concessions had to be made. Chuck Yeager was one of the many enticed to apply for flight school. How many non-college educated flew for the RAF?

 

[fubar57]

Resp(LMAO): see above

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Yes it does requires a good education.
Have you ever been to flight school especially learning all the terms to keep a plane aloft.
Engineering, designing and machining parts. Reading blueprints understanding assembly processes.
Then there is the navigation and understanding a compass. Time, Distance, position of Sun and the time of year.
Triangulation, altitude, temperature, air density etc...All require a good bit of arithmetic and math.

It requires a good Education!

All the time!

Yes, I have been to flight school. I'm a pilot.

No you don't have to have a college education to be a pilot. Most of those things you listed, do not require a college education to learn. I wonder why they call it high school to flight school in the Army.

Besides, engineering, machine tooling, blue prints and assy processes have zilch to do with flying a plane.

Get over yourself. It's getting real tiring.

 

[Shortround6]

George Beurling, Canada's top WW2 ace quit school at age 15

well, it does help if you have 150 hours of flight time by the time most of the fellows your age graduate high school

 

[parsifal]

Japanese air ace Saburo Sakae earnt his flying wings whilst a petty officer 2nd class. He was eventually given a special service commission some years later and ended the war as a lieutenant. He left school at age 16, but managed to pass the very challenging gunnery exams in 1936.

Sakae's close friend nishizawa also received his flight wings as a non-commissioned officer having left school at the age of 15, to elementary secondary school standard.

Nishizawa and Sakae were amongst the highest scoring Japanese aces of the war. Conservatively, nishizawa is credited with 102 victories, but many believe his tally was as high as 150. Sakae is generally credited with 62 victories, but his tally is also considered to be as high as 100.

He was promoted posthumously to Lt 2nd class after his death.

Sqn Ldr Clive 'Killer" Caldwell, the RAAFs leading air ace, never received his secondary school leaving certificate. He was born in 1911, and left school in 1927 at age 16. He received his flying credentials in 1938, and during the war rose to the rank of group captain before being reduced for disciplinary reasons to sqn leader. He is credited with more than 27 victories

None of these men were college educated

 

[Kevin J]

George Beurling, Canada's top WW2 ace quit school at age 15

The class system at the time meant that being intelligent didn't guarantee a good education. As for women, well, they were just there to make babies. Ah, the good old days.

 

[Stig1207]

Sakae is generally credited with 62 victories, but his tally is also considered to be as high as 100.

His tally is also considered as being around 25 or maybe less? IIRC, Sakae didn't know how Caidin arrived at the tally of 64?

 

[swampyankee]

Hmmm, I understood a compass when I was in the Boy Scouts.

Most college students wouldn't know a milling machine from a lathe so you can forget machining parts.

The question is whether you need a college education to fly a plane, not build one.



That can be two to four years of collage all by itself. At which point you are (or could be) a production engineer and might be more valuable to the war effort doing engineering that flying a plane.

Many liberal arts students have "college" educations and can't do either engineering or navigation.

Discussing Keats or learning Latin doesn't mean you can tear down an engine (or even change a fuel filter, if they could find it).

having one or two years of collage did mean (at the time) they may have been higher motivated or better at learning anything than non college students on average and when you are setting up training programs for thousands or tens of thousands of students that is what you go on, averages.

Another issue is that college education was very difficult for the "lower classes" to get. Requiring college filtered out many people who may have been considered unreliable or unsuitable, and the lower class elements that got through that filter would tend to be highly motivated, very ambitious, and very bright.

 

[Kevin J]

Another issue is that college education was very difficult for the "lower classes" to get. Requiring college filtered out many people who may have been considered unreliable or unsuitable, and the lower class elements that got through that filter would tend to be highly motivated, very ambitious, and very bright.

In my days, grammar schools were for those who would be running the Empire. So I got in, my father was a Customs Officer. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. We were the potential officer class.

 

[parsifal]

His tally is also considered as being around 25 or maybe less? IIRC, Sakae didn't know how Caidin arrived at the tally of 64?

Thats true that his tally has been downgraded by some to as low as 20. it wasn't just Caidin that figured his victory tally was 64. There were others that Ive seen that suggest around that number. There is no way to be fully certain however.

I chose to believe his tally was 62.

 

[Deleted member 68059]

even had they lost the air portion of the Battle of Britain there is no way the Germans were getting past the Royal Navy to actually invade.

Not sure I`d agree with that, all subsequent events in WW2 showed that capital ships of any size without full air cover were horribly fragile to both bombing and U-Boats. The only safe space for the British fleet would have been so far away from the channel that their existence would have been a moot point. They could have probably steamed in banzai style and destroyed half the invasion fleet, but would very probably have been mostly sunk in the process - leaving the UK with no air force and no home-fleet. This is of course conjecture, but the point is that any fleet without air-cover is living on borrowed time.

Of the 170 major ships lost by the Royal Navy in WW2 (Battleships, Cruisers, Carriers and Destroyers) only 27 were sunk by "classic" suface engagments or shore batteries. The
rest were bombed from the air or torpedoed by U-Boats (a few exeptions, like scuttling and accidents and a few destroyers fell to mines)

Its worth noting that ALL THREE of the British Battleship losses were due to air attack or U-Boat action. (the hood was a battle-cruiser)

 

[Shortround6]

The trouble here is that the Luftwaffe has to sink enough british warships before they get to the invasion barge fleet to ensure a minimal disruption. Sinking even a dozen destroyers out of 40-50 isn't going to save the invasion. The British risked (and lost) a number ships at Crete for an Island that wasn't British. And it took a number of days for the Luftwaffe to accomplish that. They don't have days, they don't have the number of bomber crews trained in anti-ship work, they have no torpedo bombers and the British don't have to operate in daylight and are not operating 1 1/2 days fast steaming (each way) from bases where they can resupply with ammunition.

For the RN it is do or die, there is no point to "saving the RN to protect the trade routes" if the trade routes no longer exist because Great Britain is captured. The RN had two main jobs. Protect the British Isles from invasion and protect the trade routes. With 3000 invasion barges lined up which job gets priority?

 

[pbehn]

The fact is you need a certain level of literacy and numeracy to be a pilot in an air force not only to fly a plane. You also need to be a certain age. All airforces knew what planes they had on the drawing board and they were increasingly complex. The knowledge needed to fly a B-29 is a huge leap from a P-36, I believe the flight engineer on a B-29 was an even more demanding job than the pilot. It seems logical for air forces to recruit people who had a reasonable level of education, you don't need to be a genius to go to university anyway.

 

[Kevin J]

Not sure I`d agree with that, all subsequent events in WW2 showed that capital ships of any size without full air cover were horribly fragile to both bombing and U-Boats. The only safe space for the British fleet would have been so far away from the channel that their existence would have been a moot point. They could have probably steamed in banzai style and destroyed half the invasion fleet, but would very probably have been mostly sunk in the process - leaving the UK with no air force and no home-fleet. This is of course conjecture, but the point is that any fleet without air-cover is living on borrowed time.

Of the 170 major ships lost by the Royal Navy in WW2 (Battleships, Cruisers, Carriers and Destroyers) only 27 were sunk by "classic" suface engagments or shore batteries. The
rest were bombed from the air or torpedoed by U-Boats (a few exeptions, like scuttling and accidents and a few destroyers fell to mines)

Its worth noting that ALL THREE of the British Battleship losses were due to air attack or U-Boat action. (the hood was a battle-cruiser)

The only place that I would have deployed our heavy units would have been in the North Sea and the Western Approaches to the English Channel and in both cases fighter cover would have been available from 12 Group (Midlands) and 10 Group (South West). I cannot imagine the Luftwaffe being able to do more than eliminate 10 Group (South East) and make a suicidal landing to take a port, perhaps momentarily before being cut off from supplies. So where are you going to land?

Lets forget the Tangmere and Hornchurch sectors because of the presence of either the RN at Portsmouth, Portland and Maidstone or the heavy coastal guns at Dover. It looks to me that any landing would have been a re-run of our disastrous Dieppe raid of 1942 when we attempted to take a port as all I can see in the Kenley and Biggin Hill sectors is the port of Newhaven and Romney Marsh.

I simply don't see any decent beaches or ports here.

 

[BiffF15]

My two cents is the college degree was a learning aptitude / motivation filter. Flying was probably looked at as being a bit more demanding than most military skill sets / jobs, and therefore needed a filtering out process of some kind to allow a better return on investment. Is it required, nope for the standard guy, but today for a test pilot oh heck yeah.

When I went through pilot training we were told each of us represented a 1 in a hundred who started the process but didn't finish. My class started with about thirty, graduated 25ish, of which 5 went the fighter track (2 x F15, 1 x F111, 1 x A7 and 1 x OV-10). F4s dried up a few months prior and the F15E was just starting to be handed out when I graduated in July 1989. Fighters ran between two and six per class usually, and that was 1988-89.
Cheers,
Biff

 

[Dan Fahey]

Yes, I have been to flight school. I'm a pilot.

No you don't have to have a college education to be a pilot. Most of those things you listed, do not require a college education to learn. I wonder why they call it high school to flight school in the Army.

Besides, engineering, machine tooling, blue prints and assy processes have zilch to do with flying a plane.

Get over yourself. It's getting real tiring.

Over myself? What are you in Denial ?

WW2 we did not have a united Public School system. It was piece meal.
City kids military could get Recruits with a 7th grade to HS education.
Farm boys barely a 3rd grade education.

Had this same problem in Vietnam where new recruits could not even read and understand simple instructions.
In 80s DoD developed MIL STD 63000 where pictures were added to help comprehend what was read.
Turned out not to be a bad idea as it sped up fixing things in the field under stress.

WW2 the US Army started the largest public education program ever developed.
In a technical combat environment you needed to know how to read engineering plans were a must.
As an Officer you needed to read maps.
Those without a BS degree were not Officers.

Pilots worked with ground crew to make or repair broken parts.
I know this for a fact because one of my professors fought in METO and Pacific.
He was a motorhead like me.
My Uncle who flew Mustangs for the 7th out of Iwo Jima mentioned doing the same.
Working with ground crew.
They had a lot of boring days between missions and was something to do.

Today you do not need to be college educated to fly civil and because our education system improved a lot over WW2.

You want to fly combat planes today you are going to need a BS degree to fly.

D

 

[Dan Fahey]

Over myself? What are you in Denial ?

WW2 we did not have a united Public School system. It was piece meal.
City kids military could get Recruits with a 7th grade to HS education.
Farm boys barely a 3rd grade education.
Hardly no education if you were Native American, Mexichano or Black.

Had this same problem in Vietnam where new recruits could not even read and understand simple instructions.
In 80s DoD developed MIL STD 63000 where pictures were added to help comprehend what was read.
Turned out not to be a bad idea as it sped up fixing things in the field under stress.

WW2 the US Army started the largest public education program ever developed.
In a technical combat environment you needed to know how to read engineering plans were a must.
As an Officer you needed to read maps.
Those without a BS degree were not Officers.

Pilots worked with ground crew to make or repair broken parts.
I know this for a fact because one of my professors fought in METO and Pacific.
He was a motorhead like me.
My Uncle who flew Mustangs for the 7th out of Iwo Jima mentioned doing the same.
Working with ground crew.
They had a lot of boring days between missions and was something to do.

All air forces had to select the brightest they had available.
But all were educated enough to learn how to fly complex fighters and bombers.
One of the key reasons the VA paid veterans to finish their college education.

Today you do not need to be college educated to fly civil and because our education system improved a lot over WW2.
You want to fly combat planes today you are going to need a BS degree to fly.

D

 

[Dan Fahey]

Hmmm, I understood a compass when I was in the Boy Scouts.

Most college students wouldn't know a milling machine from a lathe so you can forget machining parts.

The question is whether you need a college education to fly a plane, not build one.



That can be two to four years of collage all by itself. At which point you are (or could be) a production engineer and might be more valuable to the war effort doing engineering that flying a plane.

Many liberal arts students have "college" educations and can't do either engineering or navigation.

Discussing Keats or learning Latin doesn't mean you can tear down an engine (or even change a fuel filter, if they could find it).

having one or two years of collage did mean (at the time) they may have been higher motivated or better at learning anything than non college students on average and when you are setting up training programs for thousands or tens of thousands of students that is what you go on, averages.

YES it make a huge difference !!
The purpose of a College Education is the practice and habits how to learn complex topics.
A person with a poor education is just not going to catch on fast enough and never learned the tools to do so.

An Educated person will learn a complex process or tool a hell of a lot faster than a kid with a 3rd grade education.
It was not just math but the ability to write !
Not to say they cannot get there just takes a lot more time !!

 

[soulezoo]

YES it make a huge difference !!
The purpose of a College Education is the practice and habits how to learn complex topics.
A person with a poor education is just not going to catch on fast enough and never learned the tools to do so.

An Educated person will learn a complex process or tool a hell of a lot faster than a kid with a 3rd grade education.
It was not just math but the ability to write !
Not to say they cannot get there just takes a lot more time !!

I am going to humbly suggest you have a very good point here...

The question remains who it is that has the education and who it is that is still trying to figure it out.

 

[BiffF15]

As an Officer you needed to read maps.
Those without a BS degree were not Officers.

As an Air Liaison Officer I went through much Army training circa 1989-90. The Army then did not bother to train everyone in land navigation or map reading. I would guess they thought it was not a worthwhile investment. Does not take an officer to read a map, my Army Ranger Scoutmaster taught us.

Today you do not need to be college educated to fly civil and because our education system improved a lot over WW2.

You want to fly combat planes today you are going to need a BS degree to fly.

Based on what you have surmised? Q: What do you learn in college? A: What you are taught. Learning in college gives you study habits, good hopefully, that may or may not serve you later. I went to USAF pilot training, and it's called Undergraduate Pilot Training. Emphasis on the Undergraduate part.

Q: What do you learn in pilot training? A: What you are taught.

Test pilots need use of things learned prior to attending test pilot school. Line pilots need no prior education before entering UPT as you will be taught what the USAF wants you to know.

A degree is not some magic thing.