Battle of Britain remembered

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Originally Posted by HUE166

I am amazed by the lack of experience that the average airman held when entering active squadrons during WW2. I don't believe you get fully proficient in any aircraft until you have flown at least one hundred hours in that particular type. Some of those men were going into battle with as little as 200 hours total experience and as little as 10hrs experience in the type of machine they were flying. That would really have taken some courage.

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Yes - but that was a lot better than WW1, where pilots were sometimes sent into action with less than twenty hours total flying experience.

And you need to remember, that in 1939, the general view was that a competent pilot should be able to fly anything. And add the fact that by 1940 the position of Britain was desperate. And it was not just pilots who demonstrated outstanding courage; just think, for example, of the response of small boat owners to the request for help with the Dunkirk evacuation, where thousands of civilians, with no military training or equipment, volunteered to go into an active battlefront. Or the firewatchers, who stayed out of bomb shelters during air raids to provide first response to incendiary bombs.

People do this sort of thing when things look desperate.

John

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Originally Posted by JDNSW

And you need to remember, that in 1939, the general view was that a competent pilot should be able to fly anything.

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Wasn't it the case that the women who delivered aircraft were expected to fly all sorts of aircraft?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transport_Auxiliary
BBC Four - Spitfire Women
Female WWII Pilots: The Original Fly Girls : NPR

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Originally Posted by vnx205

Wasn't it the case that the women who delivered aircraft were expected to fly all sorts of aircraft?
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Yes. In the book by Roald Dahl I mentioned above he relates that after recovering from a crash on his first operational sortie in a Gladiator in Egypt, he was handed a Spitfire and a pilot's handbook and orders to join his unit in Greece, involving a flight across the Mediterranean and landing in a combat zone.

I think that formal endorsement to fly specific aircraft became normal some time during WW2, as a response to high losses as pilots transferred to different types.

John

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Originally Posted by HUE166

I am amazed by the lack of experience that the average airman held when entering active squadrons during WW2. I don't believe you get fully proficient in any aircraft until you have flown at least one hundred hours in that particular type. Some of those men were going into battle with as little as 200 hours total experience and as little as 10hrs experience in the type of machine they were flying. That would really have taken some courage.

Sent from my GT-P5100 using AULRO mobile app

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early on as well don't forget , they had little or no air to air gunnery practice or experience.
cheers,
D