Warbird Information Exchange

Ya but, Jack, is this any different from the B-17 kids that showed up and flew a couple missions over deep Germany?

Towards the ending stages of the war, probably most theaters saw the same trend. High time vets heading home, new low time kids showing up to learn on the job with little experience. My Pop was one but his job was ground support in Burma with perhaps a little less exposure.

The flight training was just an intense environment. Dad's was PT-19, BT-13, T-6, P-40, then off to P-47's and when he arrived in Burma, P-38's. I think you were forced to learn fast. Perhaps the number of cadets lost in training were the example to help learn faster?

Dad told me of his P-40 training when he had only about 3 hours of the 10 required. The class walked out of the briefing room and were told to watch the guy taking off as he was just finishing his tenth hour. Powered up, took off, torque rolled inverted, crashed and burned.

The instructor's comment was, "well, let's go back and talk about that." Pretty cold but real world for the time.

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"There are old pilots and bold pilots but few old, bold pilots."

when doing some research a while back on military accidents in the U.S. during W.W.II ,I found they had 12 to 85 accidents every day stateside. There were of course B-26 Marauders and others but the number one airplane falling out of the sky on a daily basis was the early model P-38's.
Bob Hoover did an aerobatic routine to troops overseas to demonstrate the P-38 wasn't a bad airplane because many pilots were afraid of it.
My conclusion being, that it was a time in history when the technology and demand for it got way ahead of the training and knowledge base on how to operate these airplanes safely. Imagine going from a P-39 to a P-38 or from an A-20 Havoc to a B-26! Or from a P-40 to a Mosquito.
The Germans had it even worse. They totally ignored the Training command in favor of building more dive bombers. At the end of the war they were putting pilots into combat squadrons flying Me-109's , sometimes carrying 500 pound bombs, and the guys only had 65 hours total time in their logbook! Plus the allies typically outnumbered them 30 to one with Mustangs.

IIRC we lost over 15,000 folks stateside in training accidents in WW2.
Can you imagine what the media would do today with those numbers?

Steve G

Not much. Remember that as far as battles went, we were not winning for a while. Not many did not think it was for survival.

I think that if the US were ACTUALLY in a battle for its existence, there would be a slightly different view of things like budgets, training accidents, and "collateral damage".

But -- at least in the minds of most Americans -- we are not in a struggle for survival. So, you have the mindset where every single death is a national tragedy and zero errors in combat are expected instead of desired.

AOPA Pilot mag has a story about soloing a P-51 out of Camarillo Ca. in this months issue,kind of weird

Phil

Seeing as its working on almost a year since Mr. Mckittrick's unfortunate accident.

I was curious does anyone know what has become of the Mustang wreckage?

Also I beleive Mr. McKittrick also had a Sea Fury that was being restified, any word on that as well?


Shay
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Semper Fortis

AHEM..........Mr McKittrick's Mustang wreckage and his Sea Fury?


Shay
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Semper Fortis

The Sea Fury was with the Sanders at Ione. I heard a rumor it was purchased by a French collector.

Jim

AirJimL2 : not sure if that's this one, but yes, french collector Christophe Jacquard acquired a Sea Fury, comming from the US.

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Sorry for my bad English:-(

That is what I had heard. Jacquard bought the McKittrick Sea Fury project.

Jim

Do you have information about this project and its current status ?

Regards

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Sorry for my bad English:-(

Didn't someone in France also buy the blue R-3350 powered Fury from South Africa? Think it was mentioned on a forum this winter.

T J

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Make my day, punk!

TJ,

I had heard that, but then I heard that the deal fell through. Any of our French posters know the facts?

Jim

I don't have more information, but the last rumors stated that two Sea Fury are on their way to France.

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Sorry for my bad English:-(