soc.history.war.world-war-ii

Pilot Quality:
FWIW I was involved in pilot training as a cadet and then in 9 fighter
squadrons over 22 years and then 3 years in an airline training their
pilots and lastly 8 more years training college students aspiring to
be airline pilots.
>From all that experience I derived the following rough parameters.
1) About 2 out of 3 hopefuls will progress to get their wings. usually
what stops the 1 out of 3 is the inability to develop situational
awareness - a wide span of attention
2) Of these successful pilots about half will reach Airline Transport
Pilot standards.
3) In the fighter career field it's a bit more demanding. About half
my cadet class washed out of basic, where single-seat training is the
focus - you learn to do it all yourself, plus acrobatics and close
formation flying.
4) So about 2 out 10 accepted for military flight training are finally
graduated as fighter pilots. We're not through yet.
5) In those 9 fighter squadrons, during which I accumulated 5000 hours
in fighters, usually 3 out of the squadron's 35 or so pilots were top-
notch - could be relied to go anywhere and do anything
successfully.What was their secret? Besides having the physical and
mental talents they also worked at getting better and staying that
way. Conversely there were 3 or so who didn't care. they just showed
up fopr work, stayed acceptably proficient and studied the books
enough to pass the written tests. 2 out my 9 squadrons took care to
weed these guys out. The 'middle' pilots were okay, good as wingmen,
even as leaders, but there was a definite bell curve.
6) The two squadrons I mentioned were top-notch, with a unusually high
degree of experience. The commanders flew with every new pilot before
he was accepted to see if he was worth keeping. And, unusually, as
soon as each pilot completed his combat crew training he immediately
began training to become a flight leader. That allowed a great deal of
scheduling and operational flexibility beside materially improving
combat capability and leading us to employ Loose Deuce tactics..
7) The 'good enough' philosophy paid off during WW2, even extending to
fighter armament. Where the 'gunners' could get along fine with one or
two guns, the fighters usually had 6 or 8 giving the 'spray and pray'
guys a chance. (Case in point - Dave McCampbell, USN ace, ex-gunnery
instructor, shot down 9 on one mission using 2 guns out of 6 at a
time, to make his ammo last longer.
8) The pilot output figures given earlier show that the IJN didn't
catch on quickly at all. Well before Pearl Harbor a young IJN officer
had proposed training 15,000 pilots a year; he was laughed at and his
suggestion (fortunately) rejected.
Walt BJ