One question: why is 1946 so much worse than 1945? Or is it only losses for 1945 after VE-Day / VJ-Day?[/QUOTE]

My feeling is that I it had a lot to do with the introduction of jet aircraft post war. A book I have called wings over Somerset details all the losses in or connected with the county from 1945 onwards. The early post war years are a grim read with Meteors, Vampires & Venoms crashing at a rate of around 2 per week. In most cases it says pilots had 100+ hours on piston types but usually less than 10 hours on the jets.