Pilot experience, Battle of Britain

You torkina me?

I believe in miracles. You sexy thing!

Oh boy some folk need a lot of convincing! When I joined the RAF just 16 years after the end of WW2 there were still loads of people in the RAF who flew in the War. Many of them told me that they went straight to Squadrons and onto ops without ever having flown the types before. One of these was my Flt Sgt, Ron King. He flew Hurricanes and went straight onto them from Harvards. My Father-in Law was on 32 Sqn and 242 Sqn as an engine fitter and he told me the same. What I know is what I was told be people who were actually there, and I’ve no reason to disbelieve what they told me. So you can go on believing whatever it is you want to believe, I’ll believe them.

Hi Phil,
Check out Von Perthes’ reply. I’ve just finished ‘Boy’ Wellum’s book myself, and as Von P says, Wellum had not even seen a Spit let alone flown anything more powerful than a Harvard! So – zero operational type hours.
Cheers
James

Keith. Pitifully few hours? Yes. No hours whatsoever? Sorry I don’t agree with that. My idea of pitifully few hours would be 10 or 15 or 20 hours but I can’t see less than 10 in anything I have read.

Not really true, there were many squadrons re-equipping at the time and it was not until later that people like Bader moved across types and were expected to be fully operational. Many, many pilots went straight onto squadrons from the schools without any pre training on the aircraft type or fighting tactics. However flight commanders were expected to get them airborne on training flights initially, and then pair them up with “experienced” pilots. However by September 1940 Fighter Commands loss rate was relatively high and some pilots went into combat with pitifully few hours on type. Squadrons were rotated between high intensity areas like the 11 Group sector around SE England up to places like Scotland and Northern England where “new boys” could get some hours under their belt in relative safety.

KeithMac

It is agreed that many may not have flown the aircraft that they were about to fly but in this case they would very often have come from another operational squadron flying a different type. But they would not have been thrown into the fray without any hope at all. An ex Hurricane pilot might fly a Spitfire into combat without prior experience on the type and vice versa but not straight from the training schools.:eek:

It was quite common for pilots to join Sqn’s never having flown the aircraft with which the Sqn was equipped. If you read the autobiography of Roald Dahl, the famous author, his experience was this; Joined the RAF and learned to fly in Tiger Moths in East Africa. On getting his wings posted to Egypt. The Sqn was at a landing ground out in the desert. When he asked how he was to get there, they gave him a map and a Gladiator! He got lost, ran out of fuel and crashed. After getting out of hospital he found the Sqn was in Crete. This time they gave him a Hurricane to deliver! First time in a monoplane, first time with retractable undercarriage, first time with a variable pitch prop! More by good luck than good airmanship he made it to Crete and was then virtually grounded as the more experienced pilots flew the few aircraft they had! The Flight Safety review for 1943 shows that 85% of RAF aircraft were written off in training accidents with only about 10% directly attributable to combat loss. The missing 5% were in ground accidents, hangar fire etc.

Yes thanks for the info, Geoff 🙂

It means I don’t have to rewrite that bit!! 😀 😉

Thanks very much for that information, Geoff. I certainly stand corrected because I always thought pilots straight out of training would have had at least a handful of hours. Whilst I assume this was possibly the case in most instances, it’s quite a revelation to learn that some were joining squadrons without ever having seen the aircraft they were expected to use in combat. No wonder so many rookies were lost on their first operational mission!

Geoff Wellum joined 92 sqdn on the 21/5/40, never having flown a Spitfire, or even looked over one, straight from training (Harvards), with 168 hours flying time, of which 95 were solo. ‘Wimpy’ Wade also joined 92 sqdn at the same time, and also straight from training, though I don’t know if he had any fighter hours.

Geoff.

I agree with Firebird on this. Some had as little as 10 hours ussually 15 or perhaps as many as 20+ if they were lucky but definitely not zero straight out of training. They liked them to have some chance of survival.

I would say it’s more likely if he was transferring from a Hurricane unit than if he was coming straight from a training unit.
It’s known that some new pilots only had Spit/Hurri hours in single figures when arriving at a Squadron, but can’t believe it would have been zero.