[Milsurplus] Fwd: Re: "Lancaster" - no copilot

[Bruce Gentry]

If the pilot was killed or incapitated, was the crew to bail out or did 
the engineer have some flight training, official or otherwise? A 
surprising amount of impromptu helicopter flight training took place in 
Vietnam so the crew had a chance to get to a safe place and hopefully 
make a successful landing. Did the RAF accept pilot trainees who had 
private pilot experience but lacked other educational qualifications?   
The USAAF and US Air Force require pilots to be commissioned officers, 
and a collage degree was normally required to be an officer. There were  
field commissions and other ways around this for exceptional needs.  In 
Vietnam, helicopter pilots were often warrant officers, and at that time 
a collage degree was not required.  I think this was also true in the US 
Navy during the Korean War, where helicopters were flown by "operators".

       Bruce Gentry,  KA2IVY



On 10/2/17 5:25 PM, James Whartenby wrote:
> Yea, the Avro Lancaster gets no respect.
>
> Single pilot since Great Briton didn't have the manpower.  Great 
> Briton had a population of about 50 million in 1941 while the US had 
> about 133 million. The Flight engineer assisted the pilot as part of 
> his duties so the pilot wasn't totally on his own.  Most Lancaster 
> pilots started flying missions with less then 200 hours total flying 
> time.  Average life of a Lancaster was about 40 hours which seems to 
> be typical of WW2 aircraft.  Reliability wasn't a big concern since 
> the chance of the Lancaster wearing out was remote; again the same for 
> most WW2 aircraft.
>
> The Lancaster had a crew of 7 vs a crew of 10 for the B-17 and a crew 
> of 11 for the B-24 and B-29.  Bomb load of the Lancaster wasn't 
> equaled by USA aircraft until the B-29 came along.  The Lancaster 
> carried a normal load of 14,000 pounds in a 33 foot long unobstructed 
> bomb bay while the B-17 carried 4,500 pounds and the B-24 carried 
> 5,000 pound bomb load for an 800 mile mission.  The B-29 carried 
> 12,000 pounds at medium altitude and had a 1400 mile range.  The 
> Lancaster could be and was modified to carry it's own weight in bombs!
>
> If you have Amazon Prime Internet TV, there is a movie titled "Bombers 
> over Germany - WW2" which is in two parts.  First is a color training 
> film for Lancaster crews which has good views of the inside of the 
> Lancaster including radios and radar.  The second part of the film is 
> the "Memphis Bell."
> Jim
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Kenneth G. Gordon <kgordon2006 at frontier.com>
> *To:* Peter Gottlieb <kb2vtl at gmail.com>
> *Cc:* Milsurplus at mailman.qth.net
> *Sent:* Monday, October 2, 2017 12:03 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [Milsurplus] "Lancaster" - no copilot
>
> On 1 Oct 2017 at 21:28, Peter Gottlieb wrote:
>
> > Easier to build planes than train pilots?
>
> Maybe. Even "probably". Still seems downright dumb to me. What about 
> the other crew?
>
>
> Ken W7EKB
>
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