Originally Posted by
USMCFLYR
I also say I wouldn't have done well in this era of throwing the book at you and getting a few hours, if any at all, before taking that new plane across the pond or into combat! I don't even like the thought of being currently being dual qual'ed in two aircraft at the same time.
I've seen some pretty awesome logbooks from back in the day. I'm amazed to see all the different aircraft some of these guys got to fly. On one page, there might be a few different fighters and a couple other random aircraft. Crazy!
If you haven't read Rupert Red 2, I'd check it out. Dude was slated to be a B-17 pilot, but the war ended as he was finishing training in the 17. So they sent him to Germany to be a P-47 pilot. His first flight, the IP (who didn't want anything to do with flying) gave him the cockpit check out, then right after takeoff claimed a mechanical problem and immediately landed. The author ended up out in the airspace by himself and made it happen lol.
Originally Posted by
USMCFLYR
It was a special time, but as another poster said - the level of risk accepted was a different thing too. Just stop by the museum at Walnut Ridge Rgnl (KARG) and look at the memorial they have out front for TRAINING deaths in a short period of time at the old base.
You're not kidding. Depending on what numbers you believe, between Dec41 and Aug45, we killed ~11 aircrew/day, just in the CONUS! Just outside my hometown there is a crash site from WW2. Dude got disoriented in the weather and flew his entire 4-ship of P-39s into ground. Sad.