USPA News

A GOOD AVIATION READ

If you like to read good aviation books, here’s one that USPA VP Bob Worthington highly recommends: FLYING AMERICAN COMBAT AIRCRAFT OF WW II, Edited by Robin Higham, Stackpole Military History Series, 2004. Published by Stackpole Books www.stackpolebooks.com first edition, 344 pages with B&W photos, price $19.95.

Says Dr. Bob: “Here is some information on a new book that most of you will find fascinating. I just bought it and I have never read any other book like it.”

(Click "Continue" for book review)

USPA and NMPA members, Here is some information on a new book that most of you will find fascinating. I just bought it and I have never read any other book like it.

The editor, Robin Higham (a fromer WW II RAF pilot), in the 1970s was the editor of the Air Force Historical Foundation's magazine, AEROSPACE HISTORIAN, when he came up with a way to preserve the knowledge of how WW II aircraft were flown. He began to contact (in the mid 1970s and early 1980s) numerous pilots of WW II USAAF planes and asked each one to write an article of 14-16 pages on the airplane they flew. He has now turned these articles into chapters of this book I am reviewing. The following is what makes this book so good.

Each person was to follow a specific format, and the writing style was to read as if the writer were talking to you, personally, describing how to fly the plane he flew. Each article begins with a short description of the plane and what it was designed to do. Also it becomes apparent in the beginning of each article what the author's role in the story was (such as student pilot when first starting to fly the plane, test pilot, combat pilot, instructor pilot, etc). I might mention that each author had several hundred hours in the plane being described as well as having flown over a hundred or more hours in combat in the plane. About 1/3 through the book it becomes apparent that each writer is an authority and expert pilot on the plane he is writing about. Also of interest is that each writer thinks the plane he is writing about was the best plane to fly in combat in WW II.

Most interesting to me is the end of the article written by retired LT GEN James Edmundson (on pg 29) when he describes his last flight in a B-17 bomber, some 15 years after he had last flown it in WW II. He was very disappointed becase the B-17 he flew from AZ to a USAF base in CA in the late 1950s was underpowered, slow, sluggish, unable to climb, hard to turn, etc. He wondered what had happened to the powerful, fast, quick resonse, nimble plane of WW II? He finally realized that over a thousand hours flying the B-47 Stratojet had severely altered his sense of values and what was the best in the early 1940s simply couldn't compare what was the best in the late 1950s. I recently restored a 37 year old Jeep back to its new, original condition but it no longer drives as the first new one I bought and loved in 1967. Instead of the quick, nimble, fast responding, sure-footed 4 wheeler I used to love, it is now big and boxy, drives like a rough army tank, and is very hard to turn and manuever. It hasn't changed changed, my driving experiences have.

Each author then takes the reader through pre-flight, start-up, taxi, run-up, take-off, climb, cruise/combat, descent, approach, landing, taxiing back to parking, and shutdown. Another aspect covered by most authors is how to bail out of the plane and how to best crash land the plane. As the reader gets into the book several aspects of what the different pilots do exactly the same (for example no pilot could fly any plane until, blindfolded, they could locate and use every switch, knob, lever, gage, etc only by feel and memory, without any hesitation). There are a few fighter planes described in this book which start like my Mooney and use cruise settings close to what I use (although their take-off settings of 55" MP and 3500 rpms and climbouts at 3000 fpm sort of out does my Mooney). But this book brings all aspects of flying WW II planes to a point where pilots like us can visualize what it was like and making it readily understandable, especially as we mentally compare what the writer is describing to how we fly our planes.

All the aircraft are only USAAF, no USN or USMC. There are about 29 articles, each one becoming a chapter covering gliders, trainers, fighters, bombers, and cargo transports. The writing is just like the reader is sitting in the cockpit with a WW II flight instructor sitting next to you telling you what to do next.

I learned many things which had long puzzled me such as: in many photos of the P-40, one will see a man riding on the outboard end of a wing. It looks like someone taking a joyride while the plane is taxiing but actually it is the plane's crew chief guiding the pilot to the run-up area as the pilots couldn't see over the nose and the narrow dirt taxiways were not wide enough to use S turns. I thought that one way to bail out of all fighters was to invert and drop out. Doesn't work in a P-40. The airflow over the windscreen is such that the resultant air actually pins the pilot into the seat and he cannot get out. The safe way is a rather complicated ritual that offers a safe egress that doesn't remove limbs by striking the rear of the plane during bailout. There are other fighters where falling out while inverted is okay. Combat fighters had engines replaced every 70-75 hours (if my plane did that I'd run through three engines a year and at $40,000 a pop would increase my hourly use of the Mooney from $124/hr to almost $660/hr).

I highly recommend this book to all who have always wondered what it would be like to fly a WW II plane (I do have about 45 minutes in an AT-6 and reading that chapter brought back that enjoyable short time). It is both a fun book to read and very informative. Bob Worthington

FLYING AMERICAN COMBAT AIRCRAFT OF WW II Edited by Robin Higham, Stackpole Military History Series, 2004. Published by Stackpole Books (www.stackpolebooks.com), first edition, 344 pgs with B&W photos, price $19.95.

Posted by Jan at April 9, 2004 05:38 PM