alt Hacker NewsI'm not a combat pilot, but my dad was. Flying over enemy territory requires constant alertness, for many hours at a stretch. You can be attacked at any time, by flak or enemy fighters, who love to catch an enemy napping.
A favorite Luftwaffe tactic was to come up from behind, catch the tailgunner unawares, and rake it with cannon fire and get an easy kill. If the tailgunner was awake, he'd fire a few rounds of tracers (while out of range) to let the 109 know he was on the bounce, and the 109 would usually back off.
His cohort suffered 80% casualties.
> Many people
are not fit to be combat pilots. The AF is very selective. (I didn't qualify, as I wear glasses.) They work hard to weed out slackers, people of low intelligence, sloppy people, unhealthy people, dishonest people, etc. They'll even reject you for a speeding ticket.
First, thanks for sharing your dad's experience! Very interesting.
I did say I thought it required constant alertness... over long periods of boredom, a bad combination. It's hours of nothing punctuated by frantic action. Worse to be keeping a watchful eye on a completely empty stomach, I'd say. Happy to be contradicted if your dad told you he flew long combat missions on an empty stomach...
I also think long combat flights with aerial refueling are longer now than in the WW2 era, right? Excluding maybe bombers, but surely bombers did have toilets, even if minimalistic?
> [many people] are not fit to be combat pilots. The AF is very selective.
I'm sure of this, but we're discussing a very specific thing. The other person who replied to my topmost comment, who also seems to be speaking from experience, assured me pilots don't select on this particular basis. In fact, this person said fighter pilots do shit themselves and earn nicknames because of it.