"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message ...
"Ed Majden" wrote in message
news:k%wVb.441193$ts4.223591@pd7tw3no...


Did all USAAC bombers have a co-pilot? Didn't Lancs and other
RAF/RCAF
bombers only fly with one pilot? Seemed kind of risky to me, but I guess
it
worked risking one less aircrew member during a mission. My cousins
husband, now deceased, flew as a Nav. He said that nearly on each mission
someone was shot up. He made it through the war without a scratch!
Ed



IRC it was only the Lancaster and Halifax that used just one pilot. The RAF
looked at aircraft losses and came to the conclusion that unlike
the USAAF aircraft typically came back with all their crew or didnt
return at all.

The US daylight bombers required a co-pilot for the physically and
mentally fatiquing task of close formation flying upon which their
defensive boxes were based. Lancasters just bumbelled along in bomber
streams at night presumably on auto-pilot much of the way.



.
Indeed most crews never even knew they were under attack until
they were hit.

Makes me wonder why they bothered with the fitting of guns at all. An
unarmed Lanc might be able to outpace a radar equiped Me 110.


The flight engineer was usually given some flight training
but basically just enough to hold the aircraft level while the crew bailed
out.

Keith