Many combat vets
take awhile before they can become effective teachers

If we're speaking about the USAAF in WWII, some never made the
adjustment at all. The army found some men too nervous in the service
to be trusted as teachers. But still it was an inspired system.

Ed mentioned that "some countries" didn't follow this
combat-to-instructor rotation. Actually, I think that should be "no
other country" beside the U.S. The RAF may have done a bit of it,
without advertising it, but in most air forces you flew until you
died. The Germans were particularly egregious. Far from sending combat
pilots to teach, they sent instructors to combat (they did this in a
vain attempt to salvage Tunisia in 1943) thus depriving the air force
of the next generation of trained pilots.

Both Germany and Japan were sending men into combat by the end of the
war with fewer than 150 or even 100 hours of flying time.

all the best -- Dan Ford
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