In article ,
(ArtKramr) writes:
Subject: Long-range Spitfires and daylight Bomber Command raids (was:
#1 Jet of World War II)
From: (Peter Stickney)
Date: 8/21/03 7:27 PM Pacific Daylight Time

I'll disagree here. You want two pilots so they can take turns flying tight
formation. For night ops it was no big deal to put the a/c on george and
have

On our missions the guy in the left seat flew formation all the way .

Hmmm, we're assuming here that tight combat boxes are the only way to
go. Whilst I haven't looked at it in depth, I reckon that with
sufficient long range fighter escort, smaller, loser formations might

We flew loose boxes on the way and would tighten for the bomb run. Flying tight
meant burning more gas since it called for non stop throttle jiggling for the
guys in the back to hold their place in the formation.. Also tight formations
were exhausting. You can see the loose formation in my website by clicking on
"B-26 in formation" (pre D-Day) and for a very tight bomb run formation click
on "stipes in Formation" (D-Day) These two photographs are a good example of
just what loose and tight formations looked like.

I'll take a look. (Haven't checked in a while) There's loose, and
then there's loose, too. The RAF idea of a heavy bomber formation was
apparantly loose enough to allow that Corkscrew manaeuver that they
used at night. That would have to be very loose.

I'll agree that a tight formation can be fatigueing for a long flight
- I've flown a few cross-country glider deliveries, where formation
distance was about as fixed as it could get - one towline's length,
and the glider was flying about 20 mph (About 17% of its total speed
range) faster than it could be trimmed for. Let loose foa a second
asn it popped up like a cork. 4 hours is a long time at Mach Nix.

A more loose formation is going to have a bunch of problems. It's
harder to escort, attampts at evasive action by aircraft within the
formation will at best break the

Not true. It is easier in loose formation.

How much evasion did you do, when the flak came up? Was it individual
airplanes, or by flights?


--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster