![]() |
If this is your first visit, be sure to check out the FAQ by clicking the link above. You may have to register before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages, select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below. |
|
|
Thread Tools | Display Modes |
|
#1
|
|||
|
|||
![]()
On Sat, 6 Mar 2004 22:50:14 -0600, "D. Strang"
wrote: "BUFDRVR" wrote It's hard for me to believe that you cannot conceptualize that not everyone during times of combat operations sees action. I've got several good friends who, through no fault of their own, have exactly *zero* combat hours. I used to fly with a navigator who had .5 combat hours. He got it on the way to Thailand in a C-141 during the Vietnam war. I was a passenger on a C-130 in 1967 that was suppose to fly from Ubon to Okinawa and they pulled that trick. Plane landed and pulled onto the taxiway and sat. I figured we had made really good time to Okinawa. Crew chief put the steps out and came back and asked if I wanted to get out and take a look around DaNang? DANANG? DANANG, VIETNAM? What the are we doing here? Crew needed to land so they could get their combat pay for the month.. It's just phenomenal the amount of **** in Art's brain. Being an Instructor has very little to do with combat. Many combat vets take awhile before they can become effective teachers. They tend to be perfectionists, and are used to crews who are their peers. Once back at the training center, the pace and mistakes cause them to wash students out. We had one guy who washed his first three students out, and the board reinstated all of them with a new instructor. The bad instructor was sent packing. |
#2
|
|||
|
|||
![]() 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 email: (requires authentication) see the Warbird's Forum at www.warbirdforum.com and the Piper Cub Forum at www.pipercubforum.com |
#3
|
|||
|
|||
![]() "Cub Driver" wrote in message news ![]() 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, The RAF did rather a lot of it With bomber pilots for example crews who survived a tour would go on leave then be posted to an Operational Training Unit to pass their knowledge on to new crews. Fighter pilots tended to follow the same path with quite a number being posted to bases set up in Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand under the Empire flight taining schemes Keith |
#4
|
|||
|
|||
![]()
"D. Strang" wrote:
It's just phenomenal the amount of **** in Art's brain. Even more phenomenal is that he always ends up getting all the attention that he so desperately seeks. Just like Tarver, it doesn't matter if the attention Kramer gets is good or bad attention, as long as SOMEONE is paying attention to him! Being an Instructor has very little to do with combat. Many combat vets take awhile before they can become effective teachers. They tend to be perfectionists, and are used to crews who are their peers. Once back at the training center, the pace and mistakes cause them to wash students out. We had one guy who washed his first three students out, and the board reinstated all of them with a new instructor. The bad instructor was sent packing. Many outstanding golf instructors will never compete on the PGA level, but guys like Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer or Tiger Woods would never have become champions without the expert guidance and critiques from their instructors. An effective teacher doesn't necessarily have to have "been there and done that." |
#5
|
|||
|
|||
![]() "Mike Marron" wrote in message ... "D. Strang" wrote: It's just phenomenal the amount of **** in Art's brain. Even more phenomenal is that he always ends up getting all the attention that he so desperately seeks. Just like Tarver, Why do you bring me into your childishness, Marron? |
#6
|
|||
|
|||
![]()
ArtKramr wrote:
I think back to the days of my training in Texas. Every instructor we had was a combat veteran who completed his tour of duty and came back to instruct. My Bombing instructor was a veteran of 25 missions with the bloody 100th bomb group. He flew them from England to Berlin without fighter escort taking horrible losses. He not only tought us our basic job, but he let us know what it acutually was like in combat and all during my tour of duty his training resulted in the fact that there were no surprises for us in combat except for the time we are attacked by an ME 262. I find it interesting that Rumsfeld was an instructor who had never been to combat. I don't see that as a change for the better in flight training. My father was an instructor with no combat experience. I'm not certain what sort of instructor; basic I'd suppose. He was all set to strap on a P-47 and destroy the LW single handedly he once told me, but found to his great disappointment that he'd been made an instructor! As you have said, he too was afraid the war would be over by the time he got there as it was, and now, he's saddled with an instructors job! Said he got a lecture by the CO saying how important good instruction was, and that he would indeed be doing an important part in destroying the LW. He eventually converted to B-29s as a way to get to combat in the Pacific, only to have that war end before he could actually get there. "Bum luck" I guess. Eventually got his "combat" experience in a sort of way. Flying during the Berlin Airlift cost a lot of people their lives flying very difficult weather and conditions. A few bullet holes in his transport aircraft during Korea and especially Vietnam (even to the French at Dien Bien Phu). All the various "crises" of the Cold War (Suez crisis, Libyan crisis, Lebanon crisis,...). I can no longer quiz him on the details, and I probably have some of them wrong, but although he'll never be a USAF "combat veteran", it sure as hell wasn't through a lack of effort on his part in trying! He simply followed the orders that the USAF gave him. No wrangling, no "influence". [Actually, after his death we got some of his official records and there was a comment on some form stating "Congressional influence" or something such as this. This apparently dated from his original posting to Japan again without the family being allowed to come. My mother broke ranks with the AF and wrote her Congressman and Senator claiming all his overseas posts were without family and it was finally time for the family to be posted with him! We ended up being stationed in Tachikawa, Japan with him for 3 years and got there via SS President Roosevelt, a President lines luxury cruise ship (without Dad since he had to fly the plane there)! My mother should have spoken up much earlier!] SMH |
#8
|
|||
|
|||
![]()
Stephen Harding wrote:
We ended up being stationed in Tachikawa, Japan with him for 3 years and got there via SS President Roosevelt, a President lines luxury cruise ship (without Dad since he had to fly the plane there)! My mother should have spoken up much earlier!] Just out of curiosity, when were you there? I spent amost 4 years in Japan, the last three of which were at Tachikawa. George Z. |
#9
|
|||
|
|||
![]()
George Z. Bush wrote:
Stephen Harding wrote: We ended up being stationed in Tachikawa, Japan with him for 3 years and got there via SS President Roosevelt, a President lines luxury cruise ship (without Dad since he had to fly the plane there)! My mother should have spoken up much earlier!] Just out of curiosity, when were you there? I spent amost 4 years in Japan, the last three of which were at Tachikawa. Yeah I remember you said you were there. We were in Tachi from ? 1962 through August 1965. My Dad was LtCol with the 22nd TCS flying the C-124. He retired on coming home. SMH |
#10
|
|||
|
|||
![]()
Stephen Harding wrote:
George Z. Bush wrote: Stephen Harding wrote: We ended up being stationed in Tachikawa, Japan with him for 3 years and got there via SS President Roosevelt, a President lines luxury cruise ship (without Dad since he had to fly the plane there)! My mother should have spoken up much earlier!] Just out of curiosity, when were you there? I spent amost 4 years in Japan, the last three of which were at Tachikawa. Yeah I remember you said you were there. We were in Tachi from ? 1962 through August 1965. My Dad was LtCol with the 22nd TCS flying the C-124. He retired on coming home. After my time. I was there from '51 through '55. I was with the 344th TCS, a tenant outfit flying C-46s. The rest of my outfit were at Brady, down near Fukuoka (Kyushu). We moved up to Tachi in Dec. '51, when the 124s were all grounded due to inflight generator fires. For a while, our 46s and the 54 squadron were all there was available for intra-theater traffic in and out of Tachi. The 344th deactivated in '55 and became a Flying Training Squadron which eventually turned our aircraft over to the Japan Air Self Defense Force. We had the distinction of being among the very few AF people in the world who ever flew airplanes with the Rising Sun insignia on them. Sorry if I've rambled.....thought you might be interested in some of the stuff that happened before your time there. George Z. SMH |
Thread Tools | |
Display Modes | |
|
|
![]() |
||||
Thread | Thread Starter | Forum | Replies | Last Post |
Boeing Boondoggle | Larry Dighera | Military Aviation | 77 | September 15th 04 02:39 AM |