Death On The North Sea Gunnery Range

When Foxx went in his package guns were smoking. So I don't know..He just
went
straight in as we watched.

In these cases I guess we can never know what really happened. Military flying
is dangerous, war or peace.


Chris Mark

You have missed my point.

Kevin,

I am reasonably confident that I understood your point. However, your
reasoning is flawed, and therefore your conclusion is wrong

They (or you) are not out there merely boring
holes in the sky on a day-to-day basis.

Again, I am well aware of the reason that I strapped Air Force fighters to my
posterior. I suspect that you're indulging in hyperbole here.

They are sometimes going low,
sometimes carrying and dropping live ordnance, often flying at night and in
adverse weather, often conducting ACM (note the number of air-to-air
collisions each year in such training), often flying in formation, etc.

Yes, just as I stated in my post.

You seem to have a different frame of reference than I do. You mentioned a
firecracker--OK, having spent a fair amount of time blowing things up with
devices considerably more powerful than a firecracker, I can tell you that
part of what you say is correct--all too often, accidents are the fault of
mistakes, or even incompetence. But not 100% of the time.

Indeed, I do. I include "expectation of outcome" in my definition of danger.
In other words, where do you draw the line. More of my Academy classmates who
became fighter pilots, died from non-flying causes than did from flying causes.
Many died in automobile accidents. Some died from health/diet reasons. Some
died from other reasons. People die in jet fighters every year. The rate of
people getting sick or dying from food borne pathogens every year is greater
than the rate of people dying in jet fighters. The rate of people getting
injured or dying in automobiles every year is higher yet. However, I don't
consider eating food to be dangerous, and I'm not giving up food. I don't
consider driving automobiles to be dangerous, and I'm not giving up cars. I
don't have a reasonable expectation that I'll die when I eat food or drive a
car. I never had a reasonable expectation that I would die when I flew a
fighter sortie. All of the data and statistics in the world don't alter the
fact that we still "expect" to get up from the table after a meal and walk
away, that we still "expect" to arrive safely at our destination in a car, and
that as fighter pilots we "expected" to return alive from every peacetime
sortie.

Blowing things up would be very dangerous for me because I have no formal
training. It was not dangerous for you because you had that training. The
proper training, mixed with experience, reduces the danger considerably to the
point where danger becomes risk (expected outcome). If you tried to do all of
the things in a fighter that I said that I'd done, it would be dangerous for
you given your lack of training. It wasn't dangerous for me. Standard Air
Force fingertip formation is defined as three feet of wingtip clearance. I was
doing that solo in the T-37 in UPT. It was safe, not dangerous. While flying
in thick IMC, rather than go lost wingman (I'd rather die than go lost wingman)
I've closed that three feet of wingtip clearance to zero, and sometimes flew
with wing overlap just to maintain sight of lead. So has Dudley Henriques, so
had Walt Bjorneby, so has Ed Rasimus. It's common. Doing so, was not
dangerous. In and of itself, violating a rule does not constitute danger.
Doing so without the requisite competency does. The Thunderbirds are not
dangerous when they fly inverted five hundered feet above the ground. Yet some
people are dangerous just boiling a pot of water. I'm not. You're probably
not. So, is boiling a pot of water dangerous or isn't it?

I have come close to dying in a fighter twice. One time I was stupid. The
other time, somebody else was stupid. However, our aviation profession was not
dangerous. You should focus on ability, competency, and expected outcome,
rather than of the act itself. I refuse to patently attach danger to risk.
Again, despite all of the opportunities for harm and failure, we do things in
life every day with the expected outcome of success. Otherwise, absolutely
everything in our life is dangerous. I reject that type of flawed reasoning.



Kurt Todoroff


Markets, not mandates and mob rule.
Consent, not compulsion.

"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
Subject: Death On The North Sea Gunnery Range
From: "Keith Willshaw"
Date: 8/9/2004 7:44 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:



I once knew an RAF coastal command type and he
reckoned that fine weather and smooth seas were
always dangerous because it was hard to get a
visual cue of how high you really were. He said
they lost aircraft the same way and they did this
for a living.

Keith


You are right Keith. It was CAVU all the way. To this day I still keep
wondering what the hell went wrong. Six good men lost in an instant. And
the
war was over Could you cry?

There was a possibillity that the UK and USA may start trading blows with
the Russians. Patton was apparently raring to go. The dangerous training
was surely as to retain opperation readiness as deterent to the Soviets.

Did the Maruader have a radio altimeter that could have provided a warning
to the pilot? Some USN dive bombers had automatic pullout based on radar
altimeter.

If you were bombing target say 1000 ft or more above sea leavel did you
rely on topographic data from maps or did you have a radar to tell you
altitude above ground level?

Kurt R. Todoroff wrote:


People die in jet fighters every year.

The rate of people getting injured or dying in automobiles every year is higher yet.

You are beginning to sound like the "engineers" arguing about runway
construction. Half of them know what they are talking about, but don't
understand the issue, and the other half don't either.

If you are going to lump auto injuries in there with auto fatalities, it
confirms this reader's suspicions that your stand is more ideological
than knowledgeable, or else you are being lazy and not giving your
readers much respect.

If you have hard data on peace-time fighter death rates over the last
decade and auto death rates over the same period, please provide it. And
don't forget to relate the two in the same way, e.g., hours flown/driven
or miles..., or sorties/trips, or some common denominator.

So far, we know what you believe but we still don't know what's true,
from reading your posts. You may also want to stop differentiating
between danger and risk, at least until you get the more important raw
numbers problem straightened out. Very few people here give a rat's ass
what insurance adjusters and statisticians argue about over a beer at
the end of the day.


Jack

Jack,

Snip the self-agrandizing rhetoric.

My first post to this subject challenged the previous poster to substantiate
his assertion which contradicted my empirical experiences. The subsequent
responses to my first post have been littered with opinion and emotion, and
have lacked objectivity. Furthermore, none of them have substantiated the OP's
emotional assertion. Nor have you.

I have made the point that danger is not an absolute concept, but a relative
one. None of the posts addressed this point. The responses, including yours,
miss this salient point.

Your post lacks civility, something that frequent visitors to this newsgroup
observe with regularity from certain other posters who have established their
poor reputations. At the least, it is insulting (is this deliberate?), and it
borders on being imflamatory and a personal attack. You would do well to adopt
a more conciliatory tone in your postings. Furthermore, if you wish to offer
your personal military flying experiences as a basis to defend a position that
you care to assert on this subject, then all of us could benefit from them.




Kurt Todoroff


Markets, not mandates and mob rule.
Consent, not compulsion.

Subject: Death On The North Sea Gunnery Range
From: "Dave"
Date: 8/11/2004 1:31 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:


"Kurt R. Todoroff" wrote in message
...
Jack,

Snip the self-agrandizing rhetoric.

My first post to this subject challenged the previous poster to
substantiate
his assertion which contradicted my empirical experiences.

Snip

Heck, I was just tying to antagonize Art by mentioning President Bush's Cold
War service. To his credit he avoided my perfectly cast dry fly.



sorry didn't notice.


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

You pose a very important situatio. But it is one that can be addressed only
by
tho e who have flown missions or at least have done some military flying. I
was always surprised by how well we were trainrd before we even flew a
mission
When first flying over Germany we never ran into a situation for which we
were
not trained or not prepared.. At first we were placed in the tail- end-
Charlie
slot but as we gained experience we moved forward in the formation and
finally
before the war ended we were connsytantly flying deputy lead. The experience
enhanced what the training had begun, But without the good background in
training we would not have been able to make the best of the experience. But
the idea that we can go into combat untrained and learn on the job is
lidicrious And if you expect civility on this NG, that is equally ludicrious.
Good luck.grin)

Art,

You've confused me. I can't find any relevance in your post to the discussion
at hand. Could you point me to it?

You say that the "important situation" that I pose

"can be addressed only by tho e who have flown missions or at least have done
some military flying".

Isn't this clear from my second post? When you refer to military flying, do
you mean pilots, or do you also include other aircrew members as qualified to
comment?



Kurt Todoroff


Markets, not mandates and mob rule.
Consent, not compulsion.

Subject: Death On The North Sea Gunnery Range
From: ELETEME (Kurt R. Todoroff)
Date: 8/11/2004 3:42 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

You pose a very important situatio. But it is one that can be addressed only
by
tho e who have flown missions or at least have done some military flying. I
was always surprised by how well we were trainrd before we even flew a
mission
When first flying over Germany we never ran into a situation for which we
were
not trained or not prepared.. At first we were placed in the tail- end-
Charlie
slot but as we gained experience we moved forward in the formation and
finally
before the war ended we were connsytantly flying deputy lead. The
experience
enhanced what the training had begun, But without the good background in
training we would not have been able to make the best of the experience. But
the idea that we can go into combat untrained and learn on the job is
lidicrious And if you expect civility on this NG, that is equally
ludicrious.
Good luck.grin)

Art,

You've confused me. I can't find any relevance in your post to the
discussion
at hand. Could you point me to it?

You say that the "important situation" that I pose

"can be addressed only by tho e who have flown missions or at least have done
some military flying".

Isn't this clear from my second post? When you refer to military flying, do
you mean pilots, or do you also include other aircrew members as qualified to
comment?



Kurt Todoroff


Markets, not mandates and mob rule.
Consent, not compulsion.

As I understand it someone talked about training after entering combat.
Right.? And you took issue with that position, as I do. Training must not be
confused with experience. Therefore everyone on the crew who undergoes training
and later experience is qualified on this matter. Those who were never trained
and flew and never had any experience are not qualified to comment.


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
Subject: Death On The North Sea Gunnery Range
From: "The Enlightenment"
Date: 8/11/2004 6:14 A

You are right Keith. It was CAVU all the way. To this day I still keep
wondering what the hell went wrong. Six good men lost in an instant.
And
the
war was over Could you cry?

There was a possibillity that the UK and USA may start trading blows with
the Russians. Patton was apparently raring to go. The dangerous
training
was surely as to retain opperation readiness as deterent to the Soviets.

Did the Maruader have a radio altimeter that could have provided a
warning
to the pilot?

Nope. No radio altimeter.

I meant the Invader of course but I guess the answer is the same.

One of the tragedies of war is the economics of it. Young men simply can't
be equiped with the best equipment or every gadget that is available: you
make do with what could be used and the boffins optimised the abillity to
produce weapons against 'attrition'



If you were bombing target say 1000 ft or more above sea leavel did you
rely on topographic data from maps or did you have a radar to tell you
altitude above ground level?


We had neither.

Do tell? You're not still keeping the secret of the Norden are you?

So you took and intelligent guess or you were told during briefing?





Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

Subject: Death On The North Sea Gunnery Range
From: "The Enlightenment"
Date: 8/11/2004 4:42 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:


"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
Subject: Death On The North Sea Gunnery Range
From: "The Enlightenment"
Date: 8/11/2004 6:14 A

You are right Keith. It was CAVU all the way. To this day I still keep
wondering what the hell went wrong. Six good men lost in an instant.
And
the
war was over Could you cry?

There was a possibillity that the UK and USA may start trading blows with
the Russians. Patton was apparently raring to go. The dangerous
training
was surely as to retain opperation readiness as deterent to the Soviets.

Did the Maruader have a radio altimeter that could have provided a
warning
to the pilot?

Nope. No radio altimeter.

I meant the Invader of course but I guess the answer is the same.

One of the tragedies of war is the economics of it. Young men simply can't
be equiped with the best equipment or every gadget that is available: you
make do with what could be used and the boffins optimised the abillity to
produce weapons against 'attrition'



As far as we were concerned everything we had was the best and the latest and
state of the art.. Y'mean it wasn't ?

If you were bombing target say 1000 ft or more above sea leavel did you
rely on topographic data from maps or did you have a radar to tell you
altitude above ground level?


We had neither.

Do tell? You're not still keeping the secret of the Norden are you?

So you took and intelligent guess or you were told during briefing?


We depended on our training, experience and judgement. And it was in most
cases, but not all cases, quite adequate. We did the best with what we had.



Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer



Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer