B of B pilots

[Dr Jekyll]

Just been watching the film Battle of Britain on DVD, and there is a reference to how little time some of the new Spitfire pilots had on type before flying them in combat. How much flying would pilots qualifying in 1940 or so have had overall before being posted to a squadron?

[BSD]

I recently had a look over a pal's father's log book. He had been a Spitfire pilot, based at Biggin Hill, and was shot down by an Me 109 on Sept 9th, a few days before the battle peaked which I think was the 15th.

His logbook entry has a few details which from memory state he was chased by 2 Me 109s, and initially engaged over the Thames estuary, finally bailing out at Fyfield in Essex.

Counting up his hours, at the time of being shot down, he had a total of 17 hours on Spitfires, out of a total of around 240 hours.

Not sure how typical that might have been.

BSD.

[Brewster Buffalo]

Surprisingly in late 1939 and early 1940 thousands of trainee RAF pilots (many with extensive flying hours) were transfered to other trades due to a lack of training aircraft. :eek:

Many were far more experienced than the RAF's own replacements, some of which arrived on squadrons with only 10 hours basic flying experience and without having completed any OTU courses.

This was due to a reduction in OTU courses from 6 months to only 4 weeks, leaving the squdarons to apply the final training with pilots who had not yet mastered their powerful fighters and who had received little training in blind or night flying, navigation or gunnery.