This may be a subject that is a bit distasteful and if the mods think it unacceptable they are welcome to delete it with my apologies.
A current thread marks a flypast for a crashed USAAF aircraft in 1944:
http://www.pprune.org/military-aviat...ast-ideas.html
I'm all for marking the efforts of our wartime ancestors, particularly in the air forces - my father was one of them.
However, I'm always a bit dubious about claims that pilots took steps to avoid buildings, kids in parks etc., so making them even more heroic, if that is possible. Indeed the whole premise of this Sheffield flypast seems to be based on this concept.
A similar thought was made by an eye witness in my father's plane crash - a Valiant - that the pilot tried to avoid him whilst he was working in a field. From what I can gather you can't see much out of the Valiant cockpit and further, the pilot will have been doing his best in trying to keep the plane in the air, dealing with all the problems of a failing machine.
My question is therefore, being realistic as opposed to romantic, are these scenarios likely? Or is it just that individuals like to embellish these incidents because of all the emotions involved?