Danny, your post seems to underline a suspicion that the RAF post war flying training appears to have been based upon the precept that any nod towards common sense safety was somehow going to undermine the aggressive spirit that had been so fundamental to its successful conduct of the war. Why should it take a statistician to work out the blindingly obvious, that deliberately shutting down a perfectly good engine while exploring the limits of maintaining control in the air was bound to lead to disaster for many an inexperienced student jet pilot?
FED, your post also reminds us of the very poor acceleration of those early turbojet engines. The MO at Cranwell always had an open window in his ground floor surgery, even in the depths of a Lincolnshire winter. Outside was his mini, key in the ignition, and engine warmed up from time to time a/r. On the first sounding of a crash alarm he would be out and away leaving his hopeful patient alone in an empty room. As the fleet there consisted of Meteor and Vampire Trainers at the time this was a frequent occurrence. ISTR that the engines had a minimum RPM for the approach to provide for a Go-Around. Unfortunately this was not always maintained by a busy and over-loaded student. I was lucky, for ours was the first course on the far more forgiving JP.
A Happy New Year to everyone who enjoys this thread, whether as author or reader.
Last edited by Chugalug2; 1st Jan 2013 at 12:51.