4 ms·

I wonder how many WW2 (the eastern front kind) and early-jet dogfights were won not because of airplane damage, but because one of the pilots GLOC'd himself and

I wonder how many WW2 (the eastern front kind) and early-jet dogfights were won not because of airplane damage, but because one of the pilots GLOC'd himself and hit the ground.

noneeeed 6y ago
I've definitely heard stories from old pilots of blacking out and coming too while out of control, and then having to wrestle control back while coming round. I wouldn't be at all surprised if many more never recovered in time. I remember a WWI era flight-sim called Red Baron that included this in it's mechanics. If you tried to pull a turn too fast you'd start to black out and lose control.
- jki275 6y ago
  Most flight sims model gloc, I remember it as far back as the 1980s Chuck Yeager series and it's definitely a thing in the F18 and F16 in DCS today.
lakecresva 6y ago
Or just exhaustion. There's an interview with a Japanese ace Honda Minoru on yt in which he talks about how pilots were so exhausted from flying eight hour combat missions every day of the Guadalcanal campaign that they would fall asleep at the controls, slowly fall out of formation, and hit the water. They (amazingly) had no radios in their aircraft at the time, so they just watched it happen.
- fishnchips 6y ago
  IIRC they did have radios but those were so unreliable due to poor quality of vacuum tubes that many pilots chose not to use them, sometimes to the point of removing the antenna mast.
  - openasocket 6y ago
    The Japanese had a variety of issues with radios. Some Type 0 pilots did remove their radio system, to save weight, but only on land-based fighters. For carrier-based ships radios were still essential, because they used radio direction finding for navigation. Japanese carrier-based operations also suffered issues because they tended to use a single radio frequency for all air operations (meaning the channel could get disorganized). Japanese carriers also had their antennas on the sides of the ships rather than at the top of the island, which meant they often couldn't receive longer ranged transmissions, so it would be up to escorting cruisers to receive messages and then transmit them to the carrier. The book "Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway" has some good information about some of these nitty-gritty details.
- arethuza 6y ago
  I'm pretty sure I've read that exhaustion was a factor in the Battle Of Britain - the RAF took measures to ensure that pilots were reasonably well rested between sorties whereas the Luftwaffe just kept throwing them in again and again.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    The Germans tended to put their trainers into combat roles meaning that they had trouble training new pilots. In the later days of the war they sometimes told pilots to eject if they saw an enemy plane over friendly ground - there were plenty of airplanes so better to make it back alive and try again than to risk death.
    - throwanem 6y ago
      The Japanese did the same thing, toward the end of the Pacific War. It wasn't by preference in either case, but because they were so low on pilots that it became a question of whether to use instructors as combat pilots or just not have anyone to fly those missions at all.
closeparen 6y ago
From this talk [0] I get the impression that a large part of the "chess game" of a dogfight is about the aircraft's momentum. You're trying to get the enemy into a situation where his aircraft has too much or too little energy to respond to you, and can't accelerate / decelerate in time. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22u4qxm1YjY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22u4qxm1YjY
- HeyLaughingBoy 6y ago
  There's an excellent biography about Boyd (https://www.amazon.com/Boyd-Fighter-Pilot-Who-Changed/dp/0316796883 https://www.amazon.com/Boyd-Fighter-Pilot-Who-Changed/dp/031...) the pilot who formalized using energy & momentum into actual combat techniques. The book is really good reading.
dudul 6y ago
Why only the eastern front? Pilots of the RAF were completely exhausted during the Battle of Britain and the Blitz since they had such a numerical disadvantage compared to the german air force.
- d33lio 6y ago
  Especially when you consider that most of the German Luftwaffe were jacked up on "pilot's salt" (meth) [0]. Makes sense that the US AirForce now has a widely known Modafinil kick ;) 0 - https://worldwarwings.com/the-hidden-risk-faced-by-german-pilots-during-wwii/ https://worldwarwings.com/the-hidden-risk-faced-by-german-pi...
  - greedo 6y ago
    Not just the Luftwaffe. Benzedrine was a normal thing to be given to Army Air Corp Pilots (in fact it was issued to almost all US military units).
  - throwanem 6y ago
    Not just the Luftwaffe, either, and not just speed. Tablets formulated with both methamphetamine ("Pervitin") and, later, cocaine, were issued throughout the Wehrmacht. [1] Some branches also had speed-laced chocolate bars, Fliegerschokolade and Panzerschokolade for pilots and tankers respectively. [2] They also broadly issued opioids - including oxycodone ("Eukodol")! - and drunkenness was likewise extremely widespread, at varying times both with and without official sanction and material support (i.e. liquor rations). [1] https://www.spiegel.de/international/the-nazi-death-machine-hitler-s-drugged-soldiers-a-354606.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/the-nazi-death-machine-... [2] https://time.com/5752114/nazi-military-drugs/ https://time.com/5752114/nazi-military-drugs/
    - d33lio 6y ago
      Thanks for your reply, I had no idea the germans issued go-fast chocolate bars! The implications of alcohol rations are also interesting - especially for the social bonding aspect the germans sought to exploit among their troops.
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
I wonder if the planes from back then could handle G-forces like that back then. (they probably could)
- laurent92 6y ago
  As early as it was, their construction was probably sturdy. It’s only now that we calculate material margin at 110% instead of x5 or x10. The B52 is so stretched it famously leaks fuel at ground level, the operating guideline says “6 droplets per minute” to 20 droplets per minute for a dozen points of the aircraft (mostly around the wings).
openasocket 6y ago
Dive bombers actually subjected pilots to some serious g-forces. Some planes (at least the Stuka) had an automatic pull-out that would cause it to pull up at a certain altitude (or when the bomb is released, I'm not sure), so the plane could recover even if the pilot blacked out. Though apparently some pilots didn't like this feature and disabled it, because they felt always recovering at the same height made it easier to anti-air defenses to target them. Another fun fact about the Stuka: you know that weird whining noise you hear in WW2 movies when a plane is dive bombing, almost sounds like the engine is acting up (like this https://youtu.be/5uvqhA4_2tU?t=39 https://youtu.be/5uvqhA4_2tU?t=39 )? So that noise is unique to the Stuka. It's not the engine, the plane has sirens fitted to the dive brakes! It was meant to scare soldiers on the ground.

I wonder how many WW2 (the eastern front kind) and early-jet dogfights were won not because of airplane damage, but because one of the pilots GLOC'd himself and hit the ground.

noneeeed 6y ago

I've definitely heard stories from old pilots of blacking out and coming too while out of control, and then having to wrestle control back while coming round. I wouldn't be at all surprised if many more never recovered in time. I remember a WWI era flight-sim called Red Baron that included this in it's mechanics. If you tried to pull a turn too fast you'd start to black out and lose control.

jki275 6y ago
Most flight sims model gloc, I remember it as far back as the 1980s Chuck Yeager series and it's definitely a thing in the F18 and F16 in DCS today.

lakecresva 6y ago

Or just exhaustion. There's an interview with a Japanese ace Honda Minoru on yt in which he talks about how pilots were so exhausted from flying eight hour combat missions every day of the Guadalcanal campaign that they would fall asleep at the controls, slowly fall out of formation, and hit the water. They (amazingly) had no radios in their aircraft at the time, so they just watched it happen.

fishnchips 6y ago
IIRC they did have radios but those were so unreliable due to poor quality of vacuum tubes that many pilots chose not to use them, sometimes to the point of removing the antenna mast.
- openasocket 6y ago
  The Japanese had a variety of issues with radios. Some Type 0 pilots did remove their radio system, to save weight, but only on land-based fighters. For carrier-based ships radios were still essential, because they used radio direction finding for navigation. Japanese carrier-based operations also suffered issues because they tended to use a single radio frequency for all air operations (meaning the channel could get disorganized). Japanese carriers also had their antennas on the sides of the ships rather than at the top of the island, which meant they often couldn't receive longer ranged transmissions, so it would be up to escorting cruisers to receive messages and then transmit them to the carrier. The book "Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway" has some good information about some of these nitty-gritty details.
arethuza 6y ago
I'm pretty sure I've read that exhaustion was a factor in the Battle Of Britain - the RAF took measures to ensure that pilots were reasonably well rested between sorties whereas the Luftwaffe just kept throwing them in again and again.
- bluGill 6y ago
  The Germans tended to put their trainers into combat roles meaning that they had trouble training new pilots. In the later days of the war they sometimes told pilots to eject if they saw an enemy plane over friendly ground - there were plenty of airplanes so better to make it back alive and try again than to risk death.
  - throwanem 6y ago
    The Japanese did the same thing, toward the end of the Pacific War. It wasn't by preference in either case, but because they were so low on pilots that it became a question of whether to use instructors as combat pilots or just not have anyone to fly those missions at all.

closeparen 6y ago

From this talk [0] I get the impression that a large part of the "chess game" of a dogfight is about the aircraft's momentum. You're trying to get the enemy into a situation where his aircraft has too much or too little energy to respond to you, and can't accelerate / decelerate in time. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22u4qxm1YjY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22u4qxm1YjY

HeyLaughingBoy 6y ago
There's an excellent biography about Boyd (https://www.amazon.com/Boyd-Fighter-Pilot-Who-Changed/dp/0316796883 https://www.amazon.com/Boyd-Fighter-Pilot-Who-Changed/dp/031...) the pilot who formalized using energy & momentum into actual combat techniques. The book is really good reading.

dudul 6y ago

Why only the eastern front? Pilots of the RAF were completely exhausted during the Battle of Britain and the Blitz since they had such a numerical disadvantage compared to the german air force.

d33lio 6y ago
Especially when you consider that most of the German Luftwaffe were jacked up on "pilot's salt" (meth) [0]. Makes sense that the US AirForce now has a widely known Modafinil kick ;) 0 - https://worldwarwings.com/the-hidden-risk-faced-by-german-pilots-during-wwii/ https://worldwarwings.com/the-hidden-risk-faced-by-german-pi...
- greedo 6y ago
  Not just the Luftwaffe. Benzedrine was a normal thing to be given to Army Air Corp Pilots (in fact it was issued to almost all US military units).
- throwanem 6y ago
  Not just the Luftwaffe, either, and not just speed. Tablets formulated with both methamphetamine ("Pervitin") and, later, cocaine, were issued throughout the Wehrmacht. [1] Some branches also had speed-laced chocolate bars, Fliegerschokolade and Panzerschokolade for pilots and tankers respectively. [2] They also broadly issued opioids - including oxycodone ("Eukodol")! - and drunkenness was likewise extremely widespread, at varying times both with and without official sanction and material support (i.e. liquor rations). [1] https://www.spiegel.de/international/the-nazi-death-machine-hitler-s-drugged-soldiers-a-354606.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/the-nazi-death-machine-... [2] https://time.com/5752114/nazi-military-drugs/ https://time.com/5752114/nazi-military-drugs/
  - d33lio 6y ago
    Thanks for your reply, I had no idea the germans issued go-fast chocolate bars! The implications of alcohol rations are also interesting - especially for the social bonding aspect the germans sought to exploit among their troops.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

I wonder if the planes from back then could handle G-forces like that back then. (they probably could)

laurent92 6y ago
As early as it was, their construction was probably sturdy. It’s only now that we calculate material margin at 110% instead of x5 or x10. The B52 is so stretched it famously leaks fuel at ground level, the operating guideline says “6 droplets per minute” to 20 droplets per minute for a dozen points of the aircraft (mostly around the wings).

openasocket 6y ago

Dive bombers actually subjected pilots to some serious g-forces. Some planes (at least the Stuka) had an automatic pull-out that would cause it to pull up at a certain altitude (or when the bomb is released, I'm not sure), so the plane could recover even if the pilot blacked out. Though apparently some pilots didn't like this feature and disabled it, because they felt always recovering at the same height made it easier to anti-air defenses to target them. Another fun fact about the Stuka: you know that weird whining noise you hear in WW2 movies when a plane is dive bombing, almost sounds like the engine is acting up (like this https://youtu.be/5uvqhA4_2tU?t=39 https://youtu.be/5uvqhA4_2tU?t=39 )? So that noise is unique to the Stuka. It's not the engine, the plane has sirens fitted to the dive brakes! It was meant to scare soldiers on the ground.