OFF: UK Charts

[J Strobridge]

Dave Berry writes:

> At 10:06 05/08/98 -0700, BREVARD, Adrian R. wrote:
> >But would you want to be a driver or gunner in a tank?
> >Air battles are more glamorous and modern day warfare says you must rule
> >the skies to win a war.
>
> I believe the average life expectancy of a pilot in the Battle Of Britain
> was about two months.  I can't remember where I heard this though, so it
> may be just a factoid.

I think it was 10 missions or something of the sort.   But almost nobody
made it to the full amount and during the heaviest air-raiding period
pilots were being called out at least once a day if not more.    For a
new inexperienced pilot, before the Spitfires arrived, with almost no
training your survival rate was reckoned in weeks, if you were lucky.

Strange world.

Didn't Bob Calvert estimate a similar, if not shorter, survival rate for
pilots flying whatever those Starfighter planes were in Captain
Lockheed?

jill

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J.D.Strobridge at ed.ac.uk                         eset08 at holyrood.ed.ac.uk
                                                ELIJSA at srv0.arts.ed.ac.uk
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