Those magnificent men in their flying machines!

[72modeler]

Those early naval aviators had big brass ones! Hoping you haven't seen this footage before. Film via YouTube. Looks like the F4U wasn't the only airplane that had a problem with bouncing over arresting cables.

Mike

 

 

[Toryu]

Funny but there was a lot of tax payers' money lost and air crew life in danger. The best one is the TBD slowly disappearing over the edge of the flight deck at 08:20.

 

Well, if airplanes were meant to work at sea they would have been called 'boats'... 😉

[dov]

In addition to technical breakdowns, however, a terrifying lack of flying skills.

Shore based carrier landings, just to simulate the deck, were they common in the US training program at the time?

To learn to catch the wire!

In any case, a very bad report for the training program in general.

Did the Japanese know?

[72modeler]

An interesting question,  @dov! IIRC, many of the USN training fields were grass, so not sure how a simulated carrier deck could be marked, but I guess maybe on those that had concrete runway this might have been done? Somebody who knows more can probably set us straight. I do know that the USN converted two old passenger steamers, the Wolverine and Sable, into carriers used for training in WW2, and they sailed up and down Lake Michigan. They were much smaller than fleet carriers, and with the weather, winds over the lake, poor visibility due to stack gases/fog, and the inexperience of the new pilots, a lot of airplanes were lost in accidents. I'm not sure if the IJN and FAA had an equally large loss rate, but it had to be high, considering the situation. As we trained a lot more naval pilots in WW2 than any other nation, we would have had more accidents. I have attached a couple of links you might find of interest. Carrier pilots, no matter what nationality, were certainly brave men; flying on and off of a carrier has to  the most dangerous  flying there is.

Mike

 

https://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/May-2016/Heroes-on-Deck-Chronicles-World-War-II-Pilot-Training-on-Lake-Michigan/

 

https://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/2016/02/heroes_on_deck_film_premiere_h.html

 

 

[dov]

Oh, yes if I recall Eric Brown I read about Yeoville and other airfields were decks with wire were simulated. 

Of course I have no numbers but such a accident rate must be a blame of the instruction method.

Happy modelling 

[alt-92]

4 hours ago, dov said:

Shore based carrier landings, just to simulate the deck, were they common in the US training program at the time?

To learn to catch the wire!

Have heard that that was one of the measures Admiral Ernest King (the Irate One) introduced when he was in command of the Lexington. 
How his successors kept that up, is less clear.