What was the personnel ratio between people who flew the
airplanes and people who serviced the airplanes?
What was the personnel ratio between people who flew the
airplanes and people who serviced the airplanes?
flying personnel : technicians
(Is that ratio changed since then?)
So if you like about 32% of the B-29 unit were aircrew, 38 to 47%
of the B-17/24, 27 to 33% of the B-25/26, 22 to 29.5% of the
A-20/26, 11 to 12.7% of the single engine fighter, 10 to 11.7%
of the twin engined fighter, 28 to 35% of the troop carrier, 68%
of the combat cargo, 11 to 16.7% of the night fighter, 10% of the
tactical reconnaissance, 6% of the photographic reconnaissance
and 30% of the combat mapping.
"Geoffrey Sinclair" <gsinclairnb@froggy.com.au> wrote:
So if you like about 32% of the B-29 unit were aircrew, 38 to 47%
of the B-17/24, 27 to 33% of the B-25/26, 22 to 29.5% of the
A-20/26, 11 to 12.7% of the single engine fighter, 10 to 11.7%
of the twin engined fighter, 28 to 35% of the troop carrier, 68%
of the combat cargo, 11 to 16.7% of the night fighter, 10% of the
tactical reconnaissance, 6% of the photographic reconnaissance
and 30% of the combat mapping.
That's the proportion of air crew in the various
units (thanks for the data), but it doesn't give
the proportion of ground crew. The non-flying
personnel in these units would include riggers,
fitters, mechanics, and armorers, but also the
"housekeeping" functions. I.e., clerks, cooks,
drivers, orderlies, medics, signalmen, the
commander and his staff, meteorologists.
These latter men were all needed in operations,
but they didn't "service the airplanes".
"Rich Rostrom" <rrostrom@comcast.net> wrote in message
Quite right. Note the original question was the ratio of aircrew to
service people, which I read as basically mechanics, armourers,
fuel and the electronics technicians etc., not the weather people
or flying control or guards etc.
Now add the repair and maintenance units that were in addition to
the combat units, to do major overhauls or repairs etc.
Out of curiosity, I Googled "Spitfire ground crew" and at the top of the
list of hits was a Youtube video that shows at least ten people push a Spitfire and prepping it for operations. There is a narration and the
pilot talks about some of the repairs that needed to be done, like to the engine hood that would not open. Then he talks about the instructions from the controller who is telling them to take off ASAP and patrol the base. These guys were going up, getting into combat and returning to be
refueled, rearmed, repaired if needed, and often going right back up
again, so it is not as if they had a surplus of men working on only one
plane at a time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icsvCwF0Kr4
Looking at pictures of ground crews for other types of fighters yielded similar results. A photo of a Mustang ground crew showed 6 men just for
the belts of ammunition.
This page has shows the number of planes, crews and total compliment of an AAF Group:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardment_group
For Very Heavy Bombardment Group (B 29) there are 45 aircraft, 60 crews,
11 men in a crew, then 2,078 total personnel. Knock of the 660 men in air crew and that is what it seems to have taken to run the group.
Out of curiosity, I Googled "Spitfire ground crew" and at the top of the
list of hits was a Youtube video that shows at least ten people push a Spitfire and prepping it for operations. . . . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icsvCwF0Kr4
Aircraft carriers often jettisoned aircraft rather
than try to repair them for example given the limits
on space and crew size.
There was nevertheless a general doctrine, developed prewar and
continued in wartime, based on two signatures accepting responsibility.
Each aircraft had its own maintenance log book. Every day in use,
an aircraft had to be documented as serviceable (fit for use) by the signature of a competent maintenance man (most probably the
Flight Sergeant in charge of all mechanics on a squadron;) and
(in principle) the pilot signed for each sortie or each day of use
that he accepted the aircraft as fit to fly. That was the theory
anyway . . .
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