Mannock's death

[Craig]

It's ironic - and sad - that the #1 and #3 scoring aces of the war were bagged by ground fire.

The one that always gets me is McCudden. How could a pilot with so much experience try a downwind turn to make the runway with a dead engine, no speed, and no altitude to speak of. He specifically taught his students to land the plane straight ahead in the event of an engine failure at low altitude on takeoff.

I suspect Shooter may be right, combat fatigue could have played a major part in their deaths. If that is the case though, what about the Luftwaffe's highest scoring aces? Many of them saw action for years with nothing more than a short leave here and there, or a little downtime to heal wounds.

[WFS]

It's ironic - and sad - that the #1 and #3 scoring aces of the war were bagged by ground fire.

No more ironic and sad than the deaths of McCudden due to engine failure and Boelcke due to a collision with one of his own pilots. *Also, I'm not sure that Mannock was the #3 scoring ace of the war. *Most estimates that I've seen put his total in the low 60's. *I don't claim to be an expert on the subject however.

As to pilot fatigue... I think that contributed to the death's of more fliers than we will ever know. *Many of the aces were overdue to be taken off the front at the time of their deaths. *Ball immediately comes to mind. *He had been at the front too long and in the air too long at the time of his death.

Wayne *

[Craig]

Low 60s? I thought it was recorded as 73. However, I have heard that Ira Jones padded it to P.O. a Certain Canadian, but that was during a rather acrimonious debate on involving Mannock, Jones, and That Certain Canadian.

If Mannock's score was officially 73, it may be best to let it be. If we start revising British scores, some worlds may turn upside down!

[cam]

>The one that always gets me is McCudden.


Most aviators seem to be pretty cocky, even the veterans. Have to remember too even the veterans were still lads of often 19 - 24. Maturity is relative. The Australian Flying Corps' Richard Howard wrote of some escapes he had in doing a similar manouvre to McCudden;

"I have got quite a lot of praise for my flying here - in fact I think I shall be getting swelled head. Within a few minutes of leaving the ground here on my first solo, I had everybody out of the hangars watching "that Australian stunting" and when I came down, the Flight Commander said I was the best soloist that he had ever seen. I have also had quite a lot of excitement and narrow escapes. Once, for instance, I was just leaving the ground and making to pass over the hangars at 50 feet from the ground. Suddenly my engine banged and stopped, through a broken inlet valve and my machine went careering wildly into the hangars. Somehow I managed to yank on a hair-raising bank and turned into a field on the right, which was full of sheep. Next day I dived down to within 200 feet of the aerodrome and was just about to fly off again when my engine began sputtering and would not answer at all. I should have landed straight ahead in a ploughed field, but this was not good enough, so I turned around and by some means managed to do a circuit with the conking engine and landed safely on the aerodrome. On landing, the Flight Commander rushed up to me and said "Good God man, you should not have done that. That is the way 99 men out of 100 lose their lives!" In fact, the very next day the same thing happened to another chap who had gone up in my machine for a flight. He came down crash unfortunately and smashed the machine to smithereens, while he himself was badly damaged. The funny part about this accident was that everybody thought that I was in the machine and there was a great cry about "poor old Howard" just having been killed. However, when I came out of my room shortly afterwards I found a group discussing all the good I had not done in life. They were visibly surprised to see me and, as for myself, I wondered why they all came round and shook hands with me.

A couple of days later I was up at about 2,000 feet when my engine stopped completely. I managed to do a spiral glide to within 500 feet of the ground and then, seeing an open field in front of me, dived down for this. To get in, I had to come down at a fairly steep angle and consequently at great speed. When I flattened out I hit the ground with a little force, crashing the undercarriage, and the machine stopped with its nose in the ground and its tail sticking backwards and upwards. I was not hurt in the least."



cam

[Vigilant]

On his leave before taking command of 85 Squadron, Mannock was often in tears and generally in a 'twitchy' state. That sounds like combat fatigue to me.

.../...

I was actually shown by my instructor how to turn back following a simulated EFATO this summer - thoughts of McCudden and others immediately came to mind! The microlight I was flying loses about 100 feet for every 90 degrees of turn, so if you have 250 feet on the clock and the wind is moderate then turning back is a viable option. I expect it was strongly discouraged during WWI because planes of that era were more prone to spin and student pilots had a vaguer appreciation of air speed.

Vig.

[WFS]

In "High In The Empty Blue" it states "that McCudden had a penchant for taking off in a steep climbing turn,". Revell then offers evidence that the crash could have been due to the engine choking when McCudden opened the throttle to gain the power necessary for the turn.

If that was the case then McCudden wasn't trying to turn back after the engine quit. The engine quit while he was executing a climbing turn. It seems that one of the accident investigating officers (H.N. Charles) reported that the air filter on McCudden's SE5a was of a type that he had had to modify when he was 56 Sqn. engineering officer in 1917!

Wayne

I was actually shown by my instructor how to turn back following a simulated EFATO this summer - thoughts of McCudden and others immediately came to mind! The microlight I was flying loses about 100 feet for every 90 degrees of turn, so if you have 250 feet on the clock and the wind is moderate then turning back is a viable option. I expect it was strongly discouraged during WWI because planes of that era were more prone to spin and student pilots had a vaguer appreciation of air speed.

Vig.

Well, an S.E.5a weighs somewhere around 1750lbs empty, the microlights you fly are probably somewhere around 250lbs, I'd guess. Things you can get away with in an ultralight/microlight with a light wing loading will kill you in a real airplane.

[Vigilant]

860 lb actually. But fair point, I suspect.

An SE5 it ain't

Vig.

860 lb actually. But fair point, I suspect.

An SE5 it ain't *

Vig.

860, really, is that gross or empty weight? What kind of restrictions are placed on microlights? What kind of certification do you need to fly one? Do you have an ultralight category in the UK like we do in the states (253lb and under, no license required)?