[rammjaeger]

Hi Jastaflieger,

I don´t have the time to search for the many numbers which were already quotated for very similar topics and questions in older threads. As well I wonder that nobody of the US-American researchers answered your question concerning the “American numbers”.

However, I want to address some points in a short summary of older discussions.
It is often claimed the British Empire lost 8000+ in training and 6000+ at the front but I have never seen a trustworthy source or details mentioned for this claim. Another British source did even claim 15000+ dead to all causes but this number seems to be dubious too.

I think I remember a total number of 9200/9300+ fatalities to ALL causes known until now and mentioned in British books about fatalities in aviation and I remember only 3000+ of this number were claimed to have died by the hand of hostile activities. That means the majority of fatalities of RFC/RNAS/RAF/WRAF died by accidents at home (flying and ground accidents), accidents at the front (don´t forget this big number!!), sicknesses etc etc.

In fact it looks like the number of men died in air combat or by AAA seems to be a minority in the total of lost members of British, German and probably French Air Service as well.

Your are asking for a mortality rate in training but what do you mean exactly?
Number of fatalities divided by number of trainees?
Number of fatalities divided by number of flights?
Number of fatalities divided by number of flying hours?
(For example more precise numbers for Germans and French? are often only to get for specific locations, schools or times and many numbers or statistics are lost or not “re-built” from different sources until now.)

As well the question arises:
Are you speaking about “pure” pilots?
Are you speaking about flying crew (pilots, observers, gunners, flying mechanics etc)?
Are you speaking about members of Air Services in general (incl. also ground crew)?

I doubt that improvement of (training) airplanes improved the fatality rate a lot because the most lethal accidents were results of human failures in low altitude/starting/landing or weather related.
The introduction of the British Gosport system was said to have improved mortality rate but if I recount correct total numbers of fatalities were increasing in all major services with the enormous expansion in numbers of these air services.

By the way one should not overestimate Fokkers influence concerning German training. His own reports are often self-serving and do not fit to facts. His school was only one of 13 or 14 German factory schools which were responsible especially for the basic training of German aviators. For details about German training I am advising everybody to read my 2-part article in “Cross & Cockade” issues of 2003. I know some things better meanwhile but this article (Training in the German Air Force) is still informative today.

VBR
Hannes