Wow, just Wow!

My two minute meeting with Robert Plant pales in comparison.

Awesome

That would have been amazing. He is my childhood hero from the pilot episode of Baa Baa Black Sheep. After I read his book at age 12, I was hooked.

Many College level or even professional level athletes move onto MMA and preform really well. Dominick Reyes who in most people's opinion was the first man to beat Jon Jones in a fight had a backround in Playing College Football and even Professional Canadian Football. Featherweight champ Alexander Vokanovski played Professional Rugby before transitioning to fighting. There is literally dozens of UFC guys that got their athletic start in non combat sports.

Well, I went to a fight once, and a hockey game broke out, so…

Certain skill sets transition into other things really well. Although I think what you're seeing there is a case of exceptional athletes transitions well because of athleticism and training discipline.

Hockey is definitely a martial art. The skill required to beat a man half to death while ice skating is profoundly underestimated by the layman.

Bong is also supposed to very a good shot when bird hunting.

they used gliders because treaty prevented them military aviation until they started to break that treaty. so gliders were kind of excuse "look its only for fun"

@@jebise1126 I don't see how this ties to the original comment.

Amen to that.

You see the same phenomenon in the professional world. There are people who are regarded as procrastinators and are hated by their managers because everything seems to be left to the last minute, but in reality those people are constantly refining their solutions as they test them against reality and account for potential problems and boundary conditions. They are unable to "just do it" in a less than optimal manner and their solutions are usually better than average, which unfortunately is not something often all that valued by employers.

@@jebise1126 jebem te. actually everything the Nazi war machine did prior to the war was done in as much secrecy and deception as possible. that along with the distraction of the world wide depression which lasted through the thirties made it easy to assemble the personnel needed for the politicomilitary system which was so ready as the rest of the Western countries were so not ready. of course Hitler blew it by starting the war in 1939 as his military commanders wanted to wait until 1945.

This fits the profile fex Erich Hartmann (losing his leader and running out of fuel on the first sortie) and my experience as a "pixel starship capsuleer".

Same thing happens with learning/teaching high performance race track driving and developing what is known as racecraft.

The British ace Robert Tuck was almost kicked out of flight school because he couldn't fly in a straight line. He was continually using small control inputs to chase every motion of the aircraft resulting in a jerky wobbling flight path. During one last test flight before being kicked out he realized he was doing terribly, sunk into a deep funk and just flew the last part of the flight depressed and not paying attention. When he landed the instructed congratulated him on how much improved his flying was during the second half of the flight.

Hi Gort, I'm frankly shocked at how many people are asking for exactly that. I'm not going to make an entire video about it, but I'll tack it on to the end of an upcoming video.

@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles As a CFI and Line Check Pilot, I would also be very interested in hearing your thoughts on this.

That's a good point about the mental discipline.

“The Big Show” is an amazing book. Also hope to see Greg make a Citroën video.

Clostermann's book aggravated my PTSD.

Along that subject I would love to see videos on Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and his WW2 flying. I understand he disappeared over Italy flying a recon mission in a P38.

Le titre anglais c'est "the big show" cher compatriote ! Le livre de chevet de mon enfance également !

I’d also say it sharpens reactions and improves physical conditioning which is very important for fighter pilots. Also, anyone who plays aggressive sports will probably fly aggressively as well. It’s built into their character. As to artists being better pilots I’m not sure how that plays into it. Perhaps tuning an airplane and learning its feel is similar in a way to how you interact with a musical instrument or abstract concepts needed to visualize artwork allows you to visualize the air combat tactics in 3 dimensions better. IDK. Interesting how such skill sets cross over to what seems like unrelated things.

Thats true!

I would suggest timing. Both sports and music require a certain ability to time movements and coordinate other movements within that time. I believe this concept would be a particular advantage when aiming to fire your guns from a moving platform to another moving platform target.

Sakai also demonstrated the sort of humane attitude so lacking in most of Imperial Japan's armed forces. He once intercepted a DC-3 over Java. Giving the aircraft a once over before shooting it down he saw a blond lady and a child looking back at him from one of the cabin windows. He duly let the DC-3 go. He was also known for his concern for the welfare of junior pilots who were treated as second class citizens in Japanese Naval hierarchy. He even ordered his pilots to steal cigarettes from the officers' mess as they were denied such luxuries. Post-War he also wrote a testimonial to the Australian Defence Minister. As the only surviving witness to the actions of Plt Off Warren Cowan RAAF, he requested that Cowan and his crew receive posthumous awards for single-handedly attacking 8 Zeros in their Lockheed Hudson before Sakai shot them down.

@@paladin56he denied all Japanese war crimes and did a two face when he said that he didn’t believe in the whole “for the emperor” thing

Chennault I believe doesn’t get the recognition he deserves not only being an organizer, but he was awesome pilot. Pre Flying Tigers he would go out flying in China and would hunt down formations of Japanese aircraft and attack them on his own and generally spank them.

What was the instruction, and what did he do instead?

@@theuninformedobserver7878 My guess Claire’s instruction was don’t dogfight with the Zeros, use altitude and do boom and zoom attacks using the dive speed advantage of the P40’s.

Also Read the book, "God is my Copilot", on the Flying Tigers.

@@ottovangogh9477 Great read. Favorite part is where Scott flies to the top of Mt.Everest in a P43.

That makes a lot of sense, and matches my experiences.

@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles if you're ever in Zermatt, give a shout - would love to take you for a tandem flight in front of the Matterhorn 🙂 (@flyzermatt)

I have a small sample size for myself, but I usually need a little bit more time to "get" a physical skill, like playing guitar, learning American football. I tend to run my mind in parallel to the activity, so I have a harder time to just react to what I am told, I constantly think about it (sometimes overthink). However, the moment I can join the two I not only know what to do, but why I do it.

George Beurling was always "practising" his deflection shooting on the ground against birds with an imagination rifle. It seemed to serve him very well especially with the 800 metre (yard?) very high deflection cannon kill he made while in Malta. Was initially poo pooed by the brass because the deflection and distance being so great the German plane was not visible on the gun camera footage but the aircraft and pilot were found and proved his kill. Another _skill_ Greg didn't mention was getting in much closer to the target than the standard pilot The Polish 303 squadron pilots proved this. I would also like to mention *Czech Sergeant Josef Frantisek* who officially had 17 kills as a guest pilot with 303 Squadron but there is good anecdotal evidence that his actual total was 27+ with those extra kills made as a member of the other air forces that he fought with. He also like to get up *very* close. I believe it was Eric Hartman (but I may have remembered the wrong ace) was grounded for 5 days when on his first combat mission on the Eastern Front he got a bit eager and unsuccessfully emption his weapons on a single Russian target with I believe one burst, which he missed. He ended the war with over 6,000 *combat* hours which is mind boggling. Greg mentioned he started flying prewar but the guy I am thinking of didn't start training until 1941 hence my qualifier that it may not have been Herr Hartman. 1,500 combat hours a year is a mind blowing IMO ( I was a civilian professional pilot).

@@pipercessna3827 Yes Beurling was amazing and I hadn’t heard about him till quite recently. Another thing I remember seeing about him was that he not only had to do an enormous lead on a deflection shot he had to account for the fall of the shot so his nose was so high it would block sight of the enemy aircraft. And that’s I believe is the .303 ammo which means you had to shower the airplane to get a solid kill.

@@RMJTOOLS In the instance that I referred to it was 20mm cannon fire that did the trick. I don't think the old .303 would have had much truck at that range unless it hit a really vital part. I'm not ex-military so I have no idea of what energy a .303 bullet would have had at that range against a metal target. He was certainly and _interesting_ man. If you haven't yet seen it, watch a video of him talking about combat when he was doing a War Bonds tour in Canada and you may understand when I say _interesting man._ He also signed up to fly for the newly formed/created Israeli airforce and his death is also interesting.

My father was a good shot on clay pigeon. Tried to teach me but it it was like trying to teach someone to use the force. Don't aim, just scan and point, then deliver the shot to where the clay will be. I was hopeless.

@@pipercessna3827 Yes; many years ago, I read one of writer, Brian Cull's books on the spitfires defending Malta. One of the pics had a shot of Beurlling-=even though it was black and white picture, you could see he had the most 'intense' blue eyes I had ever seen. And his expression at being photographed was sort of 'what the hell are YOU looking at?'

I also have to wonder how physical fitness would have affected G tolerance as well, since it's now known that generally more physically capable pilots are better-capable of straining against G loads, and this could be a particular point when looking at 1940s aircraft with very upright seats and no/few G-suits.

@@smittywjmj I guess it depends a little bit. WWII air combat is a lot slower than jet combat hence the pilots had to deal less with high G-loads. In every somewhat modern* aircombat flight sim you would notice that the indicates airspeed at higher altitudes is lower than at low altitude, hence there is potential to get into sustained G-fights if you aren't willing to give up said altitude.

​@@martijn9568 G is derived from True Air Speed, not Indicated. It's generated by inertia and isn't affected by the airflow over the plane. What IAS will affect is turn performance, and G loads can change because of that.

It didn't hurt that the Americans in particular had an absolutely safe environment in which to actually learn how to fly airplanes (as distinct from learning how to fight with them). I remember reading a comment somewhere about American Sabre pilots in Korea being "so well trained it almost made up for their lack of combat experience".

Thanks Jerry, I'll be there on my days when I'm not traveling. I love the server, although I would like a few more AI low level bomber targets, A-20s and Mossies :)

Being a fanatical Nazi and a propaganda symbol with friends in high (low) places must have been a significant factor, though.

I quite agree. Those fighter pilots that shot down many enemy planes where generally good at sport shooting especially clay bird and skeet.

@@unclebullfrog7319 Didn't Chuck Yeager say that, in his experience, the guys who were the best air to air shots hunted as civilians?

a night fighter having less stress than a day fighter, definitely not true.

​@@michaelpielorz9283 Less threat. A night fighter is significantly higher up the food chain than a day fighter. Yes there were Mosquito and Beaufighter raiders who hunted German night fighters over Europe but in combination with the minimal threat posed by British bomber gunners I'm thinking they had a better survivability than day fighters (provided they were skilled enough to fly and land at night)

@@jasta07 Ican assure you,take off and landing at night is very special even nowdays with all the lights,ILS ,radar and all the goodies it`s not as easy as you think it is Less stress at night you willfind in your local pub but not 10000 feet in mid air searchig for bombers

jasta07 interesting reading about Caldwell in "Darwin Spitfires" by Anthony Cooper.

5'8" was also very close to the height of the average American man.

@@appa609 Good point. Didn't realize that. However, notice that you don't see many (almost any) tall pilots among the major aces. The heart to head distance is a factor in withstanding G forces and I suspect that plays into the equation.

@@davidpf043 Caldwell was 6'2"

@@jayartz8562 Obviously not exclusive, however, statistically it does lean that way. One other factor that Greg didn't mention is vision. Whenever you read about the major aces, you frequently see comments about their exceptional vision. Not just is distance but in the ability to recognize relative motion.

Thanks Tommy. I'm working on increasing the quality of the mugs via a new vendor. I'll have links to the new store up when it's ready, and I just might make the mug you described.

Thanks Central. I think you're right about the firearms.

I agree, in the books I've read on the most successful pilots a knowledge of firearms and/or hunting experience were a common thread for most. Many spoke about how this helped them with deflection shooting.

Sailing also - I am a member at a club and the number of professional and private pilots to non-flying membership is heavily skewed.

He was also almost single-handedly responsible for getting Shell Oil to develop high octane fuel. This ended up being of critical important during the Battle of Britain and beyond.

True, however many of the top aces only shot from very close range.

I do think those are large factors at work here.

actually, Marmaduke Thomas St John Pattle. I was to mention him, excellent pilot, who achieved maybe even 60+ victories in mere half a year.

I don't know what ad that was, I have nothing to do with it and we all see different ads. I think for pilot survival, the P-47 was the best bet in most cases.

That could be, but it's pointed out so often in books on specific pilots that it seems to be an indicator.

Thanks!

It seems that school mostly prepares you for more school. I certainly doesn't prepare you to be a pilot.

I don't think so. I'll probably pass out at about 1.8Gs.

​@@GregsAirplanesandAutomobiles Eat fatty, artery clogging food and start smoking. Your G tolerance will skyrocket!