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Aviation History
1941
1941 - 0584.PDF
196 TOPICS OF THE DAY MARCH 6TH, 1941. A QUESTION OF TEMPERAMENT* "Indicator" Changes His Mind About Medical Boards, Red Tape and Kindred Matters ATa very conservative estimate there are probably at r\ least ten thousand people in this country who have ^- *• their reasons for thinking that the age and medical standards for entry into the R.A.F. are far too stringent. Some of them have been turned down without an inter- view on the score either of age or general unsuitability, while others have been through the mill at the Central Medical Establishment and have afterwards received one of those nasty little standard letters explaining with specious regret that their application cannot be further considered. There was a time when I joined Whole-heartedly iar'the ten thousand shrieks of condemnation, and I still think that the C.M.E. is too hidebound. In order to be quite sure, the experts there let a few people through their fingers who would probably >make the best of all fighting pflots, while passing others who may be mentally unsuit- able for any kind of flying. But, as in all Civil and other Service departments, rules must be ,»hade and kept, other- wise there would be the most agpClling muddle. It is all rather like the mucb*'advertised red tape vfhich. despite the cries of the knoj/-alls, is entirely fcssentiaU*"^ running a business with half a million employees arid wit property worth a few hundred milliorie. One can laugha the hundreds of forms used, for instance, in the R.A.If., each with its own little number, but it T*tould be impossillle to keep track of all the people and things without them. And, furthermore, it is much simpler to ask that Form 45678 should be '' raised'' than to demand the iorm " which deals with the reimbursement of pay to L.A.C.s who have asked to be re-mustered . . . you know—-Ahe form with the pink edge and the four columns on th^ back to be signed by the A.O. No, no, not that. . . . I'd better come over and look for it myself." .(All forms, persons and situations mentioned in this paragraph are fictitious and have no connection with forms, persons and situations whether living or dead.) A Discovery To return to the Medical Board business. My slight change of front in the matter has nothing to do with my less intolerant view of rules, forms and ceremonies, but simply that I have regretfully discovered that, in general, the older man and the man who is not fighting fit in every respj^rt simply cannot live with the youngsters when it comes to the point, either in air fighting or in long-distance bad weather flight with a job to do at the end of it—and a job which requires all the courage and initiative avail- able. This " discovery "—made by so much more experienced men long ago—has been the result of watching my own and other people's reactions to hard and violent work in the air, and the regret is mentioned because I am one of the older men alluded to. I should rather have liked to have had a shot at something before this war is over, but there it is. Dealing with my o^ reactions, I may say that the awful truth has only dawned upon me during the last month or two when I have been doing rather more than merely flying aeroplanes smoothly and quietly from place to place. Then I was bothered by weather and by the difficulties involved in flying three or four different types one after another, but one merely took off, climbed to a modest height, and set a course for the delivery point. During ?. maximum of a couple of hours' non-stop flying one was normally thinking about other things unless one or other of the instruments showed some unusual figure, or the" weather was especially bad, I was tired, even then, at the end of the day, and did not, for instance, feel inclined to drive twenty miles in the black-out to a party—as a younger man might have done—but the awiul truth did not dawn. It dawned only a few weeks ago when, for half an hour, I put a fighter through some quite mild paces. I felt '' muzzy ''-—mentally rather than medically—as the^ machine rolled over into a dive, my ears cracked as the •_> earth came up, and, worst of all, I pulled out too early with a greying of the landscape, became I couldn't feel sure of my judgment. And up in a steep climbing turn to repeat th# performance, followed by a series of full- blooded tujns and odd variations of my own invention. At the end at the half-hour I was wet through and tired— but notrphysically .tired. That is the whole point. No doubt^juite wrongly I flatter myself (we must all have a litjfe shibboleth to keep us going) that I am reasonably fit ^ind calti climb mountains or ski all day—and nothing tiring as either -done by a person who is expert in tier. The tiredness, was the result partly of continuously jriging g and atmospheric pressure, but mainly of worry. " Must be careful not to hit the ground . . . must be care- ful not to overdo the climbing turn and spin in ... must *\be careful ..." Confidence The youngster does not worry and he is absolutely cer- tain that he can do this and that. So after half an hour's much more vigorous aerobatics in pursuit of some Messer- schmitt he is ready for another, and another. . . . Nor does the youngster, whatever the job, enter his aeroplane with the feeling that "this is all rather unfortunate, not to say dangerous; why couldn't there be^r'hice fog to-day so that I could sit comfortably in the mess talking about Longhorns and Camels? " He views fogs, and bad weather generally, with the greatest of annoyance, and is only restrained with difficulty from attempting a blind take-off. The older pilot thanks his stars for the respite and does not go screaming around asking for Met. forecasts. There are exceptions, of course, but the C.M.E. is not and cannot be interested in exceptions. And I may say that there are exceptions at each extreme. The average pilot" of mature years may not bje keen on dashing into the jaws of death, but he is usually keen on getting this warj over, otherwise there would be no point m dressing up"1-^ in a somewhat flattering uniform and promising to work *" for fourteen-and-six a day. The "other extreme" excep- tions must be quietly and painlessly weeded out if we are • ever to win this war. Imagine the results if everyone sat around doing as little as they possibly could and finding excuses for not doing even those things which could be done. When I think of those results I am not so sure about theytTivilised word "painlessly." "Nor have' I gone all moral. I'm not particularly in- terested in the moral side of the business. We are risking our necks and skins largely-to save them, and not exclu- sively for some ideology. We can think of ideologies when the affair is over. In the meantime it is you or the other fellow, and it is ridiculous to imagine that any job is ua» important.1 v' - Dear me. I mustn't go on like this. "INDICATOR." • An American Accident AFTER a very excellent record of safety, the Americanoperating company, Eastern Airlines, has sustained a severe-loss in a crash near Atlanta, Georgia. It appears thatthe aeroplane was on its way from New York, arriving ov-er Georgia in the early morning. Apparently there was a thickfog, and the machine crashed in a pine thicket while attempt- ing to land Seven of the 16 occupants were killed. Amongthose on board was Eddie Rickenbacker, president of Eastern Airlines. He was reported to be critically injured.
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