Tv military historian Michael Hankins talks about Fighter Pilot culture. From the National World war i u museum in kansas city, mystery. Its my pleasure to welcome dr. Michael hankins. He directs courses on air power history and national strategy. He recently publicshed an artice in the air power history journal and is writing a book that exposes the relationship between pilot culture and the development of military aircraft. He earned his phd from kansas city university. Ladies and gentlemen, please help me in welcoming dr. Michael hankins. [ applause ] all right. Ill try to not keep you from the reception. Ill be quick. I wanted to start off by talking about something that happened about a year ago, last june in 2017. There was an air force f15 flying over syria. This is not what you expected to hear in a world war i lecture. Stay with me. It shoots down an iranian drone, an unmanned air vehicle. About two weeks later, a second almost identical event happened and i dont know about you, but my twitter exploded. People started talking online, blogs were being written, people are arguing. Theyre arguing does shooting down that drone count as a kill . Is that something . People are intensely arguing about it. If you shot down five drones, does that make you a fighter ace . Many of the pilots are very emotional about this argument. Theyre coming back and saying shooting down a drone, thats just easy. Seems arguable. Maybe its that shooting down a drone, some of them say its not sporting enough. Actual arguments being put forth. Some say its different because theres not a man at the controls of the drone, even though technically it is. The reason i bring this up is because all these arguments, the fact theyre using those particular arguments, point to a culture, a culture in Fighter Pilots that has certain values. The origin of that culture you heard the dates of some of my work in the 60s and 70s. I started to study pilots of world war i because pilots today look back to world war i as the origin of their culture. When the air force times defi reported on these drone stories and they started off talking about these attacks with a paragraph about the red baron. So the idea of world war i and the Fighter Pilots that we see there are very much in the minds of Fighter Pilots today. Sole so let me define what im talking about when i talk about the Fighter Pilot culture. There are basically five characteristics that this Fighter Pilot culture has. Number one, individualism. These people see themselves as individual fighters as opposed to part of a larger group. That includes being so individual us tick that theyre resistant to authority figures. They dont like their cos. They feel okay disobeying orders. Aggressiveness is part of this. They want to get into combat. Thats competitiveness with each other. A use of heroic and myth logical imagery to define themselves. This idea that were like the noble knights of old, thats something they used to talk about themselves often. This technology piece. The airplane is a piece of technology, but particularly with Fighter Pilots theyll advocate for certain Technology Like the types that make you a better Fighter Pilot. They talk about an advancement that makes me more agile or faster. Finally, this is a protective culture. Its internally competitive, but also internally respectful of each other and they are suspicious of people that arent part of the Fighter Pilot Community Like myself who is apparently coming in here and talking about it. Its important to note when i put this forward a lot of folks, a lot of historians when they talk about knights of the air, its all fake, its all fiction. To an extent thats right. A lot of pilots in a lot of dog fights they get into dog fights is the term for when a airplanes are battling each other they dont always live up to this kind of image. Its not always true. Its true often enough, but whats more interesting to me about this culture is not whether or not its accurate to reality precisely, but its more about this is the ideal that these Fighter Pilots have. This is what they want to be. This is the creation myth. This is the story they tell about themselves to give themselves a sense of identity. Whether or not they live up to this in reality is almost im not going to say irrelevant. Its less relevant to the fact they want to be living up to this. They see this as an ideal to strive for. When they dont live up to it, it creates internal problems for them. This culture has survived. Think about this, what is the difference culturally although the technology has changed. We area talking about jets nowadays. Whats the difference between someone in the First World War and tom cruise in top gun. I dont know if theres much in terms of attitude and culture. Theyre very similar types of folks. I want to get into that. Background for those of you who are not totally aware of how we got here in terms of air power. Air powers is not totally new in world war i. We have had for a long time balloons. This goes all the way back to balloons that would go up. They were participating in the german wars. The American Civil War had balloons. These are reconnaissance roles. Theyre helping artillery to spot and target more e effectively. As soon as you get aircraft, this is the first thing we try to do with them. Lets use them for recon and observation. The americans invent aircraft, the wright brothers. But the American Military is a little slower to pick up on the possibilities of the airplane than the european powers are. The first use of an airplane as a weapons system isnt in world war i. Its by the italians in present day libya. In 1911 an italian aircraft becomes the first airplane to drop a bomb on Ground Troops. Shortly after that incident those same troops become the first Ground Troops to shoot down an airplane. Its not the same airplane. Its a few days later. Still a funny story. Americans do try to get in on the game shortly after. In 1913 the americans develop the first air squadron. The americans have their reputation for production capability. They build a giant armada totaling eight planes to go to mexico with. All eight planes are grounded almost instantly. The weather eats them alive. Locals vandalize two of them. The others get scavaged for parts. Thats what the americans are doing. When we get to world war i, they have 50 airplanes. No one knows really what to do with them. No one had a clear idea about what they wanted out of an airplane. Its going to be a time of experimentati experimentation. Training for pilots at the beginning of world war i is unfocussed to say the least. Your average pilot has about 17 hours of flight training. Some of the good ones have close to 50, 50 hours of training would be a lot. Compare that to in the Second World War pilots have about 300 hours of training, at least early on in the war. A lot of pilots are dying in training accidents. Its fairly common to have happened because these things are experimental. This is cuttingedge technology of the day. Its wood, canvas and a little wire. That doesnt sound very technological. What makes it advanced is the engines in them, but also the shape of that wood and canvas, the engineering that goes into making them more aerodynamic. Thats constantly being updated and made more efficient as things go on. What about parachutes . Surely they have parachutes. Parachutes are in the experimental phase. They figure out how to make some of them work. Very late in 1918 a few german pilots have parachutes with them. Before that, nobody goes in the air outside of the zeppelin crews with parachutes. Part of this culture was if youre a Fighter Pilot, why do you want a parachute . You want a way out of the fight . Are you a wimp . Theres an attitude we dont want the pilots to have parachutes because they wont make them aggressive enough. First it was reconnaissance and then very quickly people figure out what else they can do with them. Reconnaissance is an important part of the war. The reason why the french was able to stop the germans, theres an observation plane that was able to spot german movements and the french could respond very quickly. People on the ground recognized how important this observe role was very early on. Theres an incident where the french artillery officer is given an interview and a german observation plane flies overhead and he says theres that re wretched bird thats haunting us. Theres a few incidents in 1914 where a german plane flies over paris with a list of captured french soldiers and drops a couple bombs around paris, very small ones, like single shells with a note afterwards. Its a list of names and it says please notify the families of these men. Theyre being treated fairly. Sorry about the bombs. [speaking foreign language] then there was a single bomb and a note see the power of our aircraft. You must surrender immediately. Very quickly they start to realize we have to shoot down these observation planes. We quickly translate into air to air combat. This is an example of rockets. They didnt work too well. They quickly realized guns are better than this. This introduces the idea of air to air combat. Now we have planes going up to shoot down an enemy observer plane. Theyre going to try to shoot back. You have air to air combat happening. Each nation is trying to make new developments to take out the other persons plane. Its this cat and mouse game. The planes start flying in larger formations for defense, especially the flying v formation is especially useful. The germans introduce a fighter plane. This is the first as we would think of it today fighter plane. They use the word pursuit. This gentleman plane has a gun built in. Its a mono plane, very maneuverable. This thing could shoot down french and british planes very effectively. The western allies Start Talking about the scourge cleaning out the skies. They have to try to push back against this. Its during this time in 1915 as that goes into 16 and 17 the increasing number of air to air battles. The idea of the aces shooting each other down start to become famous and known for this. One of the most famous in germany oswald balker here and his student, the red baron. Those are some of the more famous on the german side. Well talk more about them in a second. To try to defeat this scourge, the french developed a new plane, the newport. This is the small one, the baby. Its very effective at shooting them down. The germans counter with a new plane, the albatross. The second one is the red barons plane. To defeat the albatross, the western allies, the british come back with the camille, the spad fighters start coming out. Now theres lots of levels of technology advancing. By the time you get into 1918 its very clear a few things. In 1918 air power is playing a particularly large role. The germans are experimenting with new ground attack techniques that are pretty effective. The offensive of the americans is the largest air attack up to that point, 1,500 planes. Its fairly effective. What is clear is that air power has not changed the nature of war in any significant way. Before the war started there was all these theorists talking about if we can get airplanes worki working, war will never be the same. Well, now you have more space tonight in, youre fighting in the air. It hasnt fundamentally changed anything. What it has done is created individual famous aces. Now an ace means you shoot down five planes or more, which is a conviction that started it didnt start that way. First it was four. Then it might have been a different number. It seems to have started within the squads themselves and then newspapers start picking them up. Heres coverage in the british newspapers. Some newspapers would publish score cards so you can keep track at home. How many people has the red baron killed today . These people became famous. You could get a status by not being a Fighter Pilot. A ground gunner that shot down five planes, could they become an ace . In some cases they did. The red baron means 80 air to air kills. Thats why they called him the ace of aces. Just ace wasnt good enough. The american pilots start showing up as the American Air Service in 1918. Of course theyre flying european planes because the americans are really late to this party. The most successful american pilot is eddie richenbacher. You need a place to put your crazy people because you need them sometimes, but you dont want them around. The 94th was that place. Theyre the top scoring squad in the American Air Service. So airplane is still new, still developing. By the end of the war weve seen air power develop the similar types of mission sets we use today, but you see this culture start to develop as it evolves into a weapons system. Why is that . Why is it . What is it about the aces that make them so famous and attractive to the public . Its a response to whats happening on the ground. This is the victorian era. People wanted these old school myth logical heros. For the americans you had Teddy Roosevelt charging up San Juan Hill. The lone warrior. Then you go into world war i and world war i is not that. You have millions of men getting ripped apart by machine fire and their bodies destroyed, dying in mud pits, all so they can gain a few inches of muddy ground that isnt worth anything. Thats not the heroism. Thats not the myth logical hero i thought i was wanting for compared to San Juan Hill of Teddy Roosevelt, that the public longed for. But, these pilots seemed to fit into that old ideal, at least in some way, at least on the surface. The public starts latching on to them. So do the pilots themselves. I want to read you this passage from john murrow. He sums up the attraction to the pilots, quote, the war of the masses be kwooet the new individual hero, the aviator, the fighter ace, whose fame and heroism were quantifiable in terms of his number of kills. The ancient warrior reappeared mounted in a lethal machine ready for repeated trials by combat on the honor and survival of his nation. That sounds a little bit over the top. Sounds a little bit ridiculous. Do these people actually see themselves like that . To a large degree, yes. I mean, i looked for the origin of this in trying to find wheres the first use of the term knights of air or the association of knighthood with becoming a pilot. Its there early on. In october of 1914, h. G. Wells writes an article he said anyone that goes up and destroys an airplane or zeppelin hes not talking about bombing attacks specifically someone who shoots something down in the air should have a knighthood automatically. Theres an association of air to air combat with knighthood. This was a popular sentiment at the time. One of the best expressions is from an american, lieutenant bennett molter. In 1918 he writes his memoire of the war. He titles it knights of the air. He has this passage where he says why is it that i was motivated to be a pilot. He said of course it was patriotism and i love my country. A close second was this, my boy hood love for adventure and appetite for the knights of the round table. Instead of going fort onh on a horse, im going to ride in on my airplane. Im going to ride a Leather Jacket instead of a suit of armor, a machine gun instead of a sword, goggles instead of a visor. Thats what he thinks being a Fighter Pilot means, to somehow reinvigorate these tales of knighthood. Its not just arthur of the round table, a second to that is greek myth logical heros. Hes talking about Fighter Pilots. He says they had no greater odds against them than their aviators. They have to have the heart of a lion and the speed of the serpe serpents. Again, they see themselves this way. Theyre not necessarily living up to it. The ways in which they express this individuality was a big part of it. You want to be the lone warrior. This is a problem because the early planes, some of the early fighter planes, have two cock pits. You have the pilot and a guy behind you with a gun, maybe a camera for observation. A lot of pilots did not like that one bit. I dont want another guy shooting a gun for me. Theyre all guys. What can i do about this . Every nation was trying to they recognized the problem. If you mount a machine gun in front of the cockpit, youre probably going to shoot your own propel lar off. One out of every ten bullets hit the propeller. Every engineer comes up with some version of interpreter gear to stop that from happening. Before that was operational there was a french pilot roland g garross, he says ill put these metal plates on my propeller. This will allow me to its not just him. Hes working with a mechanic and other engineers. This allows him to be the sole pilot. He doesnt have to have a guy in the back anymore. This is great, at least for the Fighter Pilots. They love this. The german Fighter Pilot loved this design, the idea of the single seat fighter. He says, quote, the strong man is mightiest alone. I have attained my ideal with this single seater. My little single seater possesses the advantage of giving me complete independence. I can fly when, where, how long and how i will. You see this trait all over the place. Some pilots prided themselves on it. The americans tended to assume, as americans do, they were more individual us tick than other cro countries. It was fortunate the germans were so well trained in the formation fighting so they could follow their leader. I used to lose my leader. To hell with the bastard, i can go off by myself. Henry clay, hes from missouri and spends a lot of time in fort worth, texas, close to my hometown. He flies with the british and later with the americans. Hes writing home to his sister and says the work of the flyer as an individual is more than that of any other. In the other branches one is a small part of a big machine. In the air service the individual is something. The responsibility placed on one flyer on contact patrol is so great that the fate of a whole portion of a front depends on the whole pilot coming through. Maybe. Sorry. He goes on, in scout work the individuality of the pilot shows up in his fighting and thats his job. He attacks every enemy machine. In these fights the pilot that is the best flyer comes out victorious. In these fights it is man against against. Thats why i like the air service, the individual counts for something. End quote. So aside from this individualism and tied to it is the sense of aggression. Its probably the most emphasized trait among the guys when you read their memoirs. They saw themselves as warriors who lusted for battle, but in a shi value rouse way. They created this knights of the round table concept. You see this a lot with fighters theres balken. If you dont know who they are, its about 250ish pilots, americans, that volunteer long before america enters the war to fly for france. They create this group. They get a lot of credit. Theyre the most famous unit. About that many more americans volunteered and were spread out among other squads. They didnt have a cool marketable name. More americans will fly with the british than the french. Theyre the famous ones. One of their pilots alan winslow talks about how he used to look for german antiair fire and fly right into it hoping that he would be seen so that an enemy pilot would come up and he would get in a dog fight. Thats the aggressiveness were talking about. These pilots i notice almost every presence weve heard has involved puppies in one way or another. I dont have any puppies for you. These are Fighter Pilots. Theyre more aggressive. Their mascot is two lion cubs. One was named whiskey and one was named soda. Quent quentin roosevelt, son of teddy, he wrote im quite anxious to see combat. He joins and goes over to be a pilot. He does a typical Fighter Pilot thing. He knows he has bad eyesight. He cant see anything. Hes not going to pass the eye exam. What does he do . Sneaks into the doctors office, memorizes the eye chart, goes in, recites it perfectly, aces the test. He cant see anything. He gets into the dog fight early. He loves this. He writes back to his mother and says you get so excited you forget everything except getting the other fellow, trying to dodge tracers sneaking past you. Its an exciting letter he writes. Its only a few months after in 1918 hes shot down and killed at age 20. Aggressiveness took the form also of competition of course. The kill count was the measure of success for a Fighter Pilot. How do you know youre better than that guy . You shot down more planes. Of course that leads to inflation. People claim a lot of things. This desire is important. Heres another quote from henry clay. He says heres hoping before they get me i have 50 to my credit. Thats my first wish. My second is they dont get me at all. If i do, im cool with it as long as i have a high school. Spoil alert, he doesnt get 50. He gets 8. He does survive the war just long enough to die of influenza in 1919. This emphasis on the kill count leads to many pilots exaggerating their claims. This becomes a major problem. All the nations have to deal with it. The u. S. Ends up saying were not giving you an official kill unless somebody outside your squad can verify it because come on. Americans would give kill credits to assists. Theres two separate incidents where theres eight observe planes and eight fighter planes that all say they contributed to one german aircraft being shot down. That one kill got 16 kill credits on the american side. In fact, if you look at all the western allies, france, britain and the United States when i say britain, they are using pilots from their colonial possessions as well. The british fliers have pilots from australia, new zealand, canada, south africa, about 40 nations are represented in the british flying corp. If you add up all the kills you get 11,670 claimed kills. Look at the german records of how many planes they lost and it its about 3,000. You can play that claim in reverse. Thats what youre dealing with. Technology plays a key role in all of this as well. Its the particular kind of technology, like i said before, these pilots want to make Technological Advancements that make their planes more agilagil more durable. Thats where they want to put their advances. These pilots had a very close relationship with their technology. The whole knight and horse metaphor is an apt one. They had a personal connection with their aircraft. So i mention the single seat thing is one good example of the technology and culture coming together. One example of that is raul leftberry. He joined the americans as part of the 94th squad. Any time that anybody suggested he flew in a two seat plane he, quote, wouldnt hear from him. They gave him the nickname lone star left. Pilots love nicknames. Not just that, but these planes took on symbolic roles. Every time there was a new aircraft, the pilots would have hot opinions about it. We see this cycle repeat itself. One example in the american 147th he loved the newport 28. Heres a newport. Loved this. Said this was the most maneuverable plane yet. It helps me dog fight. It can do the close turns i want. When the units started to receive spad fires, the pilots hated them. They nicked name it the pooping spad and said it had a problematic ev problemat problematic engine. In the 90th squad, the characteristics of this were so sublime to it that their eyes would light up. That unit had been using the one and a half strutter here. These were considered terrible because they werent maneuverable or reliable. When the 90th air drone was bombed, the pilots all complained that the worst thing that happened about this bombing was they didnt destroy the soft whiffs. We wanted to get rid of those. Theres different opinions on this. Colonel irving who flew for france and the United States la later said he preferred flying with france because he thought their aircraft were better for dog fights. He liked the spad better because it was faster. He said it was the fastest thing on the front. A blistering 147 miles per hour. That was considered really fast for the time. He liked the agility. He knew he needed durability. He wanted his planes to be able to take some hits in a firefighter. His preferred plane was this. Whats interesting to me is you see this keeps going on. The camel comes out, a lot of pilots love that. It had a tendency to fall into an inverted spin which is super dangerous. Other pilots liked the spad and said the newport is more maneuverable, but if you turn too tight you might tear your own wings off and thats a problem. We dont want that. Im not getting into an argument about what plane is best. We can get into that at the bar. Whats thinteresting to me is wt theyre looking for in a good plane. Its contract rharacteristics t them an advantage in combat. Thats what theyre looking for. Now this aggressiveness that i talked about, this lust for violence, its tempered by that sense of shivery. Historians said its largely untrue, but its true often enough. There are specific examples that pilots point to and say look how noble were being in combat. Ill show you two examples. Alan winslow talked about his first dog fight. His machine guns get jammed. This happens all the time. If youre on the ground and your machine gun gets jammed its one thing. In a plane its a whole different ball game. The only way to fix this is to lean out of your cockpit while flying and fix your gun. Winslow is doing that while a german is coming at him. Allegedly the german sees up. Sees whats going on. Gets up real close and waves then goes on. Winslow writes by gal lan tri, my life is saved. Who am i to say this didnt happen . Theres an incident where an american shoots down a german fighter plane. The american lands. Sees the pilot is slightly injured. They ha they shake hands and go about their business. They call it a splendid holiday. Those things did happen. Theyre the exception that proves the rule. More often that not air combat was not like that. It was a little more brutal. This nobility thing is a construction. Its an ideal that pilots knew they werent necessarily living up to it. They knew it was mythology. The 91st air quad had a theme song. Its super long. One verse of it talks about the knights of old. Thats what were calling back to. It says these knights would get drunk, go out to the bar, get plastered. They would wake up at noon. Who cares what their cos are saying. Its not like that today. We have to get up at 5 30 and do maneuvers. Theres ten more verses. It gets into gender issues where they talk about chasing after women and how it was cool and its not anymore. Theyre longing for these days. They have wa they want to be this. They know they cant live up to it. Thats their theme song. For many pilots it gets more brutal than that. The Technology Aspect tends to have a dehumanizing effect. Theres a lot of pilots that have trouble recognizing theres a man in the enemy cockpit. Like this man here, hes an ace of the 94th he goes on to be a general in world war ii. He says youre not fighting a person. Its a machine. When hes in that cockpit, he cant recognize hes talking about another human being. Its just a machine. This french pilot hes talking this is an interview where he talks about dog fights and how crazy it is and theres bullets flying everywhere. These guys talk about one on one aerial duals as what they want to do. Thats not how most of the fights were. Minimum theyre eight on eight. Theres some specific battles where theres over 100 planes in the air. Its more crazy and disorienting and terrifying. He says its impossible to speak of chivalry in that kind of scenario. Arthur rice davis talks about the same thing in a dog fight he experienced. He says all you can think of is pumping led, looking out, avoiding collision and just missing each other by a couple feet. Thats not knighthood. Thats insanity and its chaos. Its chaos happening with an open cockpit and no parachute. This causes some issues for several people psychologically. People discuss the trauma that they have in going down in flames. Keep in mind, a lot of these planes are carrying explosive rounds and incendiary rounds to light their enemies on fire at times. Theres talk about this. Captain arthur gold lee talked about recurring dreams, nightmares of guns shooting at him as he flies in the sky. Several times he would wake up in the middle of the night shaking, sweating and screaming. His was not an isolated experience. Many pilots talked about just that kind of thing. Lt. Oliver from the 66th says this flying job is rotten for ones nerves. One is supposed to last months, quite a lot of peoples nerves konk out. Theres lots of cos that complain about their men having nervous break downs. Fear of flying is a thing. A lot of these pilot it is become superstitious and carry things in the air as good luck charms, the most common being womens lingerie. Many pilots are psychologically scarred by the war. They have feel like theyre supposed to live up to this image and a lot of them have trouble admitting this. A pilot i mentioned several times, henry clay, i wanted to point this out. Im in ut dallas and they have a great world war i aviations museum. He talks about the romance and individualism. As hes writing letters to his sister, he discovers his younger brother wants to be a pilot and join him. So at the same time in the same date range hes writing these letters, he writes separately to his little brother. He says this its not all sunshine and flowers, more flowers than anything else. We joke about pushing up daisies, but its a reality. I saw in the paper that one must forget about danger and be fearless to be a good pilot. That person didnt know what they were talking about. Dont be a damn fool, little brother. He writes his brother and says do not do this. This is not what you think it is. Its not the glory that you think it is. He goes on further and says this game of war is the greatest game of chance youll ever play. Not like the stories you read about as a kid. This is a game of chance and a deadly one. Sherman was right, war is hell and i dont know the half of it. Theres not a hell hot enough for those who contributed towards the beginning of this war. This is not a typical again, this is a private letter he writes only to his brother. He does not stay stuff like this in any of his other letters. Not your typical Fighter Pilot bragging. But, thats not something that they felt they could express publicly. This image of the Fighter Pilot becomes something that the public latches on to. The pilots see themselves as wanting to be this and the public loves it. Magazines and pop fiction start to celebrate this. After the war is over, you get magazines like this. These arent about bombers. These are all about the glory Fighter Pilot days. As soon as Motion Pictures become a thing, some of the earliest big hit Motion Pictures are about air to air combat. All three of these were the most expensive movies ever made at the time they came out. Theyre all about dog fighting and they celebrate this. A new art form shows up in the 1930s, the comic book. Comic book super heros play into this. One of the earliest best selling comic books in 1941 black hawk. Its still to this day one of the staples of the dc universe. One of the most obvious examples of comics talking about word ld war i pilots is snoopy. Snoopy becomes a logo used all throughout the vietnam era. Heres a bunch of vietnam pilots with snoopy as the logo. Pilots talk about recurring dreams of being snoopy and wanting to reenact this. It goes on into the 1980s. You have these movies celebrating this culture. It shifts into science fiction. Where do you think Luke Skywalker comes from . Probably the best example and ill leave you with this. The best example of this culture in our current day connection to world war i comes from wonder woman. Its not a spoil. Ill try to say it in a nonspoilerry way. Towards the end of the film of theres i grabbed this from the dvd. This is in the movie. And its christopher feine standing in front of his fighter plane. This is the same exact photo i showed you 30 minutes ago. There it is. This is visual shorthand, the directors of this film telling you, how do you know chris pine is a hero . I literally photo shopped him into the shoes of eddie rickenbacher, and here is his logo, hat in the ring, which is still an active squadron based in langley and that same exact logo exists today on our current most advanced fighter jets, the f22. Its still with us. The culture will never go away, because top gun is filming a sequel. So thats why this legacy is important. Thank you very much. Ill take any questions. All right. Ladies and gentlemen, we would invite you to come to either of our microphones and as you work your way down, and i know that there certainly will be some i do just have to personally say dr. Hagens, thank you. We do show wonder woman here in this auditorium and do a quick little conversation about whats true and whats not. I hadnt found that one yet. So, thank you so much for that. Thats one more thing im going to add to one of my future lecture lectures. Its because i threaten the world war i aviation historians, i know. These planes and pilots involved in airtoground operations against the germans . Absolutely. Can you tell us about that . Yeah. In 1918 theyre experimenting with ground attack as much as they can. It comes to fruition in a lot of ways. Germans and allied powers are doing this extensively. In those spring offensive that the germans are using in 1918, you know, youve probably heard about the Storm Trooper units. They have storm fighter units, heavily armored airplanes, taking existing airplanes and fly very low, 100 feet, maybe not even that. Dropping explosives where they can, trying to break up the lines. Loss rate for those pilots is shockingly high. And they have the same kind of losses. One thing that happens is Billy Mitchell goes in. Were going to do this big attack. Can you do an air attack . Absolutely, i need 1,500 planes. He gets them. Mix of american and european pilots. Part of what theyre doing is they need to eliminate those german aircraft. Any time german aircraft come up to engage, theyll do air to air. Theyre also going to bomb the aerodrones. Thats pretty successful. Then theyre doing what they have time to talk about is strategic bombing. Typically we would call it more interdiction. Theyre trying to hit rail lines, supply depots, things like that. He has watched me with all the other speakers and so he is not going to. Our last question of the day. Thank you, sir. Do chopper pilots have the same culture . Chopper pilot, very interesting. And how did the different types of flyers have different cultures . I personally have not looked at rotary wing guys very closely. I cant speak directly to them. I can say that different types of pilots have very different cultures. Bomber pilots have very different cultures than the missileers do. Psychological studies during and after world war ii where the air force hired psychologists to come in and look at fire pilots versus bomber pilots and they found that almost all of this is true. Some of was self selecting but Fighter Pilots were more independent, aggressive, didnt like authority. Bomber pilots were more teamwork oriented. Theres certainly cultural differences there. I dont know about the chopper pilots specifically, but i imagine just from what little ive seen, its certainly not quite the same as this. Theres probably some overlap. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in thanking dr. Michael hankins. Youre watching a special edition of American History tv airing now during the week while members of congress are working in their district, due to the coronavirus pandemic. Thursday night at 8 00 eastern, the Supreme Court Historical Society holds a discussion with university of arkansas law professor mark hallenbeck, several dissenting opinions delivered between 1810 and 1927, introduced by associate Justice Steven brier. American history tv now and watch over the weekend on cspan3. The coronavirus pandemic is having an impact on the congressional schedule, House Majority leader steny hoyer announced member also not be back for legislative business until monday may 4th and Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell has announced the same. Thats two weeks after the chamber was originally scheduled to return. Furthermore, members have been advised that they would have sufficient notice about returning to capitol hill if legislation relate d to the coronavirus was to be considered before may 4th. Watch live coverage of the house on cspan and the senate on cspan2. Now, navy f
comparemela.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.