Post by Dave SmithOut of curiosity, I Googled "Spitfire ground crew" and at the top of the
list of hits was a Youtube video that shows at least ten people push a
Spitfire and prepping it for operations. There is a narration and the
pilot talks about some of the repairs that needed to be done, like to the
engine hood that would not open. Then he talks about the instructions from
the controller who is telling them to take off ASAP and patrol the base.
These guys were going up, getting into combat and returning to be
refueled, rearmed, repaired if needed, and often going right back up
again, so it is not as if they had a surplus of men working on only one
plane at a time.
http://youtu.be/icsvCwF0Kr4
Yes but be aware that it is staged vision.
Think of it this way, the number of maintenance personnel depends on
three factors, the amount and type of regular work you want the unit to do
to keep its aircraft flying, regular engine checks, airframe inspections,
repairs
and so on. Next is the aircraft being used. Then comes how quickly you
want to turn the aircraft around after a mission. The quicker the turn
around
required the more people and equipment like refueling trucks per aircraft.
Do you want the unit to repair or simply replace faulty radios? Radars?
and so on.
What rules apply to decide when damaged or defective aircraft should be
handed over to specialist maintenance units? Aircraft carriers often
jettisoned aircraft rather than try to repair them for example given the
limits on space and crew size.
Post by Dave SmithLooking at pictures of ground crews for other types of fighters yielded
similar results. A photo of a Mustang ground crew showed 6 men just for
the belts of ammunition.
Essentially the armament section would visit each aircraft in turn to
rearm it, rather than each aircraft having its own armament team.
Similar for the fuel people. Then it becomes how many aircraft
you want to refuel and rearm at a time and ensuring these
personnel have enough work to fill in a "proper" working week.
If there are enough refuelers around to refuel all the aircraft in
an hour what do they do for the rest of the day?
In the Battle of Britain the RAF certainly liked rapid turn arounds
for fighter units and was willing to pay the "cost", the 8th Air Force
usually did not need that sort of fast service
Generally an individual aircraft would have a team dedicated to
the mechanics, the airframe, controls and the engine for example.
They would then ask for unit assistance for items outside their
expertise and to rearm and refuel. Unit engineering officers had
as part of their duties making decisions about whether an
aircraft could be repaired by the unit or not.
But of course the above is a generalisation with plenty of
specific exceptions. The air forces spent plenty of time trying
to figure out ideal unit sizes and organisations.
In the Battle of Britain James Lacey was rather proud of the
fact one day he glided back to base a very shot up Hurricane,
until the engineer officer pointed out they would now have to
repair it instead of obtaining a new one.
The RAF ended up with maintenance units which were assigned
to squadrons or to airfields, thereby enabling quick transfer of
what was essentially the flying element only. It moved and picked
up new maintenance personnel at the new base. In theory it was
elegant, in practice it cost in terms of the pride maintenance
people took in linking with a specific aircraft and/or crew.
Post by Dave SmithThis page has shows the number of planes, crews and total compliment of an
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardment_group
For Very Heavy Bombardment Group (B 29) there are 45 aircraft, 60 crews,
11 men in a crew, then 2,078 total personnel. Knock of the 660 men in air
crew and that is what it seems to have taken to run the group.
Yes, that essentially is taking the figures from the US official history.
The actual organisation charts for the units is required to break down
the personnel into specific jobs. Then comes any other units present on
the airfield like military police, runway and building maintenance people
for example. Then comes all the other units, like the those doing major
maintenance and overhauls, handling training etc.
Geoffrey Sinclair
Remove the nb for email.