A newbies impression of the 109 and spit

[Glider]

There seems to be a huge underestimation as to the training that takes place before a pilots is given a front line aircraft.

To say but very exciting for the still a bit "ham-handed" newbie who had to rely on the pilots notes and basic training instead of experience is way off the mark. Trainees of all airforces had some form of primary training, advanced training and conversion training.

Gladiators were used in the RAF as part of the conversion training and the best advanced trainers are 'twitchy', Germany used He 51's and no doubt other airforces used similar machines. Early versions of the Hurricane and Me109 were used in conversion training and one of the major problems the RAF had were that there were no earlier versions of the SPit so they were in short supply, hence you often hear that new pilots only had 8 hours on spits when going to the front line. To believe that they relied on basic training and pilots notes is far from the truth.

Also the idea that because pilots of an aircraft were banned from intentional spinning meant that the plane was a danger and could break up is also rubbish. The early Spit 1 pilots notes say that intentional spinning is banned also go on to say that its easy to recover from an accidental spin as long as you allow enough height and ensure your speed is 150 mph. I am sure Crumpp who has extensive spinning experience will agree that the two golden rules are a) make sure you have sufficient height, b) Get your speed up to a safe level

Why did they make this distinction for the first Spits I don't know and no one else does here. There are loads of theories based on various assumptions, wishfull tinking and misapplication of current theory based modern rules designed for civilian use so I will add another one to the pile.

The first Spit pilots in the front line often only had very low hours on type and front line units didn't have Trained Instructors o they wanted to limit the risk. Later on training on the SPits was more rigourous and they lighted up the rules.