In World War One the life expectancy of a British pilot was barely 16 hours. It was known as the 'Suicide Club'
Pilot Kenneth van der Spuy wrote: 'I spotted a strange aircraft so I sidled up to him and saw he was a Hun…
‘I got my revolver and we had a revolver battle up there. We were very close to each other and I could see him quite well.
‘I finished my six shots and he had finished his. We both waved each other goodbye and set off.' ( an Image from RAF Cosford Airshow taken last year.)
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Someone was saying on the radio yesterday that 2nd World War RAF bomber crews also had a life expectancy of 16 hours. I've heard claims like this a few times and find them incredible. But rather than leave it there, perhaps I can use my new A327 Europe 1914-1989: war, peace, modernity history skills to find out for myself.
First, some quick Google searches.
"a combat pilot could count on 40 to 60 hours before being killed"
An American United States Air Service web site. Does not give its sources.
"a period that became known as the Fokker Scourge in Britain, during which time the average life expectancy for an Allied pilot amounted to just 17.5 hours of flying time"
A BBC web site which says there was a desperate period when the Luftwaffe grossly out-did the RAF.
" "It was usually a comfortable life compared with any other fighting branch – if you have survived," says Derek Robinson, an author who has written extensively about the life of World War One pilots. "The appalling statistics show that far more men were killed in training than they were in combat. Often the first flight you took was often your last flight. Quite simply, you were liable to crash the plane." "
The same BBC web site. This suggests the average was being pulled right down by the training.
"In 1915 the average life expectancy for an Allied pilot was just 11 days"
Same BBC web page again. But what are its sources?
"More than half the pilots who died in WW1 were killed in training"
Daily Mail web page. Large sections match the above BBC page word for word.
"Over the first five months of 1944 the Luftwaffe's entire complement of fighter pilots was either killed or disabled. A few German aces survived long enough to notch up extraordinary tallies but the working life of the average Luftwaffe pilot was now measured in weeks."
This comes from an answer from someone who gives the details of the books they get their answers from. It seems there was huge variance in WW2 and it depended which side you were on too.
"the amount of time a pilot could expect to fly before becoming a casualty (killed, wounded, or psychiatric) was a low of 92 hours in April 1917, and a high of 295 hours in August 1916. Given that a typical combat flight lasted an hour or two at most, with an average number of mission at less than 1 per day, a pilot would last at least 4 weeks before becoming a casualty, to as many as 5 months."
From someone quoting a study of the Royal Flying Corps.
Let's try my own research. OU library --> History --> Modern History…
From Military Aircraft, Origins to 1918: An Illustrated History of Their Impact: "at many points in the war, such as in 1916 when the air battles over Verdun and the Somme were raging, the average life expectancy of a pilot on the Western Front was a mere 3 weeks from entering service, the majority of victims being pilots of slow reconnaissance planes that provided easy targets to enemy fighters."
and that was all I could find.
I think I need to get better at finding information in the OU library. Most of what I found I could not access without another login, or was long PDFs of page scans which could not be searched.