AIR: No Kugelfang!

On sullen summer days, when rain falls and clouds gloom over Long Island, the Army’s Mitchel Field is a hive of brown, earthbound pursuit planes. With their tails low, their tapered fuselages and wings tilting toward the grey sky, the P-40s on the grass and the paved tarmac look unnaturally still; they seem always to be straining for release and flight.

To Mitchel’s pursuit pilots, the air battles of World War II are very real and very near—nearer than any civilian realizes. For Mitchel Field is not simply a training base for the First Air Force but the defensive center for the Northeastern seaboard.

The young P-40 pilots and their senior officers do not smile when they ponder the possibilities of air attack on the Eastern seaboard. Their job is to think about it and prepare for it as best they can. They know the Atlantic routes by which attack could come, whatever the cost in enemy planes and pilots.

To meet such raids, they have very specific preparations, which are close military secrets. They know—and they think the Germans know—the possible reward which might justify the risk and cost of such seemingly useless raids: panicky American outcry might insist on cutting off aid to Britain and withholding equipment from the new advanced U.S. bases until the U.S. improved its home defenses. By the time the Eastern seaboard was banked with defensive planes and guns, the Nazis might win the battles they really need to win.

Blind Men’s Bluff? The pursuit groups at Mitchel Field have three pre-war jobs: 1) to break in new pilots on the P-40s; 2) to learn combat flying as it is actually done in World War II; 3) to man new groups as fast as they can be formed, for service in other defense zones and at U.S. bases.

At the beginning of last week, 40 fledgling pursuit pilots from the advanced training school at Kelly Field (Texas) were trying their P-40 wings. At week’s end, there were 39: fog-trapped Lieut. Robert E. Hetrick of Dimondale, Mich, tried to nose into a Long Island potato patch, overshot. Apparently his motor failed when he tried to recover, and he died in the crash.

When Lieut. Hetrick and his classmates left Kelly Field, they had an average of 225 flying hours, winding up on relatively safe advanced trainers which cruise at about 180 m.p.h., land at a sane 65-70 m.p.h. Allison-engined, Curtiss-made P-40s do 300 m.p.h. in routine flight, land at a hot 90-100 m.p.h.

Many an old airman used to shudder at the thought of 225-hour pilots stepping into souped-up pursuits. Now the youngsters and their instructors know more about the ships, which have also been improved. If anything, the young tyros from Kelly do better on the tricky landings than do some older pilots, who have been too long used to ships which required less careful ground flying. Result: The Army Air Forces’ training losses are far fewer than in the war-pressed R.A.F., whose youngsters often go into battle with half the experience which U.S. pilots have already had when they arrive at Mitchel.

First important step in the training at Mitchel Field is to blindfold new pilots, put them in a P-40 cockpit. Then an instructor stands by, barks off the names of 50-odd vital instruments and controls, some 30 less important ones which a combat pilot must be able to find and use without thinking. Until the blind-folded pilot can lay a sure finger on each item, he cannot leave the ground. When he does, he goes alone: single-seater P-40s have no place for an instructor. The pilots get 60 hours of supervised flying time, 184 hours (including 36 hours of physical training) in ground school before they are assigned to combat squadrons.

Their jargon has the dark flavor of battle. Example: their instructors constantly din into them a Luftwaffe word—Kugelfang. It means bullet-catcher—a pilot who falls out of formation, exposes himself to enemy fire. Pursuit pilots are taught to fly and fight collectively. Individual dogfights are not only outdated, they are usually fatal to a puppy pilot who is foolish enough to invite one.

Their bible is R.A.F. experience in World War II. Written reports are now being supplemented by returning U.S. pilots who have actually flown R.A.F. planes from R.A.F. bases. As far as their inadequate Signal Corps radio equipment permits, U.S. pilots get the same training as the R.A.F. in radio-controlled flight at fixed speeds and altitudes, aimed at the exact (though imaginary) locations of enemy fighters and bombers; fly in battle-proved formation; practice precise defenses against the latest Luftwaffe tricks.

This training would be better if the P-40s and their engines were up to either R.A.F. or German standards. According to the testimony of returning U.S. pilots, neither the ships nor the engines can put up adequate performance at high altitudes. Newer Allison engines in newer pursuit ships promise better performance, but U.S. pursuit pilots do not kid themselves about the probabilities, if the Army Air Forces’ present pursuit equipment goes into 1941 battle. For want of better armament, better ships, better engines, many a U.S. youngster will die.