Yeah, by Guadalcanal the US training system was delivering pilots of excellent quality.? Ace in a day
Jefferson Joseph DeBlanc had 10 hours in the Wildcat. The Japanese system relied on the squadron that new pilots were assigned to for the advanced training that everyone else was doing before sending them to their permanent assignment. Add in the Japanese habit of dying for the Emperor and the quality of their pilots crashed in short order.
On Sat, Aug 6, 2022 at 10:28 AM Elizabeth <jamesmanto@...> wrote:
The Japanese tend to get better pilot quality at that time, which helps.
Zeros do better at getting on a tail and keeping it? as well.?
The difference was really pilot quality. An Ace gets more chances to squeeze that extra * of maneuverability?
But the F4F once the American pilots figured things out, hit hard.
Trouble?is a lot of the early Pacific is psychological. American pilots were scared of the mythic Zero. The air group commander in Guadalcanal I think first sussed out the drop in Japanese pilot quality and told his pilots to be more aggressive?
