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The Always Underestimated Ground Crews

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  Aircraft maintenance is the forgotten step-child of all great aviation achievements. The huge amount of labour, time and dedication that goes into keeping aircraft serviceable so that they can fullfill whatever role is assigned to them is largely forgotten, overlooked or ignored in most accounts of great aviation deeds. The Berlin Airlift is no exception and far too little attention has been paid to the astonishing achievements of ground crews in the most important airlift in aviation history.   RAF groundcrew servicing an aircraft. Note the mechanic on the right is a woman. At the start of the Berlin Airlift, in an incomprehensible example of neglect and under-appreciation, the USAF made no provision for ground crews when it deployed squadrons from around the world. The ground crews were expected to “follow” – by sea. This meant that at the start of the Airlift, the USAF’s cargo fleet had to be serviced by the mechanics already in Europe and they had been trained on c...
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Recruitment of Women Pilots to the ATA (Phase II)

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 In mid-1942, the pool of qualified pilots in Britain not eligible for service with the RAF had been depleted. The ATA's demand for pilots, however, was still growing. Recruiting had to become more innovative.   For roughly one year, the ATA filled their ranks with volunteers from other countries -- from the Commonwealth, of course, but also neutral countries such as the U.S. and Switzerland, and from the countries already defeated by Hitler like Holland, France, and Poland. Some of these recruits were women. Most were men. By May 1943, the pilot shortage had again become so acute that the decision was made to start training pilots from scratch and the focus shifted to young women. Candidates for ab initio training were first drawn from the non-flying members of the RAF and WAAF and, of course, from the staff of the ATA itself. The rationale was that ATA and RAF ground staff had already demonstrated an interest in flying and in the case of ATA's own staff already possessed an...
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The Challenges of Flying on the Berlin Airlift

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  Wherever they came from or whatever national or corporate symbol decorated the fuselage of their aircraft, the pilots of the Airlift were thrown into a situation that was unprecedented. They might be first-rate combat or airline pilots, their courage tested, their experience extensive and the number of hours flown impressive, but none of them had ever flown in quite the same circumstances as they now found themselves. No where else in the world did aircraft have to fly in very narrow corridors over hundreds of miles like cars on a motorway maintaining a safe distance and to the extent possible the same speeds.  Initially aircraft flying to and from Berlin had to share the same narrow corridors just 20 miles wide and 10,000 feet high. To reduce the risk of collisions, however, it was soon decided to pour aircraft into Berlin on the northern (Hamburg) and southern (Frankfurt) corridors but fly them out again on the central (Hanover) corridor. This helped somewhat, but could no...
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