Capt. Eric Brown: Flight Test God or Biased Meathead (1 Viewer)

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It is clear that Brown was heavily biased against the Corsair but he displayed the same bias against other AC also. For instance he rates the JU87 above the SBD which he says is tied with the Val. Given the supposed good survivability of the SBD and it's combat record, that seems implausible.
He never flew them in combat so his opinion was based on how they performed and how they handled. The Ju 87 is famous for its excellent handling and it's stability in a dive, which also contributed a lot to its accuracy.

I think that is "bias" you are talking about is rather his fair opinion, based on the criteria he could actually witness.
 
He never flew them in combat so his opinion was based on how they performed and how they handled. The Ju 87 is famous for its excellent handling and it's stability in a dive, which also contributed a lot to its accuracy.

I think that is "bias" you are talking about is rather his fair opinion, based on the criteria he could actually witness.

Actually while he remarked how they handled - he ranked them in terms of comparative value... I had a long running debate with him (polite- I Do respect his knowledge) on several of his ordered ranks.

In the above comparison for example he could not possibly express an opinion of each in context of experienced combat abilities - as he never flew 95% of the a/c, in combat, that he comments on

As I said earlier, he has lost more time in his logbook in round off errors than I have in total. While I disagree some of his conclusions I respect his opinions.
 
I don't like to compare anything only by statistics but what about the kill/loss ratio for Corsair and Hellcat? F4U 11:1 (2140 destroyed to 189 lost aircrafts) and F6F 19:1 (5163 to 270), why Hellcat was so successful?

with either plane our pilots kicked @$$
 
Nothing was wrong with Brown, he was a good pilot, but like many have said by now you dont get proficient in any a/c by flying it for a couple tests, far from it. And his wartime evaluations were ofcourse also somewhat biased. But again some a/c are easier quicker to learn to fly proficiently than others, which reflects itself in the conclusions test pilots make.

I still don't think anyone said it any better than Evan:
I think like any test pilot, he has his good and bad points. As with any pilot, personal bias is going to enter the equation. If you have only one sample of an aircraft to test, and it has issues with fuel, or has been a crashed aircraft that has been patched together, that information should enter into the equation as a sub-par aircraft example.

Additionally, when testing enemy aircraft during wartime conditions, there may not be anyone who has trained and flown the aircraft in combat to understand the nuances of the airplane itself and to explain them. This is probably more true with German aircraft as they were quite good at technical innovation.

It is much easier to fly an aircraft to it's full capabilities when you have access to what the engineers say the limitations and capabilities are. Without that information, test data may not be complete as there are variables that may not be known at the time of tests.

I have a great respect for his wartime deeds as an RAF pilot. He certainly has flown a number of aircraft. But you cannot base any argument on the opinion of one source. Anyone who has ever worked in a test environment knows that a single test will not provide reliable data. You need at least three sets of results to have any chance of reliable test data. When working with numbers and empirical data, three tests run by the same person will provide good data. When working with variables that are subjective, you needs at least three different testers.
 
In WW2, in the Pacific, the Hellcat and Corsair flew almost the same number of combat sorties. The Corsair dropped more than twice the tonnage of bombs yet had only 349 losses from triple A to 553 for the Hellcat. It has been stated on this forum that the Corsair dropped lots of bombs on unoccupied or lightly defended islands. Only goes to show that statistics can be misleading.
Right, that statistic is misleading, whereas the one for F4U's and F6F's flying the same missions off carriers in 1945 is apples to apples. And Corsairs went down when hit by AA substantially more often (and they didn't get hit any less often). Presenting a misleading stat doesn't invalidate an apples to apples non-misleading stat, IMO :D The source is btw the official document "Naval Aviation Combat Statistics", Table 29, and there's a notation on the next page pointing to it, that the Corsair was notably more vulnerable. And though the F6F wasn't used in Korea (expect a few bomb/drone F6F-5K's), nothing in that war contradicted the WWII conclusion that the F4U was relatively vulnerable to AA fire among radial piston planes. It was the reason for rearranging oil cooling system on the AU-1.

On 'kill ratio' you correctly noted F4U's were credited many victories v JNAF fighters in the Solomons in 1943 (although, F6F units also flew there and the their relative record wasn't vastly different). But they also scored alot in 1945 including many kamikazes, as did F6F's, with F6F's also scoring loads of victories v all kinds of a/c, many not fighters, in 1944 where F4U units (after the supression of Rabaul in early '44) mainly sat 1944 out as far as air combat. So it's not so comparable, true. Also of course those are victory credits not real enemy losses. For Boyington's VMF-214 in the Solomons, counting up in Gamble's "The Black Sheep Squadron", JNAF losses were on the order of 35-40% of VMF-214's offical credits. And accuracy of credits tended to increase as the war went on, so that's another potential skew.

However to quote another more (though not purely) apples-apples claim stat, in the period Sept 1944-end of war, covered by "NACS" (Table 28 ) the claimed kill ratio's of F4U and F6F, v. J-fighter types only, were essentially the same: 2315:149 for F6F, 15.5:1, and 634:42 for F4U, 15.0:1. Again though 1945 victories v fighter types included a lot of kamikazes, in both cases. Note that total F4U victory credits in the period were 1042, ~1/2 of total F4U victories and almost all would have been in 1945. Total F6F victories in the period 3518, more than 1/2 the all-war total, but many of those would have been in Sep-Dec '44.

Joe
 
Actually while he remarked how they handled - he ranked them in terms of comparative value... I had a long running debate with him (polite- I Do respect his knowledge) on several of his ordered ranks.
I stand corrected then. So it'd be interesting to know the reason for the ranking positions. Did he tell you anything on that?
I don't want to derail the thread into a dive bomber debate, but Ju 87 and SBD seem pretty evenly matched in terms of performance stats relevant to their role (offensive and defensive armament, range, speed etc.). And I know Brown had a relatively high opinion on how the Ju 87 performed in the dive.



As for the F4U vs. F6F debate: A potential problem is that both fighters outperformed 90% of their adversaries, add to that tactical and pilot superiority and the performance advantage of the F4U simply doesn't matter that much anymore and safety is more important.
 
As pointed out, the Corsair downed relatively more fighters than did the Hellcat. Corsairs were in combat on Feb. 14, 1943. Hellcats were first in combat August 28, 1943. The six and one half month difference may have meant that the Corsair pilots met many more veteran IJN pilots than did the Hellcats. Statistically it still makes me wonder why the Hellcats suffered so many more losses from triple A per ton of bombs dropped. Also, I wonder if a Zero is carrying a bomb and flown by a kamikaze pilot, is it a fighter or bomber. An aside is that when the first Wildcat squadron was withdrawn from Guadalcanal to Espiritu Santo to transition to Corsairs, it was like a wild west rodeo, with the planes flying the pilots. These were low canopy undebounced F4U1s and the consequent landing difficulties made for many hairy landings and quite a few crashes. Fortunately, the robust Corsair construction kept the fatalities down somewhat. Another interesting aside since this thread is about Eric Brown is that his evaluation of the FW190 reads somewhat the same as that of the Corsair regarding stall characteristics. Abrupt stall with little or no warning with the left wing stalling first. Also since this thread is about Brown his evaluation of fighters is about their ACM capabilities, not air to ground, so the vulnerabilities to ground fire of the two AC is not relevant. Facts are facts and the Navy apparently preferred the Corsair for fleet defense and I have never heard of anyone other than Brown who would say the Hellcat was superior to the Corsair in ACM.
 
1. As pointed out, the Corsair downed relatively more fighters than did the Hellcat. Corsairs were in combat on Feb. 14, 1943. Hellcats were first in combat August 28, 1943. The six and one half month difference may have meant that the Corsair pilots met many more veteran IJN pilots than did the Hellcats.

2. Statistically it still makes me wonder why the Hellcats suffered so many more losses from triple A per ton of bombs dropped.

3. Also, I wonder if a Zero is carrying a bomb and flown by a kamikaze pilot, is it a fighter or bomber.

4. Facts are facts and the Navy apparently preferred the Corsair for fleet defense and I have never heard of anyone other than Brown who would say the Hellcat was superior to the Corsair in ACM.
1. But again, we have apples to apples stats for later in the war, where we don't have to wonder how much of the F6F's higher claimed ratio for whole war was due to the mix of targets. In Sep 1 '44-end of war period we have the claimed ratio for both v fighter types, against the same or similar mix of Japanese air arms at the same stage of their decline (or perhaps partial resurgance in '45 in some cases). The ratio's are almost exactly the same, ~15:1 claimed.

2. Because, as mentioned last time this came up, if you compare all war AA loss stats, you're comparing lots of F6F missions on carrier raids against heavily defended targets, in 1944 especially, with landbased F4U milk runs against bypassed garrisons. If instead you look at the apples-apples case of carrier missions only for both types in 1945 (only year F4U's flew substantial amount of carrier missions), the F4U had a notable higher loss rate, against the same mix of targets. Also the tonnage of ordnance per sortie for 1945 F6F and F4U carrier ops was almost the same, for example Feb-June 1945 .14 tons/sortie F6F, .15 F4U, 1.94 rockets per F6F, 2.9 per F4U; but in July-August it was .19 F6F .18 F4U and rockets 2.76 and 3.04. There didn't seem to be a real payload difference, in side by side carrier ops, but a loss difference.

3. The stats quoted are victories by type of a/c identified, by codename, ie. Zeke, Oscar, etc. There are actually stats for each individual type, how many claimed v. how many F4U and F6F were lost to each enemy type. There was no way to tell for sure what mission the plane was on, and there's no attempt to make that distinction in those stats. However two things are clear: the % of kamikazes among fighter types would have been similar for both F4U and F6F in that same period so the kamikaze factor doesn't invalidate the equality of claimed kill ratio's; but the kamikaze factor would have bumped up both planes' ratio v a situation confronting strictly 'real' fighters. Both types actually lost some combats over Japan v real fighters, in cases where we know both side, though even against real fighters and discounting to actual Japanese losses both were successful overall.

4. The Navy definitely preferred the F4U-4 going fwd from the end of WWII, but the late war comparison was mainly F4U-1D v F6F-5, not as distinct. Also to the degree F4U-1 was preferred in 1945 it was for speed as interceptor to catch fast kamikazes and fast conventional attackers like 'Jill', 'Judy', etc. I'm not aware there was any strong consensus the F4U was a better fighter v. (real) fighter machine in side by side ops, (your source for that?), and we have stats in same period v same mix of fighter opponents where claimed ratio's were equal.

My thesis is that the Navy's preference for F4U-4 from 1945, based on higher speed mainly, for air defense, proved an error by the time of the Korean War. By then the speed of the piston component of the air wing had become irrelevant, but the F4U's inferiority in AA vulnerability and carrier accident rate became more important. You can't usually predict the next war though, of course.

Joe
 
With German airplanes like the Do 335, Ar 234, Me 163 and He 162...he is probably one of the few men to fly them and write extensive about them so is an easy job to use his opinion.

He did fly the Arado a lot so his opinion on the Blitz is taken as gold...as there is not much else.

He flew as a test pilot so maybe he thought more about flight safety than combat. Is this aircraft going to be a widow maker...

He did write nice things about the Stuka but also called it a bullet magnet and considered its ability to defend itself against fighters as zero. Nice machine...but poor survivabilty.
 
I'm waiting for the 'Chuck Yeager: God or Meatball' thread!

I only have one book that I've read by him "Wings of the Weird and Wonderful" and I didn't find it too biased. But like Kurfurst posted, things can be misconstrued by others.
 
Is it possible that losses in air to ground missions were affected by dive bombing techniques? The Corsair was used as a dive bomber late war and was almost as accurate as SBD in that role. Hellcat could not dive bomb. In tests with FW190, Corsair obviously had many performance advantages over Hellcat. Faster at all altitudes, better rate of climb, better roll rate. Again Linnekin stated that the Corsair was better at air to air gunnery than either Bearcat or Hellcat because of better control modulation. During the late war, tons of bombs or rockets per sortie would not be as relevant as total tons for each AC. Are you saying that the kills for each AC is based on wartime claims and not authenticated kills based on research post war? I have wondered about that. Just watched again the video of Jim Swett's mission where he got seven kills on Vals. I wonder if that is supported by Japanese records. In Lundstrom's books, kills by Navy pilots are roughly 50% supported by IJN records. The IJN pilots were even more over enthusiactic in claiming kills.
 
1. Is it possible that losses in air to ground missions were affected by dive bombing techniques? The Corsair was used as a dive bomber late war and was almost as accurate as SBD in that role. Hellcat could not dive bomb.

2. In tests with FW190, Corsair obviously had many performance advantages over Hellcat. Faster at all altitudes, better rate of climb, better roll rate.

3. During the late war, tons of bombs or rockets per sortie would not be as relevant as total tons for each AC.

4. Are you saying that the kills for each AC is based on wartime claims and not authenticated kills based on research post war? I have wondered about that.

5. In Lundstrom's books, kills by Navy pilots are roughly 50% supported by IJN records. The IJN pilots were even more over enthusiactic in claiming kills.
1 Divebombing F4U's would again be Marine units v. bypassed garrisons. In carrier ops in '45 no evidence AFAIK they flew any differently than F6F's, and as time went by those included a lot of USN F4U units anyway. They just lost more planes to AA, and it's not a total mystery why: the F4U's oil system was very vulnerable, why it was eventually re-arranged on the AU-1 (and F4U-7).

2. In tests v A6M5, the example F4U-1D and F6F-5 were not much different in speed, 413 v 409mph best (at different altitudes). But anyway here we're headed back to the common tangent, IMO it's a tangent, of which plane was really faster, climbed higher rate etc. when the point is combat results. There's a relationship between the two of course, but my point is effectiveness in fighter-fighter combat, not (relatively small) speed or climb differences. Here we have a large sample of combats by F4U and F6F v same opponents in same period flown by the same or similar air arm (USN and USMC) and the claimed fighter-fighter ratio was almost exactly the same. That strongly implies there wasn't a big practical difference in effectiveness v enemy fighters.

As far as anecdotal comparisons, AFAIK F6F v. F4U was mainly like the Big Three USAAF fighters: people who'd flown one successfully in combat tended to be convinced it was the best and not that many had extensive combat experience in more than one. A few Japanese comments in postwar interviews said the F6F was the most formidable US fighter, period. That might have been an impression based on partly numbers and damage done by F6F's rather than careful analysis, but still worth noting.

3. I don't understand that logic. There's room for only so many planes on a carrier (and F4U's and F6F's were about the same size). There's no evidence either could fly more sorties per day, so ordnance per sortie is the measure of how much they could deliver from a given carrier over a given period of time. It was about the same.

4. Yes, official Navy stats of claims (official victories). There's no way you could reconstruct that period completely from both sides. But there's no reason to believe that F4U and F6F claim accuracies differed in that same period against the same opposition, so it's a valid *relative* comparison IMO.

5. I agree approximately, but claim accuracy ratio v enemy fighters was lower than the overall average, typically, and definitely in results given in Lundstrom. Victories against eg. lone flying boats or floatplanes, fair % in those books, were almost 100% accurate. Claims against bomber types tended to be more accurate that those against fighters, too. The F4F's claim accuracy against fighters in 1942 was more like 25-33%. In Swett's combat April 7 1943, F4F's, F4U's, P-38's and P-39's claimed 39 total Japanese a/c and the Japanese lost 12 Zeroes and 9 Vals: relatively good claiming, especially given the number of fighters downed.

Joe
 
I have seen combat film of Corsairs dive bombing at Okinawa. In fact, the Corsairs because of their bombing there were called the "Angels of Okinawa." What I meant was on the tonnage dropped is that if one dropped significantly more tonnage than the other it would show that it flew more sorties. As to "small differences" in performance read the Navy evaluation of F4U and F6F versus FW190 and I believe the differences become more evident. I have read where the Japanese said the Corsair was the most formidable fighter of all they faced in WW2, including all services. They even named the Corsair, "Whistling Death." All of that is anecdotal, of course. Truthfully, based on performance figures, I can't see how anyone could say that Hellcat was the equal of Corsair in ACM. A direct quote from Dean's "America's One Hundred Thousand," " A modern evaluation of a Corsair found it to be the weapon of choice over a P51D, a P47D and a F6F5. A WW2 pilot noted the Corsair was a high strung predator while the Hellcat was a nice safe pussycat." Another quote, " Corsair controls were better harmonised than the Hellcat." That is confirmed by Linnekin in his book. Since Brown is supposed to be the subject in this thread, I guess that a true statement is that the Corsair either inspired great enthusiasm or great distaste. Perhaps that is true as to members of this forum.
 
I stand corrected then. So it'd be interesting to know the reason for the ranking positions. Did he tell you anything on that?
I don't want to derail the thread into a dive bomber debate, but Ju 87 and SBD seem pretty evenly matched in terms of performance stats relevant to their role (offensive and defensive armament, range, speed etc.). And I know Brown had a relatively high opinion on how the Ju 87 performed in the dive.



/QUOTE]

No real correction. In my debates with him I argued weapon system and importance in the supporting the doctrine of the adversaries.

My perception of Brown was that he argued on the basis of how they handled and performed the fighter-fighter mission one on one without regard to other intangibles (like bombload/range/cost) - with the personal bias leaning to the fighter he would prefer to fight in based on manueverability and firepower - or the dive bomber that in his opinion would be the most accurate in point target destruction.

He placed the 51 below Hellcat, Me 109 and Spit in reverse order. I argued that while the 51 one on one would not have more 'manueverability points' than any of the other three - it did succeed in the toughest job in airpower during WWII, namely defeat the Luftwaffe over it's own territory and make Strategic Bombing successful - and none of the other three had the range.

I also argued that a fighter that was nearly equal or slightly superior with equal pilots make interception of the escorted bombers MUCH more difficult, and that aircraft like the Zero, the P-38L and P-47N and F-4U, along with the Mustang - were force multipliers for this reason.

He is also an engineer and we had some lively debates reminiscent of this forum.
 
In a book I have about and "by" Marion Carl I recall that Brown and Carl were friends. Of course Carl was a test pilot too. I think he was the second pilot to fly an AC past the speed of sound. My guess would be that Brown and Carl had many spirited and interesting conversations. Since Carl was a man with much combat experience, his perspective would have been somewhat different than Brown's.
 

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