WWII aces as X-Wing Pilots

[General Brock]

So going from an enviroment that relies on gravity and air as enviroment and has the ground as a defining barrier to No air, no ground and orders of magnitude order of speed difference is just a simple thing to overcome?

Wow, guess we should strap in WW2 pilots in F-15s and they would just adapt.

Well, a lot of former WWII pilots became the test pilots and designers behind the earliest jet fighter prototypes, including new weapons and tech systems, not just trying out the engines like Yeager. You couldn't just strap a WWII pilot into an F-15 without a year of retraining and sims, but its not like he couldn't figure it out, assuming he somehow also remained the young eager pilot at the top of his powers he was during the 1940s. I don't think F-15 pilots will be allowed to jump into Raptors, either, without some retraining, though the period of adjustment should be much shorter.

Air force recruits today train to become good fighter pilots with a lot less actual flight and combat experience. I doubt that video gaming comes close to the real thing.

The feedback that comes from air and gravity are useful, but there appear to be artificial feedback systems on SW fighters. If anything, those other 'defining barriers' are a distraction, that impart a kind of discipline and restraint on a pilot, and may be useful in formulating some tactics.

However, remove that, adapt that discipline and restraint to new barriers, and give the pure maneuvoring of a starfighter, without having to worry as much about Gs, stalling, fuel consumption, and low altitude... a WWII pilot is almost advantaged. SW fighters even have better air conditioning.

From my armchair, pilot combat experience and skill is honed from the ability to visualize the action, already in 3D, and act simultaneously within the limits of a mechanical interface. A jump from a P-51 to an F-15 or an X-wing interface would be an exciting, but not insurmountable challenge for a WWII ace. These guys proved they have the right stuff; the only thing keeping them grounded today is that they got old.

[Chmee]

I would guess a WW II pilot would do quite well. I remember reading the memoirs of a former WW II pilot, who later became a civillian airline pilot, and one of the big changes many appreciated in the 1960s was the shift in pilot training to focus more on flying. Apparently pilots had to have a firm grasp of the engineering of their aircraft, to the point where some were apt to complain "I just want to know how to fly it, not build it," as they had to retrain and recertify on each new model of aircraft that came out in their fleet.

WW II pilots also had to navigate their own planes, without a network of beacons, and deal with a tech not as reliable and forgiving as a SW starfighter. Overall, the brainwork involved would be the same, even if the information was different. A pilot is a technician, not a scientific theorist. In fact, given all the computerized augmentation, they might find it easier to operate a SW fighter.

The education of normal human Star Wars pilots isn't touched on, but since they aren't superhuman in their intelligence and capabilities, I would think a person from the 1940s would have enough brains to learn which buttons to press, the what and why of any new procedures, commands to give his astromech, and adapt his mind to operating in a weightless 3D environment.

So going from an enviroment that relies on gravity and air as enviroment and has the ground as a defining barrier to No air, no ground and orders of magnitude order of speed difference is just a simple thing to overcome?

So, back to the core question ... is this unfamiliarity with the zero-gee combat environment something that other raw recruits would not have? Would a Tatooine groundpounder with no flight combat training/experience, but a better familiarity with contemporary physics texts, be more adaptable to zero-gee flight mechanics than somebody with a few hundred hours in a Thunderbolt and experience coordinating dozens of aircraft in a 3-dimensional combat theater?

You don't remember his talk of Beggars' Canyon and bulls-eyeing womprats in a T-16 airspeeder, not to mention his inherent force sensitivity?

Fair enough, but that doesn't sound like zero-gee flight experience either, and womprats don't shoot back. The force sensitivity I'll give you, huge advantage in targeting, we know that much.

[Ender]

, fuel consumption, .

What are you talking about? that's actually a much bigger concern in space combat. Your delta v is a huge limiting factor, in fact its why realistically there will never be fighters, just lots of missiles.

[General Brock]

, fuel consumption, .

What are you talking about? that's actually a much bigger concern in space combat. Your delta v is a huge limiting factor, in fact its why realistically there will never be fighters, just lots of missiles.

Well, in ROTS, Obi-Wan did mention the need to refuel. One (well, two, but Padme's ship was damaged) mentions of refueling in six movies of galaxy-hopping. Realistically, you're right, it is or should be a big concern.

The books and comics I've read mention range limitations, but I would expect that between star systems. Fuel consumption does not appear to be a big issue in SW fighter combat. They even go on long range patrols and raids without worrying about refueling. There are no scenes where a pilot looks anxiously at a guage, trying to decide if he can use the afterburners one last time or if he has enough fuel to fight a sustained engagement.

To compare, fuel limitations figured into a lot of (original) Battlestar Galactica combat scenes. They were always short on tylium.

SW fighters and ships in general seem to have much greater endurance and fuel efficiency, such that pilots don't worry over it in combat. For all we know, the fuel Obi-Wan needed was to top off his chemical thrusters, or some other system, not his hypermatter drive.

[General Brock]

So, back to the core question ... is this unfamiliarity with the zero-gee combat environment something that other raw recruits would not have? Would a Tatooine groundpounder with no flight combat training/experience, but a better familiarity with contemporary physics texts, be more adaptable to zero-gee flight mechanics than somebody with a few hundred hours in a Thunderbolt and experience coordinating dozens of aircraft in a 3-dimensional combat theater?

The ergonomic and computer-aided systems on an X-wing so closely model a cushy atmospheric flight experience I would be surprised if a WWII pilot experienced problems. Remove the ground and ceiling limitations, but keeping the lessons learned, and the hypothetical Thunderbolt squadron leader would have a huge psych and basic skills advantage over any SW recruit. The SW modern conveniences would, if anything, make his job simpler. Its not like a WWII veteran pilot couldn't memorize, or even wholly understand, a few new physics concepts to pass the flight exam.

In fact, the only thing holding him back would be an inability to read, write, and speak Galactic Basic, including the math system, but I am assuming that somehow communications problems have been bridged. Given the depth of SW manufacturing and marketing, they probably could tailor the fighter, manual, and training course to those needs, as they would to any other alien client.

[Cykeisme]

Getting the upper hand in a real-life dogfight is as much a matter of manipulation of thrust, drag, lift and weight as it is spatial awareness. There's so many differences between spacecraft and aeroplanes that a WWII pilot's ability to fly a plane well would be an impediment to overcome, more than anything.

Their reflexes, spatial perception and aggressiveness would be handy, though.

[Lord of the Farce]

The ergonomic and computer-aided systems on an X-wing so closely model a cushy atmospheric flight experience I would be surprised if a WWII pilot experienced problems.
-snip

That's funny. As I seem to remember, WWII aircrafts didn't have anti-gravity (tractor and/or repulsor) technology, did they? Just because certain starfighters in SW were designed specifically to cater to transition from atmospheric repulsorcrafts, doesn't mean that the transition would be anywhere near the same for WWII or modern aircrafts.

[Ghost Rider]

So going from an enviroment that relies on gravity and air as enviroment and has the ground as a defining barrier to No air, no ground and orders of magnitude order of speed difference is just a simple thing to overcome?

Wow, guess we should strap in WW2 pilots in F-15s and they would just adapt.

Well, a lot of former WWII pilots became the test pilots and designers behind the earliest jet fighter prototypes, including new weapons and tech systems, not just trying out the engines like Yeager. You couldn't just strap a WWII pilot into an F-15 without a year of retraining and sims, but its not like he couldn't figure it out, assuming he somehow also remained the young eager pilot at the top of his powers he was during the 1940s. I don't think F-15 pilots will be allowed to jump into Raptors, either, without some retraining, though the period of adjustment should be much shorter.

Air force recruits today train to become good fighter pilots with a lot less actual flight and combat experience. I doubt that video gaming comes close to the real thing.

The feedback that comes from air and gravity are useful, but there appear to be artificial feedback systems on SW fighters. If anything, those other 'defining barriers' are a distraction, that impart a kind of discipline and restraint on a pilot, and may be useful in formulating some tactics.

However, remove that, adapt that discipline and restraint to new barriers, and give the pure maneuvoring of a starfighter, without having to worry as much about Gs, stalling, fuel consumption, and low altitude... a WWII pilot is almost advantaged. SW fighters even have better air conditioning.

From my armchair, pilot combat experience and skill is honed from the ability to visualize the action, already in 3D, and act simultaneously within the limits of a mechanical interface. A jump from a P-51 to an F-15 or an X-wing interface would be an exciting, but not insurmountable challenge for a WWII ace. These guys proved they have the right stuff; the only thing keeping them grounded today is that they got old.

You still account nothing for the fact that Space is not inside an atmosphere. This is something NO pilot in WW2 or modern would be able just to simply throw away.

There is magnitudes of order difference in speed and distance...both of which pilots who are WW2 and modern adapt because they are within a closed enviroment. Not some 3-D calvacade where up doesn't fucking matter anymore.

[phongn]

Presumably those aces had excellent situational awareness which will help them in a SW fighter or a WW2 one. They'll have to be almost entirely retrained but I think they'll do better than green pilots out of flight school. Against experienced pilots who've spent their careers in SW fighters they'd be meat, of course.

[General Brock]

That's funny. As I seem to remember, WWII aircrafts didn't have anti-gravity (tractor and/or repulsor) technology, did they? Just because certain starfighters in SW were designed specifically to cater to transition from atmospheric repulsorcrafts, doesn't mean that the transition would be anywhere near the same for WWII or modern aircrafts.

The functions of those technologies aren't incomprehensible; the WW II pilots only have to operate the machinery, not invent it, build, and perform deep maintenance on it. A huge amount of training goes into being a pilot, no small amount of which is stuff to prove you can learn, and is not everyday useful. The Imperial Fleet churned through thousands of TIE pilots, so despite their huge pool of draftees, the qualifications to be a starfighter pilot cannot be that different in terms of learning curve. The rebellion certainly might have had to recruit pilots with almost no prior experience of any kind. The systems for manipulating cause and effect would have to be humanly approachable.

You still account nothing for the fact that Space is not inside an atmosphere. This is something NO pilot in WW2 or modern would be able just to simply throw away.

There is magnitudes of order difference in speed and distance...both of which pilots who are WW2 and modern adapt because they are within a closed enviroment. Not some 3-D calvacade where up doesn't fucking matter anymore.

I am accounting for the likelihood that SW fighters have extremely sophisticated and intuitive interfaces that allow a combat pilot to concentrate on manoeuvering and combat, turning it into a more intellectual challenge than physical one. Even navigation between stars is handled by computer and memorized coordinates, and there are nav comps and astromechs for more complicated jobs. WW II pilots often flew by instruments alone, say in fog or night combat patrols, with no computer help, so it's not like they were unfamiliar with using abstract inputs from sensors. Not needing to worry as much about up and down and which way was north would be a bonus, not a disadvantage.

The 'realistic' speed and distances involved in SW fighter combat would be beyond human capabilities, but for life support and weapons systems that allow a human pilot to keep up. Even the trim of his plane is corrected by computer, otherwise pilots would spin out of control on even the slightest near-hit, and they don't (always).

A 3d space environment would be even safer to train and fight in than atmosphere, because apart from slamming into an asteroid, there isn't much chance of crashing or exceeding the ceiling and stalling out or running out of oxygen. Some of the old tricks, like using the sun to blind an opponent, might not work as well, but 3d space warfare would be closer to pure combat of manoeuver, not just jockeying to get to the manoeuver because the airflow is not cooperating.

An X-wing would be a P-51 pilot's dream machine come true, and he would be more than up to the task. The aces of the WW II era who were among the best our species could produce. Giving them machine that can just about fly itself in a less restritive environment would springboard them to greater accomplishment.

[Cykeisme]

Spatial awareness and hand-eye coordination are common traits that would be advantageous in both prop-driven aeroplane dogfights and starfighter combat, I'll grant that much.
Saying that there are any further similarities is presumptious.

The aces of the WW II era who were among the best our species could produce.

Oh, I guess the rest of us somehow failed to consider this fact.

[Ghost Rider]

You still account nothing for the fact that Space is not inside an atmosphere. This is something NO pilot in WW2 or modern would be able just to simply throw away.

There is magnitudes of order difference in speed and distance...both of which pilots who are WW2 and modern adapt because they are within a closed enviroment. Not some 3-D calvacade where up doesn't fucking matter anymore.

I am accounting for the likelihood that SW fighters have extremely sophisticated and intuitive interfaces that allow a combat pilot to concentrate on manoeuvering and combat, turning it into a more intellectual challenge than physical one. Even navigation between stars is handled by computer and memorized coordinates, and there are nav comps and astromechs for more complicated jobs. WW II pilots often flew by instruments alone, say in fog or night combat patrols, with no computer help, so it's not like they were unfamiliar with using abstract inputs from sensors. Not needing to worry as much about up and down and which way was north would be a bonus, not a disadvantage.

The 'realistic' speed and distances involved in SW fighter combat would be beyond human capabilities, but for life support and weapons systems that allow a human pilot to keep up. Even the trim of his plane is corrected by computer, otherwise pilots would spin out of control on even the slightest near-hit, and they don't (always).

A 3d space environment would be even safer to train and fight in than atmosphere, because apart from slamming into an asteroid, there isn't much chance of crashing or exceeding the ceiling and stalling out or running out of oxygen. Some of the old tricks, like using the sun to blind an opponent, might not work as well, but 3d space warfare would be closer to pure combat of manoeuver, not just jockeying to get to the manoeuver because the airflow is not cooperating.

An X-wing would be a P-51 pilot's dream machine come true, and he would be more than up to the task. The aces of the WW II era who were among the best our species could produce. Giving them machine that can just about fly itself in a less restritive environment would springboard them to greater accomplishment.

So are you going to stop wanking to the thought that a pilot who's never had to face problems of a 3-D enviroment, speeds that magnitudes order greater then anything they ever faced and the fact the can shot their nose off with their own guns because they could overcompensate, will just enter and go this a dream come true...because a computer is compensating?

You go "They wouldn't have the deficts of Atmosphereic flight!"...yet we know from AOTC, that there are loads of fucking things that the computers do not compensate. So please keep telling yourself all the pilot needs to do is rely on ol R2.

[General Brock]

Ghost Rider wrote:

So are you going to stop wanking to the thought that a pilot who's never had to face problems of a 3-D enviroment, speeds that magnitudes order greater then anything they ever faced and the fact the can shot their nose off with their own guns because they could overcompensate, will just enter and go this a dream come true...because a computer is compensating?

You go "They wouldn't have the deficts of Atmosphereic flight!"...yet we know from AOTC, that there are loads of fucking things that the computers do not compensate. So please keep telling yourself all the pilot needs to do is rely on ol R2.

Flying in atmosphere is a 3D environment, only with a lot more hazzards than open deep space. What makes you think a recruit in the SW universe who has never flown a starfighter - and such have to exist - can be trained to fly a starfighter, but an experienced atmospheric pilot can't be? That a few extra buttons and no ceiling or ground will blow a mind of a proven top notch performer?

Dump a WWII pilot in a B-Wing and dogfight with no prior experience and he probably will shoot himself. On the other hand, so might a Z-98 headhunter pilot in the same circumstances, the only difference being that the WWII pilot might die a little sooner. The threat of running into their own bullets was not an unknown problem to early jet pilots, and a few WWII vets were either still flying by then, or kept up on the latest news. It might be a surprise to an untrained pilot, but not to someone properly trained, as I would expect a transplanted WWII pilot to be in Leia's service.

There are human limits to reaction times and information processing, after which a computer has to cut in to fine tune a pilot's guidance. SW pilots, for example, do not seem to manually adjust each little thruster to change direction and fly on an even keel; a computer therefore must compensate for them. During his trench run, Luke had a targeting computer that was only outmatched by the Force. R2 was directed in general terms to tweak the power and perform repairs, while Luke did the flying.

As a crude comparison, there was a video game that mimicked the real physics of spaceflight as we know it, and you had to fire off each thruster just so to move about, or spin out of control. There was also a 'computer control' option that allowed the player to simply point and steer, at cost of fuel points. SW computers are a little more sophisticated.

The refined systems of SW spacecraft appear to allow them to perform like conventional atmospheric craft. TIE fighters have a control yoke, an control interface common to civillian atmospheric aircraft. All SW fighters even appear to have artificial gravity, a sound system for tactile clues, inertial dampers, and all sorts of reliable pilot-friendly interfaces that allow the main character at a glance to see what is going on. Punch a few coodinates into a navcomp, and the computer, not the pilot, flies the spacecraft when the jump is initiated. There are even force-field protections, so bumping into a small bit of space debris won't damage the spacecraft, while on Earth, a goose hit the wrong way could send a jet fighter to the ground.

There is nothing in the movies or books that would suggest being a WWII ace is a barrier or handicap to being a starfighter pilot, and plenty of evidence to suggest that being a starfighter pilot is no more difficult, and perhaps even less difficult, than flying a spitfire. I am not sure what situations in ATOC you are referring to that a proven pilot from WWII could not be taught to handle.

If you are implying that flying a spitfire is different than, say, flying an apache helicopter, which it is, and plane pilots might not be cost-effective to retrain to a totally different machine and flight concept, which is true given our tech constraints, there are still pilots rated to fly planes and helicopters. A SW starfighter seems not only well developed for a variety of alien capabilities, it comes with the instructional facilites. High-detailed sim chambers mimicking the real thing and proper instruction could get a determined, experienced atmospheric plane pilot up to speed in a matter of months either flying a helicopter like machine, or whatever a starfighter is.

Wait a minute; aren't you a real pilot? And if so, why do you think so poorly of your skills and educational capacity or those of your WWII predecessors?