Long-range Spitfires and daylight Bomber Command raids (was: #1 Jet of World War II)

In article , Guy Alcala
writes
I'll disagree here. You want two pilots so they can take turns flying tight
formation. For night ops it was no big deal to put the a/c on george and have
the first and second pilots swap out (before they replaced the 2nd pilot with
a FE). That's not an option when flying in a combat box. With only a single
pilot the formations are going to be looser, and that's the last thing the
Brit heavies need, as they're already going to be the ground bait.

Hmmm, we're assuming here that tight combat boxes are the only way to
go. Whilst I haven't looked at it in depth, I reckon that with
sufficient long range fighter escort, smaller, loser formations might
have worked out fine. The combat box seems to me to make a large target
for flak.

Once air
superiority is won and the invasion has happened it's not as big a deal,
becaue there's less need to fly tight formation for as long, but we're talking
about the period before that occurs. Both Lanc and Halifax have FE seats next
to (and slightly aft) of the pilot, so the space shouldn't be a too much of a
problem.

Space may not have been a problem, but the FE seats (certainly on the
Lanc, not sure about the Halifax) were fold out types to allow for the
bomb aimer to take up his station. I remember reading reports that some
bomb aimer's were able to crawl under the seat whilst the FE occupied
it, but on the whole it sounds a difficult manoeuvre. The only
recommended escape route (apart from the rear gunners station) was
through the bomb aimer's hatch, getting the crew out with the 2nd pilot
in his seat would be a major problem.

In the Halifax, the pilot sat above the radio operator, I think with a
walkway down the right hand side (level with the radio ops floor), not
sure where/how the FEs seat was arranged (looks to me like he'd be
hanging in mid-air if sat next to the pilot!).

I wasn't aware that these two a/c had provisions for dual controls
built in, although I knew that some had them; when we were trying to figure
out what mods we'd have to make to run these a/c by day, we had allowed a fair
amount of time to design and develop a production dual control system, so it
seems that we were overcautious in estimating how much time that would take.

The dual controls available were very crude connections to the existing
controls. For operational use these may require re-working (along with
the addition of a better 2nd seat and harness). Whether a 2nd pilot was
required for daylight ops might be irrelevant, whether the command would
agree to it is another question (all resources were tight).

The BBMF Lanc has proper dual controls and two pilots.

--
John