# Could a WW1 fighter pilot fly a F111 (possible spoilers)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-ww1-fighter-pilot-fly-a-f111-possible-spoilers/929018
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [December 27, 2020, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-ww1-fighter-pilot-fly-a-f111-possible-spoilers/929018 "2020-12-27T13:11:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [December 28, 2020, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-ww1-fighter-pilot-fly-a-f111-possible-spoilers/929018/41 "2020-12-28T15:42:32Z")
Most fighter pilots (probably) started out in a Cessna 150/152, a Cessna 172, a Piper PA-28, or perhaps a more modern training aircraft such as a Cirrus. Especially with a 150/152, the pilot would be well aware of how little power they have and how careful they have to be with energy management. (I’ve never flown a 150/152 as a pilot, but I’m told it’s an excellent trainer because of its limitation. I learned to fly in a 172, which I’m told is easier to fly.)
Here’s the thing: My mom worked at Gibbs Flying Service at MYF. Gibbs got a lot of business from Navy pilots at (then-)NAS Miramar. She said the instructors said the F-4 pilots needed more instruction in light planes than beginning students. The Phantom drivers were well into their careers and were used to flying high-performance fighters. They needed to be reminded of the limitations of a 100 horsepower (or 150 horsepower) Cessna.
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### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [December 28, 2020, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-ww1-fighter-pilot-fly-a-f111-possible-spoilers/929018/42 "2020-12-28T15:43:42Z")
Yes, but you could _figure out_ how to use a slide rule to save your life.
btw neither slide rules nor their replacement, the shirt-pocket scientific calculator were ever meant to adequately substitute for general-purpose digital computers or comprehensive engineering design and simulation suites. They just save you the use of tables of mathematical functions. Even today I would think it would take someone little time to figure out how a slide rule or pocket calculator works, rather more time to pick up how to effectively use Ansys, Octave, and custom CFD code written in Fortran.
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### Author:  [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)
#### Post date: [December 28, 2020, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-ww1-fighter-pilot-fly-a-f111-possible-spoilers/929018/43 "2020-12-28T16:18:04Z")
> [@Tabco](#):
>
> I don’t think a WWI pilot has much of a chance of starting up a jet fighter.
Would a WWI pilot even see anything on a jet fighter that he would recognize as an engine? Correct me if I’m wrong, but jet engines (and turbine engines) weren’t invented until after WWI.
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### Author:  [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)
#### Post date: [December 28, 2020, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-ww1-fighter-pilot-fly-a-f111-possible-spoilers/929018/44 "2020-12-28T16:56:37Z")
The basic principle of jet propulsion dates back to the aeolipile, 2000 years ago. Using various forms of rocket jets for flight was speculated upon, and some prototypes may have actually been built, going back 500 years or so. The first patent for a turbine engine was filed in 1791. In the early 1900s, there were a number of experimental jet engine designs that made it to the stage of stationary prototypes.
I don’t think a World War I pilot would _necessarily_ recognize that the F-111 was using a turbine jet engine, but it seems plausible to me that they might. At the least, I’d imagine that they would recognize from those huge exhaust outlets that it was some form of jet plane (even if they thought it was a rocket jet rather than an air-breathing turbine jet engine).
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [December 28, 2020, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-ww1-fighter-pilot-fly-a-f111-possible-spoilers/929018/45 "2020-12-28T17:12:02Z")
I keep thinking about The Twilight Zone episode ‘The Last Flight’, where a WWI Royal Flying Corps pilot lands his Nieuport at a USAF base in France in 1959. He sees an F-100 and comments, ‘I had no idea you Americans were so advanced.’
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### Author:  [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)
#### Post date: [December 28, 2020, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-ww1-fighter-pilot-fly-a-f111-possible-spoilers/929018/46 "2020-12-28T20:53:47Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> > [@Broomstick](#):
> >
> > don’t care how much you study the “history of aviation”, studying to actually fly an airplane is much different than aviation history.
>
> My point was more that someone who ends up flying an F-111 is probably going to be fairly interested in aviation, and have more than a simple passing familiarity with older planes.
Why?
The emphasis for someone in the military flight training is on current aircraft, and what the pilot is/will be flying.
Heck, that’s even true of most general aviation pilots in my experience - I’m more the exception than the rule. Most people spend their time and money on other things than ancient airplanes.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> As you point out, even as not a fighter pilot, you have experience with older model planes.
That’s because I sought them out. At one point I was driving 140 miles round trip for lessons for my tailwheel sign-off that would allow me to fly those older airplanes on my own. There aren’t that many replica, much less authentic, airplanes from 1945 and earlier. I know of exactly two Stearman biplanes available for rent in the continental US, otherwise if you want to fly them you have to buy one for yourself.
I very much had to exert extra effort to seek out and fly those airplanes. The average pilot - particularly if he has an interest in flying for the military or airlines - is not going to spend the time and effort that I did.
Not many aircraft are left from before 1925 or so because, by our standards, they were poorly designed, hard to fly, and not very capable.
> [@k9bfriender](#):
>
> I didn’t say that they would be training in them, I was saying that, due to their interest in aviation, they have a reasonable chance of having flown them, just for their own interest.
Personally, I doubt that. There’s a few that would, but they are unlikely to be military pilots whose flying time largely involves worktime. I do know former military pilots who wound up flying older airplanes, but that’s something they did AFTER their service time.
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#):
>
> Especially with a 150/152, the pilot would be well aware of how little power they have and how careful they have to be with energy management. (I’ve never flown a 150/152 as a pilot, but I’m told it’s an excellent trainer because of its limitation. I learned to fly in a 172, which I’m told is easier to fly.)
Hmm… I have most of my GA time in 150’s. I never found them that much different to fly. On the other hand, I’m on the small side so I have an advantage there. A C172 can certainly carry more weight. Outside of that, though, I found them about the same to fly with the caveat that the C150, being a lighter aircraft, has more trouble with crosswinds and gusts. But that’s almost always the case - the smaller the aircraft the more trouble with those, and the heavier the aircraft the better it handles higher winds.
> [@Saintly\_Loser](#):
>
> > [@Tabco](#):
> >
> > I don’t think a WWI pilot has much of a chance of starting up a jet fighter.
>
> Would a WWI pilot even see anything on a jet fighter that he would recognize as an engine? Correct me if I’m wrong, but jet engines (and turbine engines) weren’t invented until after WWI.
Jet engines came in right around the end of WWII and a common comment from the Allied pilots (because the Germans got jets first) was that they couldn’t figure out how the things flew because they couldn’t see a prop.
So it’s possible that the WWI pilot would not recognize a jet engine… but knowing it’s a powered aircraft likely could figure out those nacelles house some sort of motive power even if they didn’t understand it.
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### Author:  [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2021, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-ww1-fighter-pilot-fly-a-f111-possible-spoilers/929018/47 "2021-07-11T03:22:14Z")
By chance, I just saw something on youtube that reminded me of this thread.
British aircraft repair officer accidentally engages afterburner and takes off in a RAF Lightning (1966).
[British engineer who ACCIDENTALLY TOOK OFF in a fighter jet: Taffy Holden’s Lightning Flight - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzlnMRwnzdw)
He had some light-aircraft experience, had taken notes on how to start and stop the jet engine and apply the brakes, but no radio, no ejector seat, and no cockpit canopy (!). It looks like by design the pilot couldn’t see the ground when landing, he landed nose-high, dragged the tail, lost the drag-chute, burned out the brakes, stopped before the end of the runway – and survived the experience.
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### Author:  [@Icerigger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icerigger)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2021, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-ww1-fighter-pilot-fly-a-f111-possible-spoilers/929018/48 "2021-07-11T14:47:11Z")
Starting a Sopwith Camel and something special.
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6PnKUEFX8g)
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### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2021, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-ww1-fighter-pilot-fly-a-f111-possible-spoilers/929018/49 "2021-07-11T15:01:16Z")
The plane in the movie in question, BTW, wasn’t an F-111; externally it was a Tornado. Internally it wasn’t really any real life plane at all, that was just set up for cinematic convenience.
I do not for an instant think a WWI pilot could fly a modern jet. It’s ridiculous.
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### Author:  [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)
#### Post date: [July 11, 2021, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-ww1-fighter-pilot-fly-a-f111-possible-spoilers/929018/50 "2021-07-11T15:04:15Z")
> [@RickJay](#):
>
> I do not for an instant think a WWI pilot could fly a modern jet. It’s ridiculous.
Or even an F15 pilot fly a Tornado, without at least some instruction. As our resident fighter pilot @LSLGuy once said.
> [@How hard is it to fly--at least take off and land--a military/civil jet if you' we never flow it?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-is-it-to-fly-at-least-take-off-and-land-a-military-civil-jet-if-you-we-never-flow-it/732250/13):
>
> I recall in the Olde Dayes sitting in captured Soviet equipment and thinking that there’s no way in hell I could start or fly this thing cold. If somebody else started it I might get it off the ground, but I’d be ejecting rather than landing. Assuming I could figure out how to even do that. It was so foreign it was more like alien
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### Author:  [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)
#### Post date: [July 13, 2021, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-ww1-fighter-pilot-fly-a-f111-possible-spoilers/929018/51 "2021-07-13T17:19:06Z")
> [@How hard is it to fly--at least take off and land--a military/civil jet if you' we never flow it?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-is-it-to-fly-at-least-take-off-and-land-a-military-civil-jet-if-you-we-never-flow-it/732250/13):
>
> Or even an F15 pilot fly a Tornado, without at least some instruction. As our resident fighter pilot @LSLGuy once said.
>
> > [@How hard is it to fly--at least take off and land--a military/civil jet if you' we never flow it?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-hard-is-it-to-fly-at-least-take-off-and-land-a-military-civil-jet-if-you-we-never-flow-it/732250/13):
> >
> > thinking that there’s no way in hell I could start or fly this thing cold.
If [he could think in Russian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox_(film)), he’d of been golden.
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### Author:  [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)
#### Post date: [July 13, 2021, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-ww1-fighter-pilot-fly-a-f111-possible-spoilers/929018/52 "2021-07-13T17:48:56Z")
> [@si\_blakely](#):
>
> Including a helicopter, according to the scriptwriters of **Biggles**.
And where the hell was Biggles when we needed him last Saturday?
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### Author:  [@velomont](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velomont)
#### Post date: [July 13, 2021, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-ww1-fighter-pilot-fly-a-f111-possible-spoilers/929018/53 "2021-07-13T18:21:20Z")
I’m late to this thread and haven’t read it all but, would the WW I pilot even understand if there was a power-plant or where it was?
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### Author:  [@gdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gdave)
#### Post date: [July 13, 2021, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-ww1-fighter-pilot-fly-a-f111-possible-spoilers/929018/54 "2021-07-13T18:49:47Z")
The basic concept of jet propulsion actually dates back millennia, to the steam-powered [aeolipile](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile). Rockets were pretty common, and had been used in combat in Western militaries for a couple of centuries. There were experiments with [jet aircraft engines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Coand%C4%83) going on in the 1910s. A WWI pilot might not recognize that the engines were air-breathing jets or understand how exactly they worked, but they’d almost certainly recognize that it was some sort of rocket/jet plane.
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### Author:  [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)
#### Post date: [July 13, 2021, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-ww1-fighter-pilot-fly-a-f111-possible-spoilers/929018/55 "2021-07-13T19:52:45Z")
> [@dropzone](#):
>
> > [@si\_blakely](#):
> >
> > Including a helicopter, according to the scriptwriters of **Biggles**.
>
> And where the hell was Biggles when we needed him last Saturday?
In Cornwall, probably…
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [July 13, 2021, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-ww1-fighter-pilot-fly-a-f111-possible-spoilers/929018/56 "2021-07-13T20:10:30Z")
> [@si\_blakely](#):
>
> Including a helicopter, according to the scriptwriters of **Biggles**.
I took a friend since childhood for a helicopter ride. He was confident that he could fly the helicopter (I can’t remember if we were in an R-22 or a Schweizer 300CBi) because he played a helicopter computer game all the time. I had to tell him that if I croaked in-flight, he’d be dead too. There’s no way he could fly a helicopter.
(This is the guy who put his leg out the door as I was lifting off, pushing down on the collective. To give you an idea of his personality, imagine Donald Trump but without any money.)
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### Author:  [@ThisOneGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThisOneGuy)
#### Post date: [July 13, 2021, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-ww1-fighter-pilot-fly-a-f111-possible-spoilers/929018/57 "2021-07-13T23:22:55Z")
Since this thread was originally active I actually saw a short clip from the movie in question. It brings up another problem. The WWI pilot gets into the jet and then takes off and flies straight through a cloud. At night.
Blind flying (without reference to a visible horizon) was only invented in 1929 and didn’t become widespread until later than that. It takes a lot of training to fly when you can’t see the ground. Even though the jet has all the instruments Mr. 1918 hasn’t a chance. The usual quote for this is “[178 seconds to live](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7t4IR-3mSo)”
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### Author:  [@Pork\_Rind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pork_Rind)
#### Post date: [July 13, 2021, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-ww1-fighter-pilot-fly-a-f111-possible-spoilers/929018/58 "2021-07-13T23:29:00Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#):
>
> He was confident that he could fly the helicopter (I can’t remember if we were in an R-22 or a Schweizer 300CBi) because he played a helicopter computer game all the time. I had to tell him that if I croaked in-flight, he’d be dead too. There’s no way he could fly a helicopter.
Hey! My first time in a helicopter (on a sightseeing trip), the pilot let me fly the whole way back including part of the approach. I did pretty well! Not so hard!
Until he also let me try to hover. Yeah, I’d probably die.
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### Author:  [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)
#### Post date: [July 13, 2021, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-ww1-fighter-pilot-fly-a-f111-possible-spoilers/929018/59 "2021-07-13T23:56:28Z")
> [@ThisOneGuy](#):
>
> The usual quote for this is “[178 seconds to live](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7t4IR-3mSo)”
Lots of copies of the video, but, as usual, no copyright information. And more than one version of the text and graphics. I’d like to know who wrote and directed the original version.
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [July 14, 2021, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/could-a-ww1-fighter-pilot-fly-a-f111-possible-spoilers/929018/60 "2021-07-14T04:08:19Z")
> [@gdave](#):
>
> they’d almost certainly recognize that it was some sort of rocket/jet plane.
I would think the wings and tail assembly would give it away pretty quickly?
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