So was Hartman's case the average sortie or was it a small percentage of sorties where planes had the equivalent of a ream pad type experience?
Thanks again.
The sortie rate depended alot on the mission. The 8th Af guys were going to do no more than
one mission a day <and probably less than that>. Just the hours required alone would make sure
of that.
I'm not sure when hot-padding became common practice. I do know that we would practice
"surges" in the early 80s were we would refuel and rearm Phantoms while they had an engine
running. Even then we did no more than 5 sorties a day and that with limited aircraft and often
fresh crews. That kind of day will burn up your people in a hurry so you only use it when things
are desperate.
That kind of operation is more useful when you have a small number of aircraft. Towards the end of
WW2 the US was sending extra aircraft on sorties due to availability. Instead of having 4 spares or
so to fill in for mission aborts, they could send an extra flight in with the group and still have spares
available.
