Crew failure in HCU course

[CZ_RAF]

Hi all, I have just a general question:

- were there any cases that the crew failed to finish the HCU course, i.e. pilot was capable to fly twin-engine aircraft but not four-engine?
- if yes, what was the further procedure? The whole crew has been relocated to different service or just the pilot has been exchanged and the crew has to undergo the HCU course again (or maybe also the OTU too)?

TIA

Pavel

[John Williams]

Hi Pavel,

I read a book years ago about a crew and their first pilot couldn’t make the switch from twin engine aircraft to four engine aircraft and was washed out. The crew got a new pilot and went on to a Sqn only to be killed with that Sqn. I’ll see if I can find the book and add it on.

Cheers,

John.

[John Williams]

Pavel,

The book was ‘Letters from a Bomber Pilot’ by David Hodgson about his brother Bill.

John.

[CZ_RAF]

John, thank you very much for this case.

Pavel

[SonofBill]

In a letter from my dad's former crewmate Les Loosemore he told me the navigator "got them lost" at OTU in a Wellington when they were on exercise.
He wrote "We had to get in touch with the airfield to get us down, the navigator was sent back to navigation school and we never heard from him again"
There's a memorial to a crew who crashed on Rivington Moor in 1943 which is near where live
All 6 of the Wellington OTU crew perished.