How many missions flew MvR?...

[Greybeard]

... and, more in general, what was the average of missions flown by scout pilots who survived the war?

S!
GB

[Mystère]

Hi greybeard,

Belgium's Capitaine-Commandant Fernand Jacquet flew 598 war missions (not only offensive patrols, but also recce missions) and became the most active pilot of the Av.M.;
Sous-Lieutenant Jean Olieslagers flew 566 war missions and Sous-Lieutenant André De Meulemeester 561. They all survived.

Sous-Lieutenant Jacques Goethals, fighter pilot, was killed on his 317th war mission (but had been a two-seater pilot in his early war time carreer).

Hope this gives you an impression to start with.

Walter

[Greybeard]

Thanks Walter.

So an average pilot, servicing, say, during years 1916-18, did about 600 missions.

Only those few pilots that started in 1915 and fought until the very end of war, like Udet, could do more, while, obviously, those which started later, in 1917-18 did less.

Oddly, datum about MvR is missing. While historian detailed each and every aspect of his victories, they proved unable to find how much it flew. Would have been interesting to compare with number of his victories. Never mind.

S!
GB

[Mystère]

Greybeard,

Only André De Meulemeester flew his 561 war missions between October 1916 & November 1918. The other mentioned pilots started their war missions as early as August 1914 until the Armistice.
I think De Meulemeester was an agressive pilot and so was his wingman Georges Kervyn de Lettenhove who flew 417 war missions between 23 May 1917 & November 1918.

I don't know anything about the average war missions of pilots from other air services.

greetz,
Walter

[Barry Hickson]

G'day Greybeard!
You may be interested in some information about a RE8 pilot from the Australian Flying Corps.
Capt Reg C Francis logged up a record 542 Hours & 25 minutes flying a RE8 with 3 sqd AFC but unfortunately I do not know how many missions this entailed.
I guess you could divide the hours by say 3 hours to get an approximation. I believe these hours were only flown in 1918 when 3 Sqd was on the Western Front.
I had the details of the hours given to me by Andrew Smith of the Australian WW1 Aero Historical Society & Andrew is a Forum Member so if he sees this post he may be kind enough to confirm my info re dates & have some more details.

[Greybeard]

Originally Posted by Mystère

I don't know anything about the average war missions of pilots from other air services.

Thank you a lot, Walter, you did already much with info you provided.

Cheers,
GB

[Greybeard]

Originally Posted by Barry Hickson

Capt Reg C Francis logged up a record 542 Hours & 25 minutes flying a RE8 with 3 sqd AFC but unfortunately I do not know how many missions this entailed.
I guess you could divide the hours by say 3 hours to get an approximation.

... So about 150 mission. Indeed, flyers of the bigger planes must have flown longer in less missions than their scout counterpart. For obvious reasons.

Actually, I asked for these latter, aiming at missions number instead of hours flown.

S!
GB

[Mystère]

Speaking in terms of hours, Greybeard, I can give you an idea of the Av.M. in 1917. This information appears in my new book the Belgian Air Service in the First World War published with Aeronaut Books.

Adjt De Meulemeester 296,55 hours (most active (scout)pilot in 1917);
Adjt Georges Lallemand, 107,27 hours (most active two-seater pilot in 1917);
Lt Henri Cornelius, 118,42 hours (most active observer in 1917)

Hope this can be a start to compare with other air services.

cheers,
Walter

[stevedrew]

Wrong war, I know, but the highest scoring fighter pilot of all time, Major Erich Hartmann, flew more than 1700 missions, and encountered the enemy on more than 1100 of these sorties (from memory only - I hope my figures are correct or at least close).

He finished the war with a staggering 352 confirmed aerial victories.

I believe that the absolutely freakish Hans Ulrich Rudel (a Stuka piliot and the most highly decorated combat soldier of the German forces in WW2) flew over 3500 sorties. Of course, he flew many sorties a day, taking off, flying to the front, dropping his bombs, return, re-arm and re-fuel, and back into the thick of it.

These figures are for comparison purposes only.

[Raineranton]

Hello Greybeard,

Oskar Seitz, who was a member of Jasta 30 from mid April 1917 till end of July 1917, flew in this time 79 missions which takes about 78 hours.
But he had a collision with another member of the Staffel on 21 April 1917 and had thereafter a heavy shock, so I think normally he could had be flown more missions if this didn't happen.

Regards

Rainer