Why did RAF keep using its own Pilot's Notes/manuals when better ones available?

[Graham Boak]

I'm fairly widely read about British railways, but this is the first reference I've seen to manuals, so find it difficult to recommend any single volume. Nationalisation introduced several measures that now seem entirely rational, but were either absent altogether or rarely found in the preceding companies. Partly this comes from the British tradition of "learning on the job" -"go watch Joe" being the chief means of instruction. A driver worked up from cleaner through fireman and then driver before eventually (at an advanced age) being thought suitable for the top link jobs. This did not involve or encourage any thorough theoretical understanding of how steam engines work - something that at times seems to have been lacking even in the design teams. There was a parallel tradition of self-help where theoretical education could be pursued via unions and the more enlightened employers, but none-the-less a strong bias was placed on practical experience. The writings of R. Hardy do identify some examples of how this approach failed in practice, and comparisons are made with the more formal training approach given to French drivers, or rather engineers, who were required to undergo a more academic training before advancing to what were considerably more complicated machines than the average British "kettle".

I feel this is buried deeply in British culture, where the better educated were immersed in Classical culture rather than more scientific studies, and looked down on anyone who actually got his hands dirty. Both they and the more practical factory bosses would agree in looking down on reading by the lower classes, considering that such a practice could only breed communism. A simplified approach, agreed, which omits much or the nation would actually have achieved even less than it did in the 20th Century! However it expresses basic truths that you will need to face if you wish to learn why the RAF did not produce better manuals. It will mean digging rather deeper into society and its history.

I do wonder from the tone of your comments whether the low quality of RAF manuals is a preconception you are bringing to the study rather something deriving from it. Does the "cartoon culture" actually improve learning? I'd have thought that debatable, at best. Even if true in a society used to such an approach, would it be true in a society used to a more pedagogical approach to learning, or would it considered derisory and thus self-defeating? It certainly seems to multiply the size and weight of said manuals, something to be counted against in times of austerity and paper-saving.

[Bill Walker]

Originally Posted by RCnoob

Finally, what does it mean that the paragraph "should be amplified in light of the foregoing remarks." Amplified = ?

Amplified means add this information to what is in the basic manual. It would be most interesting to see what was in the spin section of the RAF Training Manual of the day. The additional information appears to me to be in two parts:
- you will loose a lot of altitude in the recovery
- after the initial "per the Manual" recovery the aircraft may still be stalled, leading to a tendency to enter a secondary spin

I suspect that the standard per the book spin recovery of the time emphasized breaking the yaw, whereas today we emphasize break the yaw AND move the stick forward to break the stall. Many low wing loading aircraft of today, or aircraft with limited nose up elevator power, will break the stall (and therefore the spin) themselves if you simply relax the stick back pressure: in fact constant stick back pressure is required to maintain the spin in many aircraft. The Hurricane may have been one of the first RAF aircraft where this was not true.

My interpretation is that the test pilots had not done their job - they had not come up with useful information about how spinning and getting out of a spin in a Hurricane is different, other than to say "you will lose LOTS of altitude."

Maybe it is because I have spent many decades testing aircraft, writing test reports, and writing flight manuals, but I found the statements you quoted (plus what I assume was in the RAF Training Manual of the day) tells me EVERYTHING I need to know to recover from a spin in a Hurricane. If they don't talk further about what is different in a Hurricane (compared to the training manual information) it is very possible that nothing further is different.

My impression is that the RAF's manual writers did have elitist attitude about "cartoons," but it may not have been rational.

I agree that they didn't use cartoons, but it is a big leap to call this elitist. They did what they thought would work, for their audience at the time.