rank to be a Luftwaffe pilot?

[all1knew]

Hello all,

May be a novice question but a serious one, was there a rank prerequisite to be a pilot within the Luftwaffe, or could anyone "qualify" for the position, i.e. could NCO's pilot military aircraft or was this reserved strictly for an Officer?

William Kramer

[Skyhawk]

Hi William,

There were a large number of NCO pilots in the Luftwaffe especially later in the war. I do not know of a minimum rank to be a LW pilot. However, I am not aware of less than NCO ranks being official LW pilots on front line units/aircraft.

[kaiserwilhelm2]

I have not seen a pilot below the rank of Uffz. Most were probably Feldwebels.

[all1knew]

I appreciate the help. Guess I should have just looked at some period photos!

[all1knew]

2

[Schütze Asch]

There were a lot pilots with the rank Gefr., OGefr. and also Flieger, fresh from the flightschool but the most were promoted soon.

[Jos L C]

Agree ..



Jos.

[Skyhawk]

Hi All,

As a huge JG54 fan, probably could guess by the Grunherz, I must mention one of the most famous NCO pilots Otto Kittel. He was a Unteroffizer (lowest NCO rank) when he joined JG54 in early 1941. He scored 127 victories as an NCO pilot through the end of 1943. He did receive his RK in October 1943 as an Oberfeldwebel with 123 victories. In early 1944, Otto was promoted into the Officer ranks as a Leutnant and was killed in February 1945 as an Oberleutnant with 267 victories. He would be the "fourth man" behind Hartmann, Barkhorn, and Rall. I believe Otto would have been more widely known had he survived the war as did the three pilots with more victories than he.

I agree that an enlisted pilot candidate would be promoted through the enlisted ranks during basic training and flight school. After flight school the newly winged pilot would go to a replacement squadron (OTU) for specialized training prior to being sent to a front line unit. Most seemed to have been promoted to at least Unteroffizer of higher during this period of training. This being the case, normally a front line unit would not have pilots with less than an NCO rank.

[Scott C.]

I have a 1936-dated pilot certificate to a Gefreiten.

[Hofstetter]

Two of my fighter pilot soldbuch's are of the rank obergefreiter.

[Skyhawk]

Interesting regarding the fighter pilot obergefreiter soldbuch's. Could you provide any additional information such as unit and time period of the war?

[Hofstetter]

Interesting regarding the fighter pilot obergefreiter soldbuch's. Could you provide any additional information such as unit and time period of the war?

Sure, this one I already have the other is on the way. Both late war pilots
you can see by the attached pics Siegfried was still an obergefreiter (or gefreiter a bit hard for me to read) when he joined JG27.
I think you will find that any pilot ranked under unteroffizier is a late war pilot.

Siegfried was badly WIA flying the latest state of the art Bf109 K4 2000HP Daimler Benz fuel injected inverted V12 with Sondernotleistung

[Hofstetter]

Sure, this one I already have the other is on the way. Both late war pilots
you can see by the attached pics Siegfried was still an obergefreiter (or gefreiter a bit hard for me to read) when he joined JG27.
I think you will find that any pilot ranked under unteroffizier is a late war pilot.

Siegfried was badly WIA flying the latest state of the art Bf109 K4 2000HP Daimler Benz fuel injected inverted V12 with Sondernotleistung

Actually I'm not sure about those performance statistics of his K model I quoted, I got a bit carried away after some beers

[Willi Z.]

Upon leaving Luftwaffe basic training my father was a Funker. After flight school he was an Unteroffizer. Then came officer school and he was a Feldwebel. So, he was in training from July '42 to March '43 for all three schools. Leutnant two years after graduation from officer school in March of '45.

[Skyhawk]

Many thanks for showing that particular LW pilot Soldbuch! You are pretty much correct regarding the K model Bf109. It had up to 2,000 PS (metric horsepower) or roughly 1,972HP. My guess was late war as shown for the pilot. Amazing the relatively inexperienced (and lower rank) pilots who found there way into the cockpits of some very "hot" aircraft such as the Bf109K late in the war. However, I guess by late 1944 and the first 5 months of 1945 it was pretty much becoming any warm body that could fly, at least until very late when the fuel supplies were exhausted, especially C3.

Cheers!