It's a great story, and one I'd never heard of before. I went ahead and bought the book the article's author cites at the end; the link provided is to the Amazon UK version, but it's also available on US Kindle (with Kindle Unlimited, too, if anyone's got that) and in print over here. Looks like it's self-published, and it's the kind of historical thing that deserves more exposure.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

Yeah, it's a combination of factors—not only that the airplane itself is harder for the pilot to fly, but also because there is a shedload of stuff about WWII-era multi-piston-engine aircraft that has to have someone managing it full-time. Fuel mixture, fuel pressure, manifold pressure, supercharger pressure if equipped, temperatures of half a dozen different components, propeller pitch setting, lubrication... big aviation piston engines from about the mid-1930s on are insanely complicated, and once you stick four or six of them on an airframe, you're deep into bat country.

Flight engineers haven't been extinct for that long, either—first- and second-generation turboprops and jets had them too, although their workload was much lighter than the ones who had to manage all the intricacies of high-powered piston engines. Pilots didn't have to interact with them directly to get the best performance out of the aircraft in most circumstances, but you still needed another crew member to keep an eye on all the stuff. It's only in the glass-cockpit age that the airlines have finally been able to justify dispensing with their services.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.