[2023] Pilots should be trained or launch them green in ari missions?

Here's the logic of training air wings.

1) Rookies are terrible at air to air combat. Consider these two wings:

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(Note: Only difference between Spitfire A and B is that one has rocket rails, the other has bomb locks. Both have the same engines and fighter armament which gives them the same air attack in the designer. )

Notice that the rookies have lower air attack than the more experienced pilots. That is going to translate into fewer kills in the skies with no mitigating decrease in losses.

But it goes deeper than stats:



Rookies are garbage at night fighting. Depending on your flying schedule, you could be sending those rookies to their deaths if you have them fly at night.

So, unless you have already mostly defeated the enemy in the skies, I wouldn't send rookies out to fight other fighters.

2) Bombers aren't nearly as punished by rookies as fighters because you probably don't care about the agility and air attack penalty on planes like the B-29 or the Stuka. The night operations penalty is an issue, but as long as your bombers aren't getting ganked at night constantly, you should be fine.

3) Note that really good pilots have nice bonuses, and you are closer to those bonuses if you train your wings.



A 14% boost to air attack is nothing to brush aside if you are facing air opposition. Especially if you have good planes with lots of base air attack.

So, I train fight pilots before putting them into fights. Bombers get some training, but if the enemy has been defeated in the skies, I probably don't need to train bomber wings that much.