CronoDAS comments on Bayesians vs. Barbarians - Less Wrong
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I'll need to see that citation, actually; it couldn't possibly have been a 75% fatality rate per mission. (When my father says a number is bogus, he's usually right.) Even Doolittle's raid, in which the planes did not have enough fuel to return from Japan but instead had to land in Japan-occupied China, had a better survival rate than one in four: of the 80 airmen involved, 4 were killed and 8 were captured. (Of the eight who were captured, four died before the war ended.)
Correction- it's for a pilot's entire quota of missions, not just one:
Yeah, if it's for an entire quota of missions, the math doesn't work out - each pilot normally would fly several missions, making the death rate per flight less than 50%, so it wouldn't be a good deal.