Whats the meaning of “Spare” in regard to the listing of planes for a mission, for example on formation charts?
In the various historical data, for example formation charts, crews and aircraft are sometimes listed as spares. There can be several situations why a spare situation might occur. For example, some crews and aircraft might go aloft with their squadron for the day and circle with them at the assembly point to see if other aircraft might have mechanical difficulty in which case they would be inserted in the combat mission. Otherwise they would return to the base. In other case, the spare might be a backup aircraft that was ready to fly and could be used by crews scheduled for the mission, when they discovered problems (mechanical, radio, etc.) with the plane they had been assigned. Sometimes some of these spare aircraft were identified as “lead” which meant they had the radar navigational systems installed rather than a ball turret.
