Honestly, I think that if you look into the history, you'll find:
- Those aircraft that required large control forces were disliked for that reason, no matter the pilot's sex, age, race, religion, or choice of favorite vegetable. It was regarded as a flaw in the design. (The B-17 in particular had a long history of changes to its control surfaces and aerodynamics.)
- No engineer is going to say, "Yeah, we cocked that one up." The response to criticism will be, "We made the best trade off of conflicting requirements that was possible at the time."
- The reason women didn't fly combat missions in WWII was that women don't fly combat missions except in extraordinary circumstances. The Soviet Union being the exception that proves the rule: the "girlies" (as described by one general) seem to have done as well as anyone else, but were pulled out of service following the war.
I don't happen to know specific details about any of the aircraft, particularly those flown by the 588th Night Bomber Regiment[1], but I suspect the 586th Fighter regiment[2] flying Yak-1s, -7s, and -9s would face more physical stresses than bomber crews and dive bombers like the 125th Guards[3] are notorious for their pull-out g-forces. (Bonus, cute quotes:
"While the Pe-2's flying characteristics were generally favorable once it was airborne, it took a good amount of force to pull the elevators up to rotate the plane for takeoff. Russian night bombing missions often flew with female pilots and some of the women were not strong enough to get the airplane airborne by themselves. When such a situation occurred, the procedure was to have the navigator get behind the pilot's seat and wrap her arms around the control wheel and help the pilot pull the wheel back. Once the aircraft was airborne, the navigator returned to her duties and the pilot continued to fly the plane without assistance."
"The 587th's Petlyakov Pe-2 dive bombers also required a tall person to operate the top rear machine gun, but not enough women recruited were tall enough, requiring some men to join the aircrews as radio operator and tail gunner." So there's that.)
- Aircrew's sex was not a parameter in aircraft design at any point; I find a certain entertainment in the image of the response to "Well, the control forces are too high with all but one outboard engine out, so we'll have to limit it to male pilots."
I mean, if you're judging solely by physical attributes, the idiots (I mean, airmen) in the ball turrets should have been women---you could have fit in more ammunition.[5]
- Those aircraft that required large control forces were disliked for that reason, no matter the pilot's sex, age, race, religion, or choice of favorite vegetable. It was regarded as a flaw in the design. (The B-17 in particular had a long history of changes to its control surfaces and aerodynamics.)
- No engineer is going to say, "Yeah, we cocked that one up." The response to criticism will be, "We made the best trade off of conflicting requirements that was possible at the time."
- The reason women didn't fly combat missions in WWII was that women don't fly combat missions except in extraordinary circumstances. The Soviet Union being the exception that proves the rule: the "girlies" (as described by one general) seem to have done as well as anyone else, but were pulled out of service following the war.
I don't happen to know specific details about any of the aircraft, particularly those flown by the 588th Night Bomber Regiment[1], but I suspect the 586th Fighter regiment[2] flying Yak-1s, -7s, and -9s would face more physical stresses than bomber crews and dive bombers like the 125th Guards[3] are notorious for their pull-out g-forces. (Bonus, cute quotes:
"While the Pe-2's flying characteristics were generally favorable once it was airborne, it took a good amount of force to pull the elevators up to rotate the plane for takeoff. Russian night bombing missions often flew with female pilots and some of the women were not strong enough to get the airplane airborne by themselves. When such a situation occurred, the procedure was to have the navigator get behind the pilot's seat and wrap her arms around the control wheel and help the pilot pull the wheel back. Once the aircraft was airborne, the navigator returned to her duties and the pilot continued to fly the plane without assistance."
"The 587th's Petlyakov Pe-2 dive bombers also required a tall person to operate the top rear machine gun, but not enough women recruited were tall enough, requiring some men to join the aircrews as radio operator and tail gunner." So there's that.)
- Aircrew's sex was not a parameter in aircraft design at any point; I find a certain entertainment in the image of the response to "Well, the control forces are too high with all but one outboard engine out, so we'll have to limit it to male pilots."
I mean, if you're judging solely by physical attributes, the idiots (I mean, airmen) in the ball turrets should have been women---you could have fit in more ammunition.[5]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Witches
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/586th_Fighter_Aviation_Regimen...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/125th_Guards_Dive_Bomber_Regim...
[4] https://web.archive.org/web/20120225213451/http://etd.lib.fs... looks like a good read.
[5] https://www.evblog.virginiahumanities.org/2012/09/they-washe...