A few days of classroom instruction, 40-100 flight hours of practical training (Less in the Axis, due to oil shortages, less in the USSR at the start of the war, due to the all-hands-on-deck state of emergency), and then it's off to war with you.
Axis pilots would fly until they were killed, seriously injured, or captured. Anglosphere bomber pilots would fly ~30 combat missions, and if they survived, would be rotated out to work as instructors.
The average combat survival rate for bomber pilots was ~10 missions, but due to the infrequency of flights, most Anglo bomber crews survived the war, without ever hitting their rotation limit. Meanwhile, in the Pacific theater, the more missions bomber crews flew, the bigger the rotation limits grew (Because survival rates improved, the generals in charge figured that it would be reasonable to ask crews to fly more missions.) The air crews were, understandably, not very pleased about this.
Fighter pilots had much higher quotas, before they could rotate out.
Just in case you or other readers don't already know. The phrase Catch-22 is from the book "Catch-22". The plot of "Catch-22" is about a bomber pilot who is caught in that situation, "generals in charge ... ask crews to fly more missions".
"Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to."
A few days of classroom instruction, 40-100 flight hours of practical training (Less in the Axis, due to oil shortages, less in the USSR at the start of the war, due to the all-hands-on-deck state of emergency), and then it's off to war with you.
Axis pilots would fly until they were killed, seriously injured, or captured. Anglosphere bomber pilots would fly ~30 combat missions, and if they survived, would be rotated out to work as instructors.
The average combat survival rate for bomber pilots was ~10 missions, but due to the infrequency of flights, most Anglo bomber crews survived the war, without ever hitting their rotation limit. Meanwhile, in the Pacific theater, the more missions bomber crews flew, the bigger the rotation limits grew (Because survival rates improved, the generals in charge figured that it would be reasonable to ask crews to fly more missions.) The air crews were, understandably, not very pleased about this.
Fighter pilots had much higher quotas, before they could rotate out.