Remember, the planesman does nothing for how long you stay underwater.  That is determined by the submarine you are using.  The planesman does only one thing  which is refill your air.  The better the planesman, the faster he will refill your tank.

I will continue to suggest going for a traditional gunship or at the very least, try AAing on a nation such as KM.  It's fairly easy to learn (excellent teaching tool for manual), you aren't in harm's way, Good low level XP and credits/points, and it's probably the best way to gain experts on your sailors which greatly improve their performance.  In case you were going to ask - yes you can put "foreign" sailors on but they will not be able to operate armaments and will add very little repair/eng etc.  They will gain XP at the same rate.  I'm not suggesting IJN AA because the building/classing for those sailors are not suitable in your case.

If you plan to keep that Kuma BO as a torpedo ship BO, strip the recruits to save weight just like SS.  If you aren't firing guns at long range(BO spots and marks your shells), you might as well save the weight and reallocate it to another sailor.

Good luck and feel free to ask more.

Ah, wow.  I had no idea that planeman was how fast air recharged.  I thought it was submerged time.  Thanks for that info.

Put some Vets on my boat?  Is that really the answer?  Then what do stats do? 
It's a level 50 Planesmen with 15 Potential and -it- does nothing.

I don't know how to explain how base work I'll let other correct it but i'll try...


let see, base growth shows you how much it will grow per level but this doesn't mean that you have a good base growth its already the best cause you need too vets and experts in order to increase your sailor's ability...

if you highlight a sailor you can see a number and a bar on each ability, its shows you the ability of your sailor... to increase your ability, you need to put experts and vets...

(i don't know if its this is still the value i just got it from trainworld.us)
rookie contribute 100% ability
experts contribute 150% ability
vets contribute 200% ability

heres a sample (its my nub +11 uk rep :D)


as you can see my sailors ability especially the rep stat...  if you got only rookies at your planesman, the number on your ability and the bar beside in is low and short, the more experts and vets you have will add it up until you reach its cap...

oh and the prem boost it will add 13%(?) to your growth/base

a 100 vets and full experts on your planesman would be fine, unless you want to spend lots of money and overvetting it, not our decision...

hoping mako could explain more :) or correct if my explanation is wrong 

It starts being fun with an SS at T3.   A high lvl boosted Eng (about lvl 80) with plenty of vets and experts will give you great OH duration.    If no enemy SS around...use it.   You'll get in the enemy BB line and give them heck.

A boosted planesman with plenty of vets and experts will do wonders for your air refill time.  Surface, pop smoke and refill......then dive and continue.

Finally, if you use the ship tuning airtank increase...your submerged range will increase.

SS3 is alot of fun if you could penetrate the middle (sucks at SS wars against KM, our turn rate sucks)

2 salvos can kill or heavily damage most BB4-5 ships, can't wait to get to SS4 *drools at 8 torps*