The Royal Canadian Air Force recruits first taste of flying comes in approximately eleven weeks after enlistment. After having gone through Manning Depot and Initial Training School he enters one of 26 Elementary Flying Training Schools in the Dominion The RCAF, it may be observed, wastes no time. If a candidate shows the talent he is pushed along in training rapidly.
The Ekmentary Flying Training School in the No. 1 area near London, Ontario, is roughly comparable in operation to the Civilian Pilot Training programme in the United States. The London school is operated by a local private flying service supported by local capital. With thig notable exception. however, American training at this stage is completely separated from the military even to the types of planes Used. In Canada, however, the Government supplies the training planes—Fleet Finches and Tiger Moths; the instructors. who rank as sergeant pilots on leave without pay—their pay His stage being supplied by the contractor also supervision, testing, discipline. and supplies. ffaining. both dual instruction and "solo" Each Here pilot candidates get 50 hours of flight pilot also gets ten hours in the Link Trainer—Unquestionably one of the best on-the-ground flight training devices in operation. An average course takes about 48 days here so that it may be observed thas each candidate gets well over an hours flying each day. The London school has 32 training planes. of which eight are spares.
At 20 hours. each' fledgling pilot is check-flown by the "C. O." (commanding officer), or his assistant. who is able to designate at this point whether the pilot will be pursuit or bombing plane material. At this stage, too. the RCAF technique is careful to avoid a sense of defeat in a pilot who may have had ambitions in pursuit. i. €. the "glamour" role of flying. Careful handling assures the RCAF of men who will contribute their best to whatever task is selected as their real forte.
Parallel with the elementary flight training. the youth who has been selected as an observer leaves Initial Training School for an Air Observers School. Here he takes a 12-week course consisting of air navigatión. photography. and reconnaissance. At London is a separate. adjoining. observers school. The men here were an older age group than the allots whose aver-one age is between eighteen and nineteen. This School like the Elementary Flying Training School is operated under private contract. though the Government supplies the air field. the aircraft, hangars. barracks and equipment. and maintains full supervision of the schools activities, Elementary Flying Training School graduates now receive their first lesson in military flying when they enter a ten week course at one of the Service Flying Training Schools for advanced instruction. This course corresponds to the initial training given in the United States by entrants to Randolph Field. Texas. the "West Point of the Air."
At Uplands, just outside Ottawa, is one of the SFT, schools in the No. 3 Command. Here the pilots are training in North American single-engined Harvard trainers. built im California. some in Canada, and whose characteristics are fledged pilots. A period of 22 weeks has elapsed since entering Initial Training School. From this point they are "posted" to the eastern seaboard embarkation depot. From there they go overseas to get their operational training in combat aircraft preparatory to active service.
In the Maritimes. therefore. an RCAF pilot has begun to take his role in the Battle of Britain.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.