Aviation training

“ It is specialized without being too technical. Its exposition and narrative of French army aviation training give us fully, simply, and interestingly information on a little-understood phase of the war.”—N Y Times
611“In terms easily understood by a layman he conveys much interesting information on the art and science of aviation in war. His pictures, especially those from photographs taken at various heights, form a welcome accompaniment to the reading matter.” ”

“ Any one can learn to fly an airplane in one or two months of proper training. A mechanic may work for years to learn his profession.
It was estimated that it took ten mechanics of various kinds on the ground to keep one airplane pilot flying in the air, and the experience of the United States has shown that there must be a large force of trained men to keep up flying. The present leaders of the automobile world and the aeronautical world are men who got their first interest in mechanics in some little shop. ”

“ With six weeks’ of wireless at the Cadet Wing, the pupil proceeded to the School of Aeronautics for further instruction, and heard lectures on picture target work and artillery coöperation from experienced observers. Requirements now demanded eight words per minute. After examination, his next step was to the elementary training wing at either Deseronto or Borden, where he not only carried on ground work, but also put into actual practice in the air the instruction already received. ”

“ He now launches on his advanced course of training. This will require at least three months of hard [242] work, and during that time he must learn to fly a number of different types of machines which are used in military aviation. In the meantime he may perhaps go up for examination to acquire the much-coveted “wings.” But do not imagine that they mark the end of his education. With the aviator it is very much as with the schoolboy: when he finishes one grade or stage of his progress he passes on to a still more difficult. ”

“ All recruits training as pilots, whether for the Naval Wing or the Military Wing, were to graduate at the Central Flying School, and thence were to be detailed to join either the Naval Flying School at Eastchurch, for a special course of naval aviation, or one of the military aeroplane squadrons, for a special course of military aviation. ”

“ My experience in the French Aviation Service early taught me what a difficult and scientific task it is to pilot an aeroplane. By piloting I mean flying understandingly, skilfully; not merely riding in a machine after a few weeks' training in the hope that a safe landing may be made. In America many aviators holding pilot's licenses are in reality only conductors. ”

“ In the early days of the R.F.C., Canada, the job was not as exacting as in the later months of the R.A.F., Canada. The instructor was then a man who could fly. To-day he is still a man who can fly, but has, to boot, a peculiar and well developed art of infusing his own skill and courage into the pupil by following a certain recognized procedure which has been demonstrated to be the last word in training. There is nothing in this derogatory to the early instructors. ”

“ Another facet of this part of the investigation was a review of the Boeing 727 flight crew training programs as conducted by the major air carriers utilizing this type aircraft. Because the several major 727 accidents which were reviewed occurred during the descent or landing position of the flight the examination of the various training programs was concentrated on the descent, approach, landing, and landing abort flight regimes. ”

“ The pupil is a pilot, the air has no terrors, and he has learned the oldest truth of flying, that there is nothing to a spin unless you don't come out.
The natural result of training a pupil along those lines is that he graduates rapidly into a good stunting pilot. He realizes that he cannot tempt the devil at three hundred feet and hope to live, but he takes a good altitude, throws his machine upside down, and knows that, given enough air, he must come out. He does come out unless he loses complete control of his mind and body. ”

“ While we were there about three hundred young men were in training, and at last accounts, there were over five hundred pupils practicing in aviation, using at least two hundred modern machines. We remained there a month. As a rule it takes about forty-eight days to turn out a military aviator, qualified and fitted to obtain the civil and military licenses required. ”

“ If he has nerve enough to drive an automobile through the streets of a large city, and perhaps argue with a policeman on the question of speed limits, he can take himself off the ground in an airplane, and also land—a thing vastly more difficult and dangerous. We hear a great deal about special tests for the flier—vacuum-chambers, spinning-chairs, co-ordination tests—there need be none of these. The average man in the street, the clerk, the laborer, the mechanic, the salesman, with proper training and interest can be made good, if not highly proficient pilots. ”

“ Many a pilot who got his first flying training in a Jenny or a Curtiss flying boat is now an airline executive or a world-famous flying general or admiral. It was the steadfast efforts of such veteran airmen as Mitchell, Arnold, Spaatz, Eaker, Rickenbacker, Harold L. George, Artemus Gates, Bob Lovett, Louis Brereton, Jimmy Doolittle, Frank Lahm, Gill Robb Wilson, Jack Jouett, John H. Towers, and others, who have built American air supremacy. ”

“ At their new quarters training in flight and reconnaissance was strenuously carried on, and the squadron flew on an average about a thousand miles a week. Many non-commissioned officers and warrant officers were instructed in aviation. Some thirty miles south of Montrose, across the Firth of Tay, there is a three miles stretch of level sand at St. Andrews, and this was used for instruction in aviation—not without trouble and difficulty from the irresponsible and wandering habits of spectators. The more skilled of the pilots gained much experience in long-distance flying. ”

“ The flying men fall naturally into two classes—pilots and observers. The latter, of course, act as aerial gunners. The pilots have to pass through three, and observers two, successive courses of training in aviation. Instruction is very detailed and thorough as befits a career which, in addition to embracing the endless problems of flight, demands knowledge of wireless telegraphy, photography, and machine gunnery.
Many of the officers are drafted into the Royal Flying Corps from other branches of the Service, but there are also large numbers of civilians who take up the career. ”

“ Great advances will be made in the art of aviation along the lines of training men in the art of handling an aeroplane. No opportunity is so good for this purpose as handling the machine as a glider with the motor shut off, or by practise with a regular gliding machine. Boys will naturally take to gliding, and as a glider was the first form of flying-machine and the easiest to build mechanically, there is every reason why sailing or soaring flights should be thoroughly mastered. ”

“ If you have to make your way while you learn, you might well consider the chance that is offered young men interested in aviation by the United States Army Air Corps.
The soldiers of the Army Air Corps are offered intensive courses which not only qualify them for specialists’ ratings and higher non-commissioned officer grades, but also give them a training that should enable them to make their way in commercial aviation after their enlistment is expired. There is also the opportunity for soldiers to gain appointment as Flying Cadets. ”

“ All of this naturally produced a higher standard of skill in the European armies than was ever before realized, and the training of new aviators, especially in the light of war experience, was carried on in large part by convalescent members of the aviation corps who had seen actual service in the field, so that the quota of recruits was not only maintained but supplied, trained to a high degree of efficiency. ”

“ Having already organised an aviation regiment, French army officers are now agitating the question upon the basis of having no less than a thousand aeroplanes ready at a moment's notice under the command of superior officers and under perfect control of army pilots trained to handle them. This training of officers is the most important part, for it takes time to make good fliers. ”

“ Hundreds of men are already training for big-pay Aviation jobs through Lt. Hinton's practical home-study course. This thorough training is just the foundation you need to enter Aviation in any of its many branches, for the course covers Terms and Definitions, Principles of Flight, Rigging, Repairing, Construction, Instruments, Aerology, Engines, Ignition, Carburetion, Airports ”

“ The process of training a man to be a pilot aviator naturally varies in accordance with the type of machine on which he takes his first instruction, and so the methods of the various schools depend on the apparatus upon which they teach an élève pilote--as an embryonic aviator is called--to fly.
In the case of the larger biplanes, a student goes up in a dual-control airplane, accompanied by an old pilot, who, after first taking him on many short trips, then allows him part, and later full, control, and who immediately corrects any false moves made by him. ”

“ Naval and military airmen predominate at the schools; but there are many civilians, also, who come to learn to fly. Some of them, after they are skilled, become professional pilots, being employed by an aeroplane company to demonstrate its machines: others, having money to invest, will buy one or two craft and start a flying school of their own; others again, after purchasing a machine, will take it abroad with them and give exhibition flights, visiting places if possible where aviation has not been seen before. ”

“ Machines are brought out and tested; pilots arrive from other flying grounds; there is a hum of activity in the workshops; and in regular batches, with this instructor and that, are pupils taught to handle a craft in flight. It is, to those who have only a vague knowledge of aviation, a surprise indeed to spend a day at an aerodrome. They imagine that the industry is no more than haphazard; that a few machines are built—mostly in small workshops, and that there is neither method nor organisation in their making. ”

“ Training Student Aviators.—The training machine on which prospective aviators secure their flying instruction may be considered as a type in which great speed and power is not essential, but in which reliability and ease of control is desirable. The typical military training airplane in this country is a single-motor tractor of moderate horsepower (about 100) having of course the seats in tandem and furnished with dual control so that operation may be from either pilot’s or passenger’s seat. ”

“ There is going to be a strong demand for the best flying instruction that can be given. It should be noted that only the most perfect system of flying instruction should be used, for the best is safest, and the safest, no matter how expensive, is comparatively cheap.
There is no reason why there should be an extended period of ground instruction for the non-military pilot of the future. He should be taught the elementary principles of the theory of flight, should know something about the engine with which he is going to fly, and understand some things about the rigging of his airplane. ”

“ The art of cross-country flying is still a closed book to him; and to this, as a rule, he next turns his attention, first making short trips near the aerodrome, and then increasing gradually the length and boldness of his flights. Then he must learn to combat a wind, and to steer by his maps and compass; he must, in fact, teach himself to be an all-round man. And none of these stages must be gone through hurriedly. In aviation, more than in any other art in the world, the whole of a man’s knowledge must be dependable and sound. ”

“ If only instructors could be obtained, pilots could be turned out more rapidly than machines. Moreover, pilots, unlike machines, could not be obtained from foreign nations. In the event a small but steady stream of qualified pilots came from the Central Flying School and the supplementary training stations for the reinforcement of the original squadrons. ”

“ There the real, serious and thorough training begins.
Schools where the pilots are trained on the modern machines--écoles de perfectionnement as they are called--are usually an annex to the centres where the soldiers are taught to fly, though there are one or two camps that are devoted exclusively to giving advanced instruction to aviators who are to fly the avions de chasse, or fighting machines. When the aviator enters one of these schools he is a breveted pilot, and he is allowed a little more freedom than he enjoyed during the time he was learning to fly. ”

“ Final instructions flight: Review; instruction as necessary."
"Looks pretty complicated to me," sighed Dorothy, handing back the paper. "Gee, but there's a lot to learn!"
"More than the average novice has any idea of. But don't imagine that this course will make you or anyone else an experienced pilot. Additional time must be spent in the air before you can get an interstate commercial pilot's license. But after the instruction I've outlined here, your knowledge of flying should be sufficient to enable you to go on with your training yourself." ”