AIR: Pilots for Britain

The first R.A.F. men to be trained in the U.S.—150 young Britons—were last week graduated as pilots by four British air schools in the U.S. Thus begins a new stage of the war in which the U.S. makes pilots as well as planes for Britain. On 20 fields,* from Florida to California, over 2,000 other fledgling British airmen are busy learning to fly. Their training is part of a War and Navy Department program that is expected to produce 8,000 new pilots for Britain each year.

Two different methods of teaching British pilots in the U.S. are now in practice: 1) the U.S. Army Air Corps’, which takes 32 weeks; 2) a tighter system devised by the R.A.F., under which U.S. instructors supervised by the British at British air schools in the U.S. whip R.A.F. candidates through in 20 weeks. The R.A.F. plan is now in effect in six British flying schools, located in Oklahoma (2), Florida, Texas, California and Arizona, and last week’s graduates all emerged from them. The stiffer course of the Army Air Corps will begin producing graduate pilots for Britain by next January.

When the Air Corps started training R.A.F. men last June, 2,361 Britishers enrolled. Of that number 1,759 have stuck it out, but future washouts (average: 40-50% of a class) will probably reduce the ranks to around 1,400 qualified airmen. The British-supervised schools, which lose only 20% of the students, now include over 350 pupils, will be expanded to accommodate 1,200.

Many of the young British hopefuls are none too happy about the Air Corps methods. Typical gripe: “Men are eliminated in quick succession and at the present rate only half the men will have won their spurs when this Overseas Training scheme comes to an end. . . . Time is being wasted, for there’s no doubt that the majority of the eliminated cadets will take the whole course again either in Canada or at a training school under R.A.F. supervision.”

Despite their understandable urge to make haste, British tyros usually need plenty of grooming. They are not too well acquainted with machines, three-fourths of them have never learned to drive a car, and their judgment of speed is limited or nonexistent. Baffled by U.S. slang, most of them need informal instruction before they get the hang of it. Not long ago, a U.S. instructor in a plane with a 21-year-old British youngster advised him to “give her the gun.” Said the youth: “But, sir, I have no gun. In England we are not allowed to carry them.” Despite this unfamiliarity with the American language, some of the boys at Southern camps wind up with thick Southern accents, go hog-wild over orange juice, ice cream, corn pone.

Supplementing the War Department’s program is another devised by the U.S. Navy for training British Navy pilots.

Each month 100 Britons enter Jacksonville, Pensacola and Corpus Christi. Like Army airmen, Navy instructors find that the first stages of their courses often prove baffling. But after catching the hang of language, speed and precision, the British students average out about the same as American boys, with a few crack pilots, plenty above average, none that are dopes; the washout system takes care of that.

* Including three refresher schools for U.S. civilian airmen who want to join the Eagle Squadron or British Ferry Command.