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Aviation History
1917
1917 - 0108.PDF
entirely on the weather and the number of aeroplanesavailable. During the winter it works out to about four months, but in the summer it is considerably shorter. " The way in which war has forced a higher standard onus is remarkable. There is only one point which has simpli- fied training during the past two and a half years. Themodern designed aeroplane and the latest engine makes flying pure and simple much easier than it used to be. Aero-planes are usually comparatively stable, and engines have a considerable res'erve of power, and are far more reliablethan in the old days, and these two factors have helped a good deal in the training of pilots,. " To sum up, before the war flying was comparativelydifficult and was the chief factor in the pilot's training, military qualifications being considered of quite secondaryimportance. Now, flying up to a certain standard is extra- ordinarily easy, but the standard of military qualificationsrequired is getting higher and higher and more difficult to attain, and at the same time the quality of flying demandedis growing greater every day. So our task at home grows harder. • « " There is no such thing as a perfect aerodrome, and evena possible one. is very difficult to find in England without either interfering with somebody else's,rights or involvingan enormous amount of labour and consequent waste of time. Climatic conditions and a. sound soil are the two mostimportant factors when selecting ah aerodrome. In England, however, climatic conditions are so varied and unreliablethat fine can hardly say what part of England is best. So in this country a sound soil is probably the most importantfactor. After that, if the aerodrome is not a very big one, open ground in its immediate neighbourhood is of greatimportance. A debatable point is always how many pupils or how many aeroplanes can be effectively and safely trainedand used at one aerodrome. We have generally assumed that the ideal number was about 60 pupils, and that for60 pupils, including machines under repair and in reserve, we wanted about 60 aeroplanes, but of late bigger stationsliave been organised, although I have no statistics to prove which is the better and most economicaJ system. Only acertain amount of room in the air and every one ought to be out in fine weather. An aerodrome, if possible, should belarge enough to provide straights of about one mile in length in several directions. The use of these straights acceleratesthe first stages of preliminary training very greatly, but they are not absolutely necessary, and in a good many of our aero-dromes at home no straight exists. " The question of instructors has been a very difficult onefrom the start of the war. I suppose only about 10 per cent, of our flying officers are really good instructors. I have oftenhad qualms on the subject, but the results have really been better than I expected originally. Instructors have many andvarious methods, and although it has been suggested that definite orders should be issued as to how pupils should betaught to fly, I have never been able to bring myself to issue such an order for fear of hampering initiative. The qualitiesrequired in an instructor are almost precisely the same as the qualities required in a man whose business it is to break inyoung horses—infinite patience, great sympathy, good hands, and a clear, steady head. The next point which affects requirements of training isthe provision of aeroplanes and engines. Here again con- troversy is eternally raging as to the best types to employ.Before the war the general idea was that a beginner should be taught on the box kite, and this idea has lasted inasmuchthat to-day nearly all our pupils start their instruction on a Maurice-Farman. Personally I have been opposed to thissystem, but I may be wrong and have given way to the majority, but I think from the instructor's point of view theMaurice-Farman is a very nice safe machine on which to get the pupil through his first experience of dual control in theair, although in the actual movements necessary lor controlling the machine it is different to almost any other machine in theService. The 80-Gnome Avro has, beyond the Maurice- Farman, been our standby in advanced training, and is athoroughly good machine for this purpose, light in handling, comparatively sensitive and not too difficult to fly. Forsome time pupils were successfully started on 80-Avros, but when Maurice-Farmans are available in sufficient quantitiesthe concensus of opinion has been that it was better to stick to that machine for preliminary training. Now, however,we liave a new type, the first of which has just flown, which I hope will eventually eliminate the box kite type of trainingmachine altogether. Another point on which much argument arises is the use of stable machines for training. Whenstable machines first came in all the old conservative pilots shook their heads sadly and said that you could never make FEBRUARY IJ 19171 a good pilot on a stable machine ; that idea has died out,but there are still many instructors who insist that to make a good pilot he must first be trained on an unstable machinebefore being allowed to go on a stable one, to make him careful, but after all landing is the great thing, and stablemachines are just as hard to land as unstable. Personally I am not at all sure that this correct, and I believe that apilot trained on stable machines from the start, after he has had about 30 hours' air experience, will be so confident andhave such a good idea of what a machine ought to do in the air, that he will fly an unstable machine without even realisingits instability, that is to say, of course, if he has been properly taught. So far as engines go, it is only natural, through tin-demands of war, that we have been forced to use our obsolete engines for training purposes. As a matter of fact, theseobsolete engines are just what are not required for training purposes, because, being of an early type, they are moreliable to failure than the modern types, and engine failure is just what one wants to avoid in training. The output of thetrade, however, has precluded the manufacture in numbers of a special training engine. But now that the obsolescentengines are of newer types, this difficulty will tend to dis- appear. "Now to turn to the actual process of training. I willconsider it under two heads, technical training both on the ground and in the air and military training both on the groundand in the air. The first portion of technical training is the care of engines, rigging of aeroplanes, the use of the compass,the use of instruments and other such details. This is carried out at the two schools of military aeronautics ; engines aretaken down and erected and are run, samples of as many types as possible being provided to give the pupil wideexperience. The same applies regarding the rigging and erection of aeroplanes, and pupils are made thoroughly con-versant with the use of all the instruments. Thus a pupil before he actually learns to fly really has some knowledge ofhis engine, his machine, and its instruments. He then goes on to preliminary and advanced training squadrons, andcontinues to learn the enormous amount there is to learn on these heads by practical experience both in the air and inthe squadron shops. " A very debatable point in the actual training in flying iswhether reserve squadrons should train pupils all through— i.e., from the very start up to the time they get their wings—or whether, as is the system at present, they do preliminary training with one reserve squadron and go on to highertraining in another. There are certain arguments for and against both systems, but we have adopted the second.The greatest argument in favour of the first system is that the one instructor tan take a pupil and really get to knowhim and follow him right through his training ; but prac- tically preliminary training ' takes a shorter time thanadvanced training, and the system of military training is simplified by separating preliminary flying training fromthe advanced flying training. One great advantage of placing preliminary training and advanced training inseparate squadrons is that the squadrons can be homogeneous in equipment. So much for the technical training ; it isfairly simple, given a sound instructor and good weather. " I have already explained the many military qualifica-tions demanded from .the modern pilot, and the military training on the ground, like the technical, is carried out atthe schools of military aeronautics, where the pupil gets a good grounding in the use and care of the machine gun,wireless, artillery observation, photography and bomb-drop- ping, and this training he completes from practical experiencewhen he gets on flying instruction. " During his preliminary training in flying instruction hi«military training is still theoretical and on the ground, but in the advanced training squadrons he begins to fly in forma-tions and to drop bombs or their equivalent at a target. He carries out practical artillery observation by means oipowder puffs on the ground which represent the bursting of shells, 'and he is sent out across country to photographvarious points in the neighbourhood, and until he has proved himself efficient in all these operations he cannot be aqualified pilot. Fighting in the air is also practised by various methods : Two machines may be sent up to manoeuvreagainst one another, both trying to attack ; or the pupil is sent up whilst the instructor tries to attack him or vice versa ;or the instructor goes out and attacks a group of his pupils returning from a cross-country flight, and so on. " I think I have made it fairly clear that training in aviationfrom the military point of view is getting more and more complicated, but I hope that I have also made it clear thatactual flying from the practical point of view of getting from one place to another has become very easy and cora- 108
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