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Aviation History
1931
1931 - 1146.PDF
PLIGHT, OCTOBER 23, 1931 AIR SERVICE TRAINING II? TRAINING THE R.A.F. RESERVE •* f||—'HE Reserve of Air Force Officers fills some 15\3 III pages of the monthly Air Force List, of which III over eight pages are occupied with the names offlying officers. There are some 90 odd names ou a page. It is a section of the, Air Force List which isnot very often consulted. In time of peace there is no body of men which, generally speaking, attracts less atten-tion than a reserve of officers for any of the fighting ser- vices. In the days when shepherdesses proverbially spendtheir time in piping, the reserve officer is neither fish, fowl, nor good red herring. He is not a complete civilian,yet he cannot swagger about in uniform and impress the shepherdesses with his gallantry. He has not even thesatisfaction which pertains to the officer of auxiliary forces of belonging to a definite unit, and of turning out onoccasions to show the world that he can drill or ride or fly in good style. Certainly the regulations do providethat reserve officers may be required to wear uniform when attending for training, but there is no definite obligation.The only case we can remember of seeing a reserve officer in uniform was at one display at Hendon, when F/O. F.Courtney was called up to ily the first Autogiro. When war is in the gates, the reserve of any fightingservice becomes a matter of first-class importance. To no service is it more vital than to the Royal Air Force, whichis likely to be the first service engaged. Lord Trenchard once prophesied that in the opening weeks of a great warthe casualties among pilots would be very high, and rapid replacements are a matter of the iirst consequence. It waspartly this consideration which induced him to institute the system of Short Service commissions, as officers whoreceive such commissions have to go on to the reserve after completing their five years of service with the squadrons.Other sources from which reserve officers are drawn are ex-ofiicers who served in the war, pilots in civil life, andgentlemen selected for the grant of a reserve commission. Officers of the last-named class are taught to fly at theexpense of the public. The obligations of a reserve officer who is in the pilotclass are to fly solo not less than 12 hours a year, together with appropriate tests. When possible, this will be carriedout: in four quarterly periods, but this may be varied according to circumstances. The training period is not supposed to exceed 20 days in any one year. As reserveofficers on mobilisation take their place in the units of the regular R.A.F., it is only reasonable that they may becalled upon to carry out their annual flying and training with a regular unit. Usually, however, this annual train-ing is carried out at an approved civilian flying school. Though the Reserve of Air Force Officers, like otherreserves in Great Britain, habitually hides its light under a bushel, the provisions made for ensuring that the officerscan fly well are good. The training, and re-training, of these officers is one ot the things which Great Britaindoes really well. There are four approved schools for reserve training in the country, namely, that managed bythe de Havilland Aircraft Co., Ltd., "that of the Bristol Aeroplane Co., Ltd., that of the Blackburn Aeroplane &Motor Co., Ltd., at Brough, and Air Service Training. Ltd., at Hamfole. The last-named has taken the placeof the original Armstrong-Whitworth school near Coventry. The whole organisation of the reserve is under a Super-intendent, who has his headquarters at Hendon. The present Superintendent is Wing Com. J. Y. Guilfoyle.O.B.E., M.C., and his staff consists of Sqdn. Ldr. J. M. Robb, D.S.O., D.F.C., and F/O. C. R. J. Hawkins.These are all highly-qualified officers, and Sqdn. Ldr. Robb has been Chief Plying Instructor at the Central FlyingSchool at Wittering. There is no greater expert in the country on methods of giving flying instruction than he.All the instructors at the four schools have to be approved by the Air Ministry before appointment, and the superin-tendent and his staff keep in close touch with them. Most, if not all, of these instructors have been through an in-structor's course at the C.F.S., and so every care is taken to provide that C.F.S. methods, than which there are nonebetter in the world, are practised at the reserve training schools. The question has been raised—in fact, we havealluded to it ourselves—whether the best arrangement would not be for the C.F.S. instructors to visit the reservetraining schools as they visit the flying training schools of the R.A.F., as well as"Cranvvell and the University Squad-rons. It has to be remembered, however, that it is neces- sary for the four reserve schools to undertake the trainingof civilian pilots as well as of reserve officers, and that the latter element has somewhat different requirements from FLYING INSTRUCTORS AT HAMBLE: L. to R. : Fl.-Lt. R. P. P. Pope, F./O. M. C. Dudding, Grp. Capt. R. J.'F. Barton (Commandant), Fl.-Lt. H. F. Jenkins, F./O. R. C. Berlyn. (FLIGHT Photo.) 1076
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