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Aviation History
1943
1943 - 2411.PDF
OCTOBER 7*H, 1943 FLIGHT the Some Infprp&ions of the "Navy's Instrument-flying School By A NAVAL PILOT I HAVE just returned from a visit to the instrument-flying scfiool which the Navy have established at aShropshire airfield. To any pilot who has not had previous experience of "beam" landings the blind approach will always seem like a miracle, particularly when it is made over trees which are yet to be cut down, and is extended to the actual blind landing on a bumpy surface. For the purpose of demonstration the instructor even offered to taxi me back to the hangars before raising his "hood." The possibilities foe making safe beam landings were opened out to me in np uncertain way. After the instructor had shown me what could be done he handed over the controls of his Airspeed Oxford and suggested that I should try it myself. As a " stooge'' pilot with a few hours' experience- in a Link Trainer, and practically no experience of instrument-flying in cloud, the prospect was frankly terrifying, and I prepared to make a fool of myself, happy only in the knowledge that I had someone beside me who would come to the rescue before I spun in. Link Trainer Experience "* I knew the layout of the beam fsom Link Trainer ex- perience, and found, to my astonimment that it actually worked in the air. The first attempt admittedly left me 350ft. up over the airfield, foredoomed to overshoot, but by taking a little more care and rigidly obeying the instru- ments, I placed the aircraft within 10ft. of the ground and within a hundred yards of the boundary at the second attempt. Furthermore, it was no fluke. This would have had little significance if I had been an experienced airline pilot. But as I am no more than a peacetime club flier who has turned his hand to "stooge" flying for the duration, it^very strongly sug- gested that the beam technique yfis within easy reach of the amateur of the future. This is borne out by the fact that young Fleet Air Arm pilots with less than 300 hours' experience can pass out on the beam in eight days. The second interesting thing which this school revealed was the low standard of instrument flying which is often displayed by pilots whose flying hours run into four figures, but who have not previously had a special course in the use of their instruments. I shall be saying nothing new when I mention that the ordinary pilot, on finding him- self in cloved is like a cat on hot bricks. His eyes jump from one instrument to the other . . . from the ASI to the turn-and-bank, and thence to the artificial horizon, the altimeter, and the direction indicator. When asked how he does his blind flying, he says by checking one instru- ment with the other, and keeping a general eye on all of them. And if his eyes are popping out of his head with fatigue, at the end of ap| hour . . . well, that is the inevitable misfortune of |flind flying. Unnecessary Agonies It took me, perhaps, thirty minutes to realisa that ail the brief agonies I had endured when forced t</fly blind had been unnecessary—that as soon as the relative posi- tion of the artificial'horizon and, of all things, the boost gauge had been mastered, the rest was easy! There was, of course, more to it than that. But very little! The application of accurate instrument-flying to che Navy needs no stressing. Operations are carried out in all weathers, and often by night. Any pilot who is taking off in poor conditions of visibility, with ten-tenths cloud and no moon, knows the anxiety of the first few seconds of flight before he havestablished the trim of his aircraft and settled down «m his instruments. It is at such moments that accidents are most likely to occur, and it these can be reduced by a scientific training which makes take-offs executed entirely under the hood seem as easy ;s take-offs in broad daylight, then the value of such a school as this is obvious. There may be no need for beam equip- ment to be fitted in every aircraft which flies (on this point I am neither qualified nor encouraged to argue). But there is need for the highest accuracy in instrument- flying, and it is good to know that the means to its attainments being made available to young Naval pilots within^Afie green oceans of Shropshire under the name of H.M.S. Godwit. A.T.C. NATIONAL -RECRUITING CAMPAIGN IN nearly 2,000 cities, towns and villages throughout GreatBritain a great national recruiting campaign for the A.T.C. has begun. The aim is to obtain enough young men of "air crew quality " to maintain the strength of the Corps at its 1943 level of around 180,000 cadets. " Crews for 1,000 bombers," is how Mr. Wakefield, Director of the A.T.C., put it. " It is quality we want, not quantity. There is no room in the modern A.T.C. for the half-hearted youngster or slacker. The R.A.F. looks increasingly to the A.T.C. to help maintain its flow of air crew candidates. And the young men we are looking for must be potentially up to the high standard expected of candidates for the R.A.F. and Fleet Air Arm for flying duties." The need for air crew recruits to the A.T.C. is urgent because every week hundreds of cadets in an ever-increasing Etream are now entering the R.A.F. and Fleet Air Arm as air crews. The Air Training Corps is a voluntary part-time pre-service training organisation for young Britons, from the age of fifteen until they join one of the three services for air duties at the age of eighteen or nineteen. Its duty is to ensure that however long the war may last, there will not lack an adequate flow of young men of the quality required to start their air crew train- ing with the Royal Air Force and Fleet Air Arm. For several reasons the total strength of the Corps has been falling during the past two years. Increased exits to the fight- ing Services, long hours of work in industry, especially on war work, the black-out and travel difficulties, are some of the causes which have been preventing young men from joining the A.T.C. in the numbers required. It may also be that there is a growing sentiment as victory approaches that the national effort can be allowed to slacken—a view which the Prime Minister and other Allied leaders have recently said something to correct. This recruiting campaign aims not SO much at increasing the total strength of the Corps as to maintain it at a level at which it can continue to fulfil its obligations. To quote Sir Archibald Sinclair: "Now is the time for us to redouble our efforts and to ensure that the Royal Air Force will be constantly strengthened by a flow of air crews and mechanics with the same careful training which won the victory for Fighter Command in the Battle of Britain and which is even now winning the victory for Bomber Command in the Battle of Germany." The provision of suitable young men as candidates for air crew duty has been, and still remains, the primary task of the Air Training Corps. Created in war and for the purposes of war, the Air Training Corps has unlocked to the young men of Britain the door of service with the Royal Air Force. Behind that purpose steadfastly pursued ever since was the absolute conviction that this war was going to be won by the side which achieved and maintained complete air domination. A.T.C. training will also be invaluable to young men in civil aviation after the war, not only as pilots and air crew, but in the trades involved in aircraft maintenance. Many interesting facts about the A.T.C. are contained in an attractively illustrated booklet issued by the Air Ministry.
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