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Aviation History
1946
1946 - 0207.PDF
Technical training at Halton is thorough and embraces all types of aircraft and aircraft equipment including the jet engine.(Left) Apprentices examine a 1915 Monosoupape rotary engine. (Right) A class studies the intricacies of "George." In the workshops and lecture rooms all the familiar typesof Service aircraft, engine, or aircraft equipment seem to abound. Capacious workshops—pleasantly warm on acold winter's day—display engines ranging from the Gnome to the jet, and also the fuselages of most modern Serviceaircraft. Working models are there, too, cut away- to show the more intricate mechanisms. Aerodynamics, elec-tronics and other mysteries are explained and demon- strated, and there are wind tunnels for testing model air-frames and aerofoils. —Practical Training On the practical side, the apprentice begins by learningthe more straightforward tasks such as how to splice, or to use a file, or lathe, and, until he is judged proficient atthese tasks, he does not progress to the more difficult exercises. Bit by bit, he learns engineering science—intheory and practice—and then applies it to the modern aircraft; so that, at the end of his draining, the Halton apprentice has not only a sound theoretical background,but is also skilful manually. In fact, it is a little discon- certing to the visitor to see a lad of seventeen assemblingand wiring on an outsize blackboard all the involved electrical equipment of a fighter aircraft. On the results of his final examinations and trade test-ting the aircraft apprentice is graded for his service in tlie R.A.F. Subject to having reached a qualifying educational standard, he passes out L.A.C.. A.CJ* or A.C.*in his trade, thus determining his future rate of pay. Inci- dentally, the apprentice receives pay during his trainingat the rate of 10s. 6d. per week for the first two years, and 14s. per week for the third year. The aircraft apprentice's life is not all work, however.On the contrary, his working hours leave a good deal ot time for recreation and private hobbies, and he has sixweeks' leave each year. For a nominal two shillings a year he becomes a member of the Halton Society, whichis an internal school organisation for providing apprentices with facilities for any hobby in which they areinterested, and always there is a sympathetic specialist at hand to give advice on thesehobbies. There are excellent libraries, both technicaland recreational, a large cinema and a well- equipped billiards room. For sports, which are anessential part of the training, there is a large swimming-bath, a fine gymnasium, a golf courseand tennis courts, also numerous football and cricket pitches on which games are played withmany of the leading public schools. It is hardly surprising that Halton is oltendescribed as the public school of the R.A.F. and that many former aircraft apprentices haveachieved Air Rank, among them Air Commodore Frank Whittle. The way to heart 1 Inrationing, a man's • spite of ithere • seems to be no short- :age of good the aircraft tice food for j appren- i
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