RAF Pilot Training in WW2

[Glider]

Great information. My father was an American licensed pilot who volunteered for the RAF program and went to the RAF flight school in Miami, OK in 1942. He had received a Piper Cub J-3 for his 18th birthday in 1940 in Detroit and earned his private pilots license after that and he sold his airplane to support his family after his father died and he volunteered for this program.

It's my understanding that his classmates were all American pilots and they completed OCS (Officers Candidate School) while in Flight School. When he graduated he was a 2nd Lieutenant in the Army Air Corp and received RAF Wings and Army Air Corp Wings on graduation day. He continued his Army Air Corp training in Palm Springs and March Air Force Base and then spent about 6 months ferrying fighters, transports and bombers to Great Britain. He said he thinks he flew the Atlantic in almost every airplane in the inventory of planes the USA was sending to Great Britain.

He then was primarily a transport pilot in Africa, India and the Pacific, and finished the war as a captain and pilot for a well known General based on Guam, regularly flying to Hawaii and Manila in C-46 and C-47. He then went on to McCord AFB and then March AFB and retired several years after the introduction of the B-47 at March AFB.

He did talk of a few tense moments and fists flying after his first few flights to Great Britain, when he and his American buddies would walk into an RAF Officers club for the first time wearing RAF wings, and the Brits thinking they were fake. Later some of those RAF pilots became his life long friends. Their was a group of former graduates of the Miami, OK flight school that used to get together, but I'm sure most of them, like my dad, are now gone.

Thanks for all the great info, my dad rarely talked about those days.

A pleasure and I suspect that as he was trained by the RAF it might explain why he did a lot of long distance ferrying / transport flights. The RAF scheme in the USA was visited a number of times by USAAF senior officers to see the night flying training that the RAF pilots received as it was more extensive. The USAAF scheme was then strengthened but in the early days of the US involvement in the war, he would have been recognised as being better trained in night and bad weather flying then the average USAAF graduate. As we all know flying the Atlantic in the early 1940's was no sinicure

 

[Milosh]

I know the thread is about pilot training but thought I would post this.

My father was a WAG and had almost 1000hrs in his log book. The war ended before he was assigned to a CC squadron.

 

[Navig8er]

Training in the USA

When researching this section it became apparent that RAF trainees who went to the USA were taught under two different schemes:-
1. The Arnold Scheme
2. RAF Training
The Arnold scheme was simple, RAF trainees joined USAAF trainees and were trained at USAAF bases with the same standards curriculum and examinations. This gave an unexpected opportunity to compare RAF training as undertaken in the other training schemes with USAAF training.
The RAF training in the USA was also unexpected, as I wasn't aware that the RAF had set up independent training schools in the USA. These RAF schools were not part of the British Commonwealth Training scheme and had their own unique curriculum.

If I may add to this, there was a Third Scheme under which RAF trainees were taught to fly in the USA.
The "Towers Scheme" was the USN equivalent of the "Arnold Scheme" and was set up by Admiral Towers USN in 1941. By the end of 1941, 90 RAF and 30 Fleet Air Arm trainees were entering the Towers Scheme each month. My Grandfather undertook some basic flying training in the UK and then was posted to 31PD Moncton Canada and then to the Towers Scheme. Once he entered the USA, he effectively fell off the RAF radar until he completed training - there is no mention of any of his movements in his service record. He was first posted to NAS Grosse Ile for Elementary flying training and then to NAS Pensecola for Advanced Flying Training. Upon completion, of his flying training, he was awarded his (USN) wings. It wasn't until he returned to Canada that he was awarded his RAF wings.

Because of the naval flavour of the Towers Scheme, many Towers Scheme trained RAF pilots were posted to Coastal Command. In preparation for this, my grandfather then was posted to 31 General Reconnaissance School at Prince Edward Island where he was trained in ocean patrols and navigation. After all this, in a brilliant display of military organisation, he was posted to Bomber Command!