Training to Fly – Military Flight Training 1907-1945

flight training, and of the methods used to teach military men to fly airplanes. principles was he given an airplane sufficiently powered to get him off the ground.

627 KB – 692 Pages

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cameron, Rebecca Hancock. Training to fly : military flight training, 1907-1945 / Rebecca Hancock p. cm. Cameron. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Air pilots, Military -Training of – United States -History. 2. Flight crews -Training of – United States – History. ing – United States – History. I Title. UG638.C35 1999 358.4™15™0973 – dc21 9943 146 CIP 3. Flight train-

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Foreword The volume at hand, Training to Fly: Military Flight Training, 1907-1945, is an institutional history of flight training by the predecessor organizations of the United States Air Force. The U.S. Army purchased its first airplane, built and successfully flown by Orville and Wilbur Wright, in 1909, and placed both lighter- and heavier-than-air aeronautics in the Division of Military Aeronautics of the Signal Corps. As pilots and observers in the Air Service of the American Expeditionary Forces, Americans flew combat missions in France during the Great War. In the first postwar decade, airmen achieved a measure of recognition with the establishment of the Air Corps and, during World War 11, the Army Air Forces attained equal status with the Army Ground Forces. During this first era of military aviation, as described by Rebecca Cameron in Training to Fly, the groundwork was laid for the independent United States Air Force. Those were extraordinarily fertile years of invention and innovation in aircraft, engine, and avionics technologies. It was a period in which an air force culture was created, one that was a product of individual personalities, of the demands of a technologically oriented officer corps who served as the fighting force, and of patterns of professional development and identity unique to airmen. Most critical, a flight training system was established on firm footing, whose effective test came in combat in World War 11, and whose organization and methods continue virtually intact to the present day. This volume is based primarily on official documents that are housed in the National Archives and Records Administration. Some, dating from World War 11, remained unconsulted and languishing in dust-covered boxes until the author™s research required that they be declassified. She has relied upon memoirs and other first-person accounts to give a human face to training policies as found in those dry, official records. Training to Fly is the first definitive study of this important subject. Training is often overlooked because operations, especially descriptions of aerial combat, have attracted the greatest attention of scholars and the popular press. Yet the success of any military action, as we have learned over and over, is inevitably based upon the quality of training. That training is further enhanced by an understanding of its history, of what has failed, and what has worked. RICHARD P. HALLION Air Force Historian 111

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Contents Page Foreword . 111 Introduction .. 1 PART I The First Decade. 1907-1917 . 7 CHAPTER ONE Beginnings: Men and Machines Training the Army to Fly First Tactical Organization 39 .. 11 Institutional and Intellectual Underpinnings of Military Aviation . 11 AirplaneTrials 18 . 21 A 0ne.man. One-plane Training Air Force 26 New Airplanes. New Men . 28 CHAPTER TWO The Signal Corps Aviation School . 43 College Park. Maryland .. 44 Diversification 50 North Island. California .. 56 GrowingPains 67 Augusta. Georgia . 47 CHAPTER THREE Prelude to War: Reform. Operational Training. Preparedness . 71 The Case before Congress . 72 Training Excursions into the Field 79 Struggling Out of Isolation 87 Breakout .. 92 OntheBrinkofWar .. 96 V

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Contents Tactical Unit Training 236 Early Recovery .. 239 CHAPTER SEVEN Boom and Bust: The Air Corps Years 241 Planning and Organization .. 242 The Air Corps Training Center .. 246 Primary Flying School (Including Basic Training) 252 Advanced Flying School .. 257 Tactical Unit Training 261 Instrument Flying 264 The Beginning and End of ﬁNormalcyﬂ . 270 CHAPTER EIGHT Training an Air Force: The GHQ Era .. 273 The GHQ Air Force Perspective . 276 Training awing . 283 Training the Specialties .. 286 Fighters (Pursuit) . 287 Bombardment . 291 Observation and Reconnaissance .. 295 TheEndofanEra 299 Attack . 290 PART IV Rearming. 1939-1941 .. . 305 CHAPTER NINE Individual Pilot and Aircrew Training .. 313 Individual Pilot Training . 316 Primary 320 Basic .. 324 Advanced . 328 Aircrew Training 334 Navigator . 337 Bombardier 342 Gunnery .. 347 vii

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Contents CHAPTER TEN Operational Training .. 351 Specialties 358 DiveBombing . 358 Heavy Bombardment . 361 Pursuit (Fighters) . 365 Observation and Reconnaissance . 367 Light Bombardment (Attack) . 359 Onthecusp . 370 PART V Training for War: Planning. Procuring. Organizing . . 375 CHAPTER ELEVEN Picking the Men. Training the Pilots . 383 Manpower Procurement and Classification . 384 Pilot Training 388 Primary .. 390 Basic . 395 Advanced . 400 Single-engine .. 400 Twin-engine 405 Observation . 407 Transition Training 408 Bombers 410 Fighters . 413 Observation and Reconnaissance 415 Advance and Retreat . 415 CHAPTER TWELVE Not Just a Pilot™s War: Individual Training of Navigators. Bombardiers. and Gunners 421 Navigator Training .. 422 Bombardier Training . 428 Flexible Gunnery Training .. 438 Summation .. 448 viii

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Contents CHAPTER THIRTEEN Crew and Unit Training: Organization. Technology. and Doctrine 451 454 Heavy Bombardment .. 458 Very Heavy Bombardment 460 Medium and Light Bombardment . 461 Fighters 463 Combat ﬁReadinessﬂ . 464 Training. Doctrine. and Tactics .. 467 Organizing and Administering Operational Training CHAPTER FOURTEEN Training for Strategic Bombardment . 481 Heavy Bombardment 484 Training Curriculum .. 487 Very Heavy Bombardment .. 503 Radar in Strategic Operations 509 Assessments . 515 CHAPTER FIFTEEN Crew and Unit Training for the Tactical Air Forces .. 521 Medium Bombardment . 525 Fighters .. 538 Assessments . 552 Light Bombardment . 535 An End and a Beginning .. 557 Appendices Accident Statistics of the Interwar Period 564 Army Air Forces Training Command and Its Predecessor Flying Major Changes in Undergraduate Pilot Training. July 1939- January1943 .. 566 Flying Training Graduates. July 1939-August 1945 . 567 Location and Supervision of Pilot and Bombardier Training. July 1940 .. 568 Bombardier Requirements in Relation to the Group and Pilot Programs .. 569 Training Commands .. 565 ix

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Contents Notes 571 Abbreviations Used 637 Selected Bibliography . 641 Index 657 MAPS U.S. Air Service AEF Training Centers in France. 1917-1918 .. 199 Army Air Forces Flying Training Command Sites. July 1944 .. 418-419 TABLE Flying Fields of the Aviation Section of the U.S. Air Service. Novem- ber11. 1918 .. 145 CHARTS Air Corps Aviation School 74 Stages of Flying Training. World War I . 109 Flying Schools. World War I 111 Gunnery Branch. World War I .. 129 Assistant Chief of Air Staff. Training. Directory Chart. December 30. 1944 .. 455 PHOTOGRAPHS Brig . Gen . Adolphus Greely; Brig . Gen . James Allen . 12 Capt . Charles DeForest Chandler with Balloon Detachment at Fort Omaha .. 13 Thomas E . Selfridge and Alexander Graham Bell . 17 Orville Wright with his flyer at Fort Myer 18 Lt . B . D . Foulois. Lt . F . P . Lahm. Lt . G . C . Sweet, Maj . C . McK . Saltz- man, Maj . G . 0 . Squier. Capt . C . DeF . Chandler. and Lt . F . E . Hum- phreys .. 20 The Wright flyer endurance and speed tests .. 21 Foulois and Lahm at College Park 23 The Wright Model B and instructor Parmelee with Foulois .. 29 X

627 KB – 692 Pages