GR3a

Why does Neville Duke and Michael Giddings show as attending course No.4/5 - was that just how course numbers where notated in the early days or did they really do two courses?

John Farley

I do know the school moved from Boscombe to Cranfield during 1945 and in 1947 moved again to Farnborough. Perhaps the original 1945 studes on 4 course didn't get through all the syllabus without some time with 5 course in 1946?

sycamore

24 of the original 33 on 4 Cse were `short-coursed` from May 46,and sent to various test establishments.The remainder were joined by a further 21 to become 5 Cse,for the remainder of `46 ` and into early `47. The move to Cranfield was due to general upheaval at B-D due to the new main runway,as ETPS had 33 aircraft,and 30+ students.

The ones on 5 course (retreads !) were; Blackstone,Cope,Crozier,Dobson/Dodson ?,Duke,Else,Giddings,Martin,and Neil..all RAF.

GR3a

Thanks for the detail.

Do you know why the No.4 course was cut short? In the book Learn to test, test to learn by John Rawlings it reads as if it was cut short suddenly (rather than coming to a planned ending).

Am I reading that correctly?

Thanks.

sycamore

It may have been due to the upheaval of the move to Cranfield,a change towards `tutorials` and syndicates,arrival of QFIs for conversions,a large Course(33),and a lot of aircraft(33) as well. There were also a lot of `dark blue` aircraft in the offing ,such as Wyvern,Attacker,Spearfish,Vampire , which may have required RN pilots of senior experience ,as most on the Course were short toured,(not suggesting that there was anything like the recent RAF v RN power struggles!). From 5 Cse on it also looks that there were also a lot more Foreign students as well.
I`m sure there may still be somebody out there who would have the answer,or it may still be in the ETPS archives.