Military AircrewA forum for the professionals who fly the non-civilian hardware, and the backroom boys and girls without whom nothing would leave the ground. Army, Navy and Airforces of the World, all equally welcome here.
Does that sound right? Are there any key subjects missing?
Yes , precision drill . Think we had one hour a day drill , and one hour a day P.T. at I.T.W Torquay. During the drill session we had to learn precision drill, which meant we had to go through the every move in the drill 'book' with only an initial command. This lasted fifteen minutes. and we were told it was very impressive to watch. Clay pigeon shooting at Babacombe . Five mile cross country runs. 20 mile march from Bovey Tracy ? to Widecombe on the moor and back. Dinghy drill in Torquay harbour.
Cliff - Good Lord! - You poor devil! What sort of a Gulag had you got into? And when was all this? I was at Newquay from May - June 1941, and mine was a rest cure in comparison. There was none of the extra things you listed, although the clay-pigeon shooting and the dinghy drill would have been useful.
Newark Air Museum has very kindly dug out a copy of the poster used to show recruits how to place their kit in their bed space for inspection; unfortunately it is a little later than the period we are researching as the bed has a mattress rather than the 3 biscuits.
There are 2 diagrams .... one with accoutrements and one without ..... so the question is ..... at ACRC / ITW, did they have different kinds of inspections or were they always with accoutrements or without.
ACRC at Babbacombe in 1941 all cadets were in civilian billets for the two weeks, so no kit lay out was taught. At 5 ITW in Torquay the lay out was shown on the first day, together with instruction on polishing boots. fredjhh
I continue from #2289 (We are at ITW in Newquay - May 41)
We did guard duty every few nights, with pick-helves (handles) to defend our billets from German parachutists. We did the usual two-on, four-off guard routine. By day we refined our trouble-dodging skills whenever we managed to get out, learning to keep well out of the way of NCOs, Officers * (rare), and above all Warrant Officers - far more threatening - who would be bound to pick you up for something. ** How else would the spuds get peeled in the cookhouse? The trick was to look out for stripes, and especially for brass buttons on lower tunic pockets (only officers and warrant officers have these). You could spot them a mile away and dodge round a corner.
Old habits die hard. To the end of my service days - and that would be a long time, I could never walk across a parade square without feeling uneasy, even though they'd mostly been downgraded to car parks, and I'd been an officer for years. For in the old days this was one of the blackest of crimes (you must walk round a square when not actually on parade, and I could hear the ghost of some long gone Warrant Officer or Sergeant roaring "AIRMAN!!!")
The six weeks flew by, I passed the Course exams and was on my way again, now a Leading Aircraftman on 5/6 a day - riches beyond the dreams of avarice!
On the other side of the Atlantic, things had been stirring. Officially neutral, the Americans (in particular the American forces) wanted to help us as far as possible, guessing (correctly) that they would be dragged in sooner or later. "All aid short of War" promised Roosevelt. "All aid short of Help" we mocked ungratefully.
One of their better ideas came from General "Hap" Arnold, the C-in-C of the US Army Air Corps. *** He knew that, in order to expand an air force quickly, aircraft production is a secondary matter. Once you have got the assembly lines going, you can turn out aircraft like family cars. But no air force then or since has been able to train a man from scratch to operational pilot in less than a year. That is your bottleneck. By helping us in that respect, expanding his facilities to train pilots for us, he might be doing himself a good turn further down the line (and so it proved).
He set up the "Arnold Scheme". He opened up new Primary Flying Schools (civilian schools taken over by the army), he enlarged his own Basic and Advanced Schools, and offered the extra training places to us. Needless to say, we jumped at it.
Notes:
* These would be "wingless wonders", young schoolsmasters and other professionals, who' d been commissioned as Pilot Officers in the Education and Administration branches. Having only been "in for five minutes", they were as green as we were. As far as we aircrew trainees were concerned, anyone without wings or WW1 ribbons simply didn't count,
** They were able to do this by virtue of Section 40 of the Air Force Act, which provides penalties for Conduct prejudicial to Good Order and Air Force Discipline. This can cover just about anything at all. (The classic case is that of the Guardsman who was charged with "Being Idle on a Bicycle" - he was freewheeling!) If the W/O said your buttons were dirty, they were dirty, even if you'd been up half the night polishing them - you still got your seven day's "jankers" from your Flight Commander.
*** There was no unified US Air Force until after WW2. As a matter of historical interest, the same was true of our (Army) Royal Flying Corps in WW1. The Royal Air Force was not formed until 1st April, 1918 - a date which has raised a few wry smiles over the years. We went into blue, and invented new names for our ranks. The Americans changed to blue, but kept their old Army ranks.
Naturally we had to hide the blatant breach of US neutrality which this entailed. Obviously we couldn't wear uniform in the States, but had to pretend to be civilians, and wear civilian clothes to back up the story. (We'd only need to keep this up for a few months, but of course we did't know that at the time).
And so it was that LAC ******* J.D. (****877) went up to Blackpool, was billeted out in a tatty South Shore boarding house, and kitted out with white shirts and a Thirty Shilling Tailors chalk-striped suit. This natty ensemble was capped by a beret. Now there are heads which suit berets (spherical ones), and plenty more which don't. I looked like Holbein's Henry VIII. I never wore the thing and disposed of it as soon as possible. I painted code letters on my kitbags (ATTS/TRAILL), had embarkation leave, went up to Gourock (Clyde) and dumped my kit in a four-berth second class cabin in a liner whose name I forget. Of my four wartme sea voyages, this was the only time I had a cabin in a troopship - when I was in my lowest rank.!
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(This means "work in progress". I put it in as an incomplete Post, because I am sick of this infernal machine of mine losing all my text while drafting a Reply. Put in as a Post, what I've done so far seems to be safe. If the next bit of draft vanishes into cyberspace again, this way I only lose the last bit. I can get what went before back as an Edit. I'll do this from now on). Danny.
We put to sea, dodged the U-boats, and a week later landed in Halifax; then straight on to one of the Canadian Pacific Railway's "Colonial" trains. These were very basic coaches formerly used to take immigrant families to their new homes out West. They were short on comfort, I remember that the berths were very solid wood indeed, and I don't think we had any mattresses. But the food was good and the scenery magnificant as we followed the St.Lawrence upstream into Canada. This was very French country with place names to match, like "Riviere du Loup".
Our destination was Toronto, then a holding centre for aircrew trainees going to the Canadian flying schools or (in our case) down to the States. Our trip was enlivened (if that is the right word) by a train crash (only a little one, I hasten to add). Our dozey driver, following closely behind a goods train, luckily only at walking pace, managed to run into the back of it. There was a severe jolt, enough to throw people off their feet, and quite a bang. There were a few bumps and bruises, but no real harm seemed to have been done, and we continued on our way to Toronto. That city has a permanent Canadian National Exposition Centre, where every summer a country-wide Agricultural show was (and still is) held.
They saw no reason why a war should interrupt this, and it was in full swing when we arrived. They had the buildings to accommodate us, so long as we didn't mind sharing with the prize livestock. Actually, it wasn't too bad, except that in late summer the smells were a bit ripe. There wasn't a great deal of " bull" in our Exposition quarters - just the odd roll call, kit inspection and Pay Parade, and one memorable occasion we had a "Short Arm Inspection". It was not then a service offence to acquire a STD (then "VD"), but it was to conceal the fact, and not report for treatment.
To deter concealment, parades were held when, on command, slacks were dropped, and the Medical Officer and his orderly came round to check. The MO, armed with a sort of large spatula, cast an expert eye on each set of "crown jewels" in turn as he worked down the line. On this occasion the process was in full swing, well away from public gaze in some out-of-the-way corner of the building. Not out-of-the-way enough! A dairymaid picked the wrong door, to be met with a sight not usually vouchsafed to young ladies. She squealed, dropped her (empty) pail and bolted; we, modesty outraged, did our best with cupped hands. It made a change from normal routine.
Parades and drills were organised for us in the Fort York Armoury (like a Territorial Drill Hall). This was down by the lakeside and the air much fresher. The juke-box top numbers of the day were "Amapola" and "Yes, my Darling Daughter", and those tunes always take me back to the Armoury. (My daughter was in Toronto a few years ago, it was still there).
I think we spent two or three weeks there, and then, thinly disguised as civilians, boarded a train for Florida. The generous pilot training which the Americans offered us must have been of enormous value to the RAF at that stage of the War. After Pearl Harbor, they provided even more, in the shape of British Flying Training Schools in the south-western States (there was no need for concealment then. we were Allies)
Danny. Should you have Microsoft Word or Works in your computer write it there. You can then correct it in comfort. When the time comes to post open up a reply page and copy/paste on to the post. That way you do not lose it if you have an internet connection break. cliffnemo had a similar problem when he started.
I'm very grateful for your advice, but i've only got Notepad and Wordpad so far, and in any case the procedure is so far beyond my capability that I wouldn't know where to start. All my word processing is still done on my good old Canon "Starwriter" (which I can understand!); I've got all my memoirs (whichI call my "Jottings" - about 150,000 words) on Floppy Disks. The "Starwriter" works on a MS-DOS system. So it should be easy to transfer the disks onto Windows, right?. Wrong! It can be done, but only by professional experts. Even so, I'm not going to shell out for Word or Works until I know a lot more than I do now.
I, too, was a "fareastdriver", but long, long ago! But many thanks for your kind interest.
I have the very latest edition of Microsoft Office and if I can be of ANY assistance then please do not hesitate to contact me via pm. If you want to e-mail me just a short file of 'starwriter' I will see if I can convert it into a format that notepad or word pad can understand.
I am definitely NOT a computah wizard but I do have the time to make a mess of anything
Danny, if it's of any consolation a long and erudite post of mine (on the Bomber Boys thread) got "PPRuNed" the other day. I should have known better, but it happens to us all and when you least expect it. Just try out a sentence as Far East Driver described. Wordpad should be OK I think, it simply allows you to assemble the script without the PPRuNe time bomb gobbling it up. When you are ready, hold the "Left click button" down and outline the script by moving over it. Then select the right click one and, from the menu that opens, select copy. The script is now held effectively in the mouse. Go to PPRuNe, sign in, select reply and, when the post panel opens, left click to activate the flashing scriber, then right click, select paste, and by the wonders of Microsoft your sentence appears! Once you have the hang of it of course you can paste in an entire post! Please know that every detail that you recount of this period of training in the USA will be of immense interest to us all. So often this would be glossed over as "n weeks spent at A, followed by a further m weeks at B". Cliff set the ball rolling, and others have followed, but each one of you brings new aspects to the story, varied experiences, a different outlook. It's rather like drinking fine wine, to be savoured slowly and with relish and certainly not to be gulped down! Right, my glass has been recharged and I'm anticipating the pleasure that awaits us. The floor is, as always, yours Sir!
But I'm such an ignoramus at this game that I have to decline all offers of help from everybody at this stage. As an experiment, I've taped a small piece of card over the touchpad of my laptop (just one side, so I can fold it back!). As I have a touchscreen, I can compose just using that (and it feels like my "Starwriter" now). As the danger of my fat paw inadvertently brushing the touchpad is now removed, I may have found a temporary "fix". At least, it's not happened since! We'll see.
Thanks for the kind words and the serious advice. But I'm past praying for! All of you, please leave me in my swinish state of Invincible Ignorance! - I can't be helped!
Danny, whatever works for you works for us! We're just grateful that your words end up on our screens. Just don't post in Q code though, I beg you! I had an instructor once who spoke in Q code, "QSY for the QFE, request the QDM, and then carry out a QGH". I needed an interpreter! Edited to add a youtube link to take you back to the period you are describing. Sorry, you have to left click on it, so may have to lift that little bit of card
Where were we (#2306)? Ah yes, getting ready to move down to the States.
Our B.F.T.S.s could be opened as units under RAF command, as we had become Allies after Pearl Harbor, but with American aircraft and civilian instructors, and with RAF Officers and NCOs for disciplinary purposes. They taught the RAF flying training syllabus, I believe. This was a third shorter (in flying hours) than the American one. * Our former places in the US Army flying schools immediately became extra training capacity for them; General Arnold was rewarded for his foresight and generosity.
You may have seen newsreel footage of the time showing RAF aircrew training in the States wearing US-style light khaki with RAF forage caps and white flashes. This has caused some confusion, as it seems to contradict the "civilian clothes" story. Of course these show only these later B.F.T.Ss, obviously there would be no film evidence of the US breach of neutrality involved in allowing us in before we became allies. Stictly speaking, that was Hitler's doing: he took the decision out of US hands by declaring war on them as soon as the Japanese set the ball rolling
Note *
What is my authority for this statement? Only this: a very good little book (probably long out of print) called "The thin blue line". It was written by a Robert Graves (I, Claudius ?), publisher unknown. It was very popular in the early days of the war; it told of the flying training experiences of a small group of friends. It stated that they had to do 60 hours at EFTS and the same at SFTS to get their wings. Graves was a well respected author, his book would have been well researched. Of course, the syllabus could have been lengthened later, but I don't think it ever reached the 200 hours we did in the USAAC Arnold Scheme.
Since then, I've poked about in Wikipedia, and not found a definitive answer, the average seems around 140, but over a wide spread. I stand to be shot down here, there will be many people out there who can put me right.
Another puzzle, on some Wiki entries it states that the B.F.T.S. Scheme was agreed with the US, and put into effect, months before Pearl Harbor. How can this possibly be? You can't have a uniformed military unit from one of the combatants in a War operating in your territory, and pretend to be neutral! Your duty in International Law is to intern them (as Eire, Sweden and Switzerland did to any of our chaps who landed there during the War). Enlighten me, please.
Carlstrom Field, Arcadia, Florida.
"Off we go - into the wide, blue yon - der Flying high - into the Sun"
(Song of the United States Army Air Corps)
I broke off my story in Toronto, parading in the Fort York Armoury and dodging farm machinery at the Exposition. We marvelled at the quality and quantity of our food compared with wartime Britain. I don't think we had much time to explore the city. We had to get our new civilian clothes pressed and ready for the next stage of our journey, and that took some doing after weeks at the bottom of a kitbag. I managed to "lose" my beret.
An untidy gaggle of mock-civilians boarded a train for the States. It must have been a "special" of some kind, as there were no civilians on board and I do not recall any changes en route to Florida. But you need a load of some 3-400 to justify a "Special", and there was nowhere near that number going to Arcadia - perhaps no more than 50. Perhaps a coach or coaches was dropped off the end of the train at stages along the way, and coupled on to a train going to each individual destination. As we were going to the most southern point, we'd stay hitched up all the time.
It was to be a long haul, right down the country from top to bottom. We crossed the border at Detroit, and settled down to train life. This was vastly different from the spartan Canadian Pacific rolling stock. We were now treated as Aviation "Kay-dets" in the USAAC, but sadly not paid as such. We just got the dollar equivalent of our LAC pay - 5/6 a day. It must have worked out at about a dollar a day (about one-seventh of an American cadet's pay) * but as there was next to nothing to spend it on, that didn't matter.
We travelled in style, the night sleepers had the curtained berths with central gangway familiar in many a Hollywood film of the time, complete with smiling black conductor. The day coaches were comfortable, and the meals excellent. Things were looking up. It was late summer, and heated up quickly as we rolled South. I don't remember how long the journey took, but it must have been at least two or three days. At last we came, clanking and clanging, to a halt in Arcadia, a small town half way down on the Gulf side of Florida.
Note *
I believe they were paid $200 per month. Of this (a little booklet I found advised), they were expected to save enough for "a substantial down payment on an automobile" at the end of their (six month) Course. A basic Ford V8 or Chevrolet "sedan" then cost about $600. A convertible, a necessity in the Southern states in the days before air-conditioning, about $100 more . So they'd have to save about a sixth of their pay each month for a one-third deposit for the car which they must have as a Second Lieutenant.
It was September, and I remember the blow of heat hitting us as we climbed down from the train. They don't run to platforms out there, and it's quite a way to fall. Loaded into coaches, we went out a few miles to the Embry-Riddle School of Aviation at Carlstrom Field - now, I believe, ennobled as the Embry-Riddle University of Aviation, but then a recently opened civil flying school which had been taken over by the Army. The only Army presence was a lieutenant as C.O. and a couple of second lieutenants (these were purely "Admin". There must have been some US NCOs, too, for we were marched about and someone must have been giving the orders. All the rest of our instructors were civilian. Naturally there were no RAF Officers or NCOs, for obvious reasons.
Carlstrom must have been some past hero of military aviation, all their airbases were named in this way. His Field was just that, a square mile of grass. The Army must have put a good deal of money into the place, for the accommodation was luxurious. The barrack blocks were two storied affairs, with verandahs. Each room had ample space, polished wood floors, two double tier bunks, and its own white tiled bathroom. I was never in such a palace in all my service life - and never would be again.
The camp had an open air swimming pool, and countless Coca-cola machines. These did roaring trade, for the local water, freely available from squirt-up fountains, was faintly brackish. The Mess Hall was every bit as good as the accomodation, and we had the novel experience of being waited on by (black of course) staff. We were way down below the Mason-Dixon line, and segregation was the rule.
All this came at a price. Generally thought to be easy-going on their overseas assignments, American discipline was Prussian at home. As Aviation cadets, there was a whiff of West Point about our treatment. We did not have cleaners for our rooms. We had to keep them spotless. The rumour was that the Officer of the Day wore white gloves on his rounds to see if there was any dust on the light bulbs.
The beds had to be made down to a fixed pattern. The sheets had to be turned down exactly six inches, and the blanket folded exactly 45 degrees at the foot. Every square inch of the bathroom had to glitter. This was not too bad when there four of you to share the chores, but when it dropped down to one (as in my case) you had to dash about a bit.
Naturally, we were marched about all over the place. ("Hup - two - three - four"). Everything had to be done in a "mili-tary manner". We learned American foot drill, thankfully forgotten except : "To the rear, March!", a comical (to us) equivalent of our "About Turn!". The most extreme example came at mealtimes. We had to march in to our alloted places, stand at attention behind our chairs until the order "Seats", and then sit at attention until the order "Parade Rest!" ("Stand Easy"). Only then could we start to talk and eat.
Enough to be going along with. You may like to know that PPRuNe has only caught me out once tonight (out of half a dozen "slices") and then I only lost a few words. Keep your fingers crossed - we may have sorted it!
Danny, I think I would have been the recipient of QOF for many of my efforts throughout my life, and I'm not thinking of my W/T efforts! Your comments on the niceties of the US neutral status of pre 7/12/41 are well made, for they were indeed a very real preoccupation. The well respected Jack Huntington, co-pilot trainer extraordinaire (I have the honour to have been one of his "apprentices"), started his war time career as a transport pilot himself, delivering Lockheed Hudsons across the North Atlantic in that period. He explained that they could not be handed over within the USA then, as that would have been interpreted as assisting a belligerent power. Instead, US pilots delivered them to an airfield adjacent to the Canadian frontier. Teams of horses were then hitched to them so that they could be drawn across the border. Then and only then could the transfer be effected. The actual ferry flights to the UK were a saga in themselves, but that is another story....
Yes, there were all sorts of legal problems buzzing about in this. Although we didn't bother our heads about it at the time, it was clear that any barrack-room lawyer could make hay with our situation. On enlistment, we'd taken an Oath to serve our King and his heirs and successors, and to obey all orders of the Officers and NCOs set over us. But who set this lot over us ? - it was no part of our contract! But they had this hold on us: they could send us back to Canada if there were any insubordination. That was more than enough to make us behave (an American cadet would simply be sacked if he didn't toe the line). We were so grateful for the chance to learn to fly, that we never even thought about our anomalous position. Besides, this was an era of discipline and deference, when all authority was accepted without question. The Class of 42C settled down to the job.
Pour out a nice single malt - I'll have to make do with a "Fortisip" - more story coming.
We put our chalk-striped suits away, and wore plain overalls all day. Effectively we were confined to camp all the time, there being nowhere to go and no means of transport to get us there. We did have one weekend off in our two months there; six of us managed to hire an old Plymouth (bottom level Chrysler) and took off for West Palm Beach. I don't think anyone even asked about driving licences. What stays in my memory is a petrol stop somewhere in the sticks. It was only a hand-cranked pump outside a shack, and "gas" was 8c (four old pence) a gallon!
We had neither the inclination or the money for the high life, we booked in some scruffy motel at the back of town and spent our time swimming, sightseeing and stuffing ourselves with hot dogs and ice cream. Then the long lonely haul back across Florida. I think that was the only time I was off the camp, except from one weekend when our flying instructor took us out to his home in Sarasota for the day - and looked after us royally! We gazed in hopeless envy at his brand-new Mercury (upmarket Ford) convertible. You got a lot of car for your money out there in those days.
Minor infractions of the rules earned "demerits", and when a sufficient total had been reached, you had to expunge them by "walking the ramp". This punishment drill involved having to march up and down a beat - the "ramp" -outside the Admin. Office (where they could keep an eye on you) for the allotted period. You had to keep up this palace guard routine for this time. Half an hour under the Florida sun was enough to convince most people of the error of their ways. Needless to say, a Goody-two-shoes like me took care to keep his nose clean.
The only formal duty imposed on us was to attend the daily flag-raising ceremony. This was at dawn, it was still quite dark. The flagpole and surrounding recently planted palm trees were braced with guy wires. These caused some hilarity; the Officer of the Day sometimes garotting himself or tripping over these invisible hazards. Then it was back for breakfast (plenty of maple syrup and waffles as well as your ham-and-eggs). And then ground school or Flight Line.
They issued each of us with a little, amusing booklet of helpful tips and advice for our flying training (oh, why didn't I hang on to mine - and also to the wonderfully funny "Tee Emms" - RAF training magazines - we had during the War?) * Many an octo/nonagenarian would love to read once more of the misdeeds of Pilot Officer Prune, navigator Flying Officer Fix, signaller Sgt Backtune, disreputable dog "Binder", Air Commodore Byplane-Ffixpitch and all the rest of that glorious crew - surely stationed at Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh or somewhere very like it.
From memory, two bits of doggerel I remember from the Carlstrom booklet:
Neither wind direction, sock nor Tee, Cut any ice with Philbert Magee. At last a crash made him change his mind - You can't use a field you've left behind!
and
Otis McKay, still twenty feet high, Sat stalling it in without batting an eye Or using his throttle to help him on down. The Flight Surgeon says he'll recover, the clown!
(Can't remember any more, except this bit of homespun advice to get you to relax in the air - "wiggle your piggies!")
Note * Commercially produced photograpic facsimilies of the complete series are available on CDrom - I've got one since my words above - try Google.
And then we met our instructors, four students to each. I drew Bob Greer, a softly-spoken, unflappable young man from South Carolina. He cannot have been more than five years older than we were. A pilot always remembers his first flying instructor, the one who sent him "solo", in memory he will be the best pilot there ever was. Learning to fly is hard, and Bob was kind and patient.
We buckled on our chutes and waddled over to our Stearman. Boeing had taken over Stearman years before, but the name stuck. A very strong two-seat biplane (open cockpits) was hauled along by a 220hp Continental radial engine. It was bigger, heavier and more powerful than its contemporary, our Tiger Moth. Like the Tiger, the thing flies to this day and looks as if it might go on for ever. Many Stearmans went into civil life after the war, converted into crop sprayers, where agility and toughness are "musts". And they seem to be the aircraft of choice for "wing-walkers" - a waste of time if ever I saw one.
Bob took the front cockpit with me in the back. There was no intercom, a system of hand signals was used and obviously the pupil had to see them. Bob could also throttle back and shout at me. It worked quite well. His cockpit had a useful fitting which mine lacked - an airspeed indicator (ASI).
Now any pilot of a later generation is sitting bolt upright in frank disbelief. Pull the other one - it's got bells on! How on earth can you fly without an ASI? Well, you can and we did. Or, to be precise, I did - for my first sixty hours. What you've never had, you never miss. The trick lay in flying "Attitude".
The cylinder heads of the engine could be seen around the nose. On take off, you got the tail up, waited until the aircraft felt "light", and lifted it until the horizon came level with the top pair of rockerboxes. The Stearman would float off. Holding it in that position for half a minute (take-off climb), you raised it until the next pair of "pots" lined up on the horizon (normal climb). From there, we flew round the sky happy as sandboys. If the wires started to scream, you were going too fast (if a wing came off, much too fast - only joking!) If the wires fell quiet, and the stick felt a bit sloppy, you were too slow (if you fell out of the sky, much too slow). Back at the field, you throttled back, put the top of the nose on the horizon, and it would glide nicely.
It was classic "flying by the seat of your pants", and in this simple aircraft, it worked like a charm. I am sorry to admit that it was possible, when solo to cheat. If you raised your seat to the maximum, then stretched up over the windscreen, you could just see the ASI in the front seat. But you'd only do this in aerobatics, for example to see if you had enough speed for a loop.
On arrival, we were issued with a name card holder for our overalls, and a set of coloured printed name cards . Blue for a "lower class" man, red for an "upper" (or was it the other way round?) As in most flying schools, this referred to the two parts of the Course, senior or junior. Ominously, there was also a white name card in your set. This was a badge of shame for the dreaded "washout".
Danny42C
You had a good home, and you left, left, left, left.............(Get those arms up!)
Danny42c,
I can relate to your premise that you can fly by sound and feel alone without an ASI. My Supercub could easily be flown in this manner as I suspect could some other light a/c. Looking forward to the next instalment.
Danny gets to Primary School at Carlstrom Field.
