re products of the Empire Training Scheme
Have just read Yellow Belly by John Newton Chance and The Devil Take the Hindmost by Denis Peto-Shepherd. Both were Flying Instructors on SFTS during WW11 and both said the following which clearly is a generalisation as follows.
In the autumn of 1941 the first fruits of the EFTS fell into our laps and they were rotten.
What had happened was that the SFTS's had been shipped out to Canada and the US for their flying training. They were then shipped back as Sergeants and Officers with their wings up. It was then arranged that we should become (Pilot) Advanced Flying Units with the object of just brushing up these pilot's flying before shipping them off to their Operational Units.
From this it would seem we Instructors would have a jammy time. Afterall we were not going to be given pupils but but fully trained pilots. This was the case with those from those trained in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa but these were few in numbers.
In the case of those from the US and Canada, they were so bad that the whole of the old SFTS course had to be reinstituted. It was just as if they had come straight from Elementary Training School, needing the full treatment.
The mind boggles at the cost of this. Their navigation was hopeless as they could follow a road or railway in conditions of startling vis and they had never flown in total blackout.
THe Air Ministry calmly ordered the old SFTS course back into effect so those Pilots were getting three whole courses of which the middle one was cancelled out by the third.
Our situation became Gilbertian as we found ourselves sitting beside men with more flying hours then ourselves and putting up pilots for rejection who had qualified elsewhere. They could not be bowler hatted and had to be found ground jobs elsewhere etc etc