Gaining An R.A.F Pilots Brevet In WW II

[millerscourt]

Danny42C

I have now skimmed through Denis Peto-Shepherd'd book and his career was as follows

Nov 1940 No7 ITW Newquay

Feb 1941 No 9 EFTS No 33 course RAF Ansty Leics 56 hrs in 53 days

May 1942 No 6 SFTS Little Rissington 85 hrs and wings with total of 141 hrs

After 4 days leave though expecting to go to an OTU was instead posted to No 15A Flying Instructor's course at No 2 CFS RAF Cranwell

Oct 1941 one yaer after joining RAF posted to No 3 SFTS South Cerney as Flying Instructor Cat C ( probationery). Coinincidentally that is where J Newton Chance spent the whole of his FI career until 1944 when dischaged in rank of Flt Lt

Mid 1942 he was posted to No 2 CFS Montrose the same school he had trained at Cranwell as a FI which had been moved to Montrose and just after 8 months as a FI he was teaching pilots to be Flying Instructors.

In 1944 he went on to Lancasters after training on Wellington and Stirlings

Whilst at RAF South Cerney in No 3 SFTS he says in Feb 1942 and I quote as follows Page 183 of his book

Jan 1942 gave way to Feb and some of the first courses to arrive back from the US and Canada and were sent to an SFTS for refresher training. It was a shock to the staff and no doubt to the authorities to find that in the main the ability of these were so low that they would never have qualified in this country etc etcIt was quickly realised that the requirements were not a brief refresher course but a complete retraining in the entire SFTS course from start to finish. With the passing out of the Mid Feb 1942 course of the SFTS partially no doubt to mask the predicament that had arisen No 3 SFTS was renamed No 3 (P) A.F.U and we continued with the same syllabus as before.

In terms of wasted effort this was apallling but not our concern but must have been a painful delicate predicament for the authorities.

I find it hard to believe as Chugalug says it was a case of sour grapes but who knows. I am just stating what two FI said and why was the SFTS changed to a (P) AFU if that was not the case??


Clearly this low abilty did not apply to all and certainly not the late Regle or Danny or Cliff plus many others no doubt


PS Danny In answer to one of your questions Peto Shepherd says those who returned from the US and Canada were all shipped off overseaes after the ITW and did both EFTS and SFTS overseas and according to Newton Chance and Peto Shepherd they on arriving at SFTS Soutrh Cerney did in effect three courses. Perhaps Danny they weeded out the lower ability types and sent them to places like S Cerney and others like you who were rated better to a different place even though it was a (P) A F U as at South Cerney but with less hours required to reach the required standard??