Ian Burgess-Barber,
Your # 5510 refers. There is a whole mass of information available on Google. Try "British Flying Training in USA in WW2" and "Arnold Scheme" (and there is plenty more).
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Are there reliable stats on how many trained where? ... There were at least 14 civilian contracted flight schools in the US which ... The RAF output from all American schemes (Arnold, Towers, Pan-American & BFTS) was:
Pilots - 13,673
Navigators - 1715
Wireless Ops/Air Gunners - 662
(Source: Public Records Office, Kew as mentioned by Jack Currie in Wings Over Georgia).
Knowing that 4493 pilots came back from the Arnold Scheme, it follows that 9180 must be the output of the combined BFTS Schools. But what was the BFTS washout total ? (I found it once on Google a year or so ago, but cannot find it now. I cannot remember what it was, but it was nothing like the 20-25% quoted). And even that would not square with the near 50% Arnold figure.
On the general question of an explanation of that enormous failure rate, my analysis (as an old Arnold alumnus) of the circumstances differs radically from yours (I quote):
"But when it came to an even playing field, without preselection of natural talents and experience, the average Army Air Corps washout rate and British BFTS washout rate were almost identical - from 20% to 25%."
The washout rate for RAF cadets in the Arnold plan (40% or more) is probably more to do with demerits for not obeying rules that did not make sense to them and had nothing to do with flying performance.
A former civilian American flight instructor noted: "The British kids had just come from a place where there was real war. They liked the flying and had no problem taking orders. But when it came to chicken-sh*t stuff, they wouldn't keep quiet."
I can assure you that such a supposed "bolshie" attitude played no part whatsoever - had it done so, you would have expected more or less equal loss rates at each of the three stages (whereas they were limited almost exclusively to the very beginning).
My reading of the story runs something like this:
(I've never been a QFI) - but I would guess that most would agree, broadly, that of any intake of (say) 100 pilot trainees, 10 will be the "Naturals", who take to it like ducks to water (and who are likely to be "creamed off" as QFIs on graduation). At the other end will be 10 "no hopers" who will never be pilots no matter how hard they try.
That leaves 80, who can be taught to fly to an acceptable standard
given time.
"Here's the Rub !" Time is the currency of War. Give them 400 hours - you might get 75 pilots. 300 ? - say 65. 200 ? say 55.
How much time can you afford ? At what point do you stop ? Where's the balance ? The US Army Air Corps at that period had, as far as I could see, a virtually limitless supply of Flight School Cadets. Why not recruit far more than the later stages of training could possibly absorb, and then select the most promising to go on and discard the rest at Primary level ?
This way you get the numbers you want, and the best quality, too.
They seem to have set the bar at the 200hr/55 pilot stage. When the British cadets came in, they saw no need to alter the system. It's as simple as that.
That still leaves the question hanging: how was it that the BFTSs, with half (your figure) of the Arnold loss rate and in the same time, produced pilots which our OTUs found to be of indistinguishable quality (I discount the strange story brought to our notice by
millerscourt [#2394 p.120], for which no support has come forward).
And (most intriguing question of all): what was the American experience with their own pilots from the BFTSs vis-a-vis the Air Corps product ? That I
would like to know !
Danny.