Flt Lt John Dunbar ( RIP) Five into four won't go
Taken from two tapes
MPN11 - many thanks for the PM - I shall scan some photos.
Chug - thinking back ten or so years, I recall three stories John told of his training.
Most of the Canadian instructors were gruff ex-bush pilots who flew by the seat of their pants. For the first few months John didn't get on with his instructor though after an exchange in a downtown bar they became firm friends. On the first flight John was climbing away when a voice came from the back " I said eighty, NOT eighty one". I did find a short bit on tape of another incident. "P/O Moon was lacking in confidence so his instructor thought a very mild beat up of the airfield might help. Unfortunately he misjudged the height of the hangar and there was this very sorry looking Anson stuck on the hangar roof. We eventually got ladders and managed to get him down. He was a lovely chap but was not in very good shape, but he did come back to us and said he would prefer another instructor"
John went on to instruct over two years on the Tiger Moth and the Cornell. Flying from32 EFTS at Bowden one day his pupil was blinded by the and snow in a turn and caught a tree with the aircraft's wingtip. In the ensuing crash both wings were torn off, the wreckage being scattered for nearly a mile. They were trapped in the fuselage for nearly an hour before help came.
" As an SFTS flying instructor you would on many occasions fly eight hours of circuits and bumps a day. I recently told an Air Commodore this and he couldn't believe it - there it is in my log book. You would stop for refuelling and lunch and don't forget, sometimes the temperature would be twenty degrees below zero. It was bloody hard work. Instructing on the Tiger Moth the rules of the game were very simple - you had four pupils in the flight that you taught in and the object of the exercise was in the sixty hours you had with them dual and solo you got them to a stage where they would pass the CFI's test. What put the kybosh on instructing for me was an instruction that came out that 90% had to pass out regardless. The directive from the Air Ministry in'42/'43 was such that we could not wash out more than 10% regardless of standard. We were all very unhappy at this. The words cannon fodder spring to mind.
The only way out of Canada was to put up too many blacks and were deemed undesirable in Canada. Perhaps burning the Co's wooden bungalow down at 3 am in the morning was a step too far. Anyway I was shipped back to the UK in disgrace and after a week or so of leave was instructed to report to Adastral House. ( John left Canda with 2,000+ hors and a rating of exceptional as a night flying instructor ) Knocking on an office door I was bid enter and was surprised to see sitting behind a desk an Air Commodore. Oh dear oh dear thought I,not a good idea to burn down the CO's bungalow"
To be continued