TRAINING AIRMEN.

Hokitika Guardian, 26 January 1918, Page 4

TRAINING AIRMEN.

• (By Hamilton ByCo.)

GREAT SCHOOL IN CANADA. INGENIOUS METHODS,

Toronto, Nov 1C In Toronto, among the other signs of wav, such as notices calling for “help to increase food production," 1 saw a great many young men in the uniform of the \ Royal flying Corps, with white bands round their• rakish Glengarry caps. I met them in every street, I saw them paraded in the University Park. They swarmed' in the hotel. I made inquiries about them, and so I stumbled; on a most interesting side of our war activity which deserves to be better known. /

How many people know that in Toronto is an aircraft factory with a production probably larger than that of any other in the world, that near Toronto is the Empire’s biggest aerodrome, that here in Canada a tittle group of British officers.have set up a school for airmen which is as completely equipped as any in the world ?

In this sdhool American fis well as Canadian young men are being trained as war pilots by British instructors, many of them Canadians who won their. “ wings ” long ago and have done gallant and- valuable work on our various front- 3 , In this factoiy school aeroplanes and spare parts are being turned out rapidly and regularly* at a rate equal to 175 complete machines a month.

Built up out of nothing in the course of just over eight months, the organisation is self-supporting, independent of supplies Loin England, established on solid, permanent foundations. It has given Canada a new indus ry, taught visiting manufacturers from the United States much that they admit to be vastly useful, set a whole range of new standards, and incidentally brought into prominence a vivid personality, that of Brigadier-General Hoare.

A YOUNG GENERAL. When this officer came out with fewer than a dozen assistants, at the end of January last he was an exceptionally young coloriel. At thirty-five he is phenomenally youthfnl . for general rank. 'Yet everybody who knows what he has done with the loyal aid of a most competent and energetic staff would say that he has not more than merited his promotion. From the moment of his arrival he has never ceased working. His instructions were to go out and start training Canadians to fly. It had occurred to someone that it would be better to train them in their own country than in' England. The wide development - of this idea is dne entirely to General Hoare.

Iteaobing Toronto on January 26, h 6 had by February 5 chosen a site for au aerodrome, acquired the ground, and arranged for the buildings, which he wanted to be pub .up according to a design of his own. The ground was then covered by 2ft of snow. Under the snow were numberless tree stumps, the relics of a forest destroyed by fire. Every one of these stumps had to he dragged or prised out of the soil. Meanwhile' a couple of thousand workmen lnid been detrained at Camp Borden, where some barracks existed already, and in six weeks the, place was got ready under the personal goading of a contractor, who was among his men all the time, cheering, cursing, imploring, shoving the job along.

Fifteen big aeroplane sheds were built, each to hold a number of .machines. Offices were built too, instruction rooms, an officers’ mess, barracks for officers and for cadets, all the necessary camp accommodation. Roads were laid—hard, fast roads, smooth and dustless. Water system, drainage system, heating system were installed. Furniture was sent down. Everything was ready. All in six weeks.

I As I approached Camp Borden, in a crawling train which took nearly three hours to cover the 60 miles between it and Toronto, 1 ,saw the clear, sunny air first two, then seven, then fifteen aeroplanes, and after that more than I could count. There must have been thirty or forty. “ Think of it! ” I said to the R F.C. officer who met me, “ only seven years ago at Rheims nine machines represented what was then almost the entire aeroplane production of the world. None would go np until the flags dropped motionless down their staffs. I f three machines were seen in the air together the crowd stared, wideeyed, open-mouthed, murmuring • A miracle ! ’ Only seven years.”

SHIFTING CAMP 2,O(K> -MILES. Combined with military order and precision thei’e is at Camp Borden, and throughout all the branches of tins Canadian flying School, a refreshing' atmosphere of capability and enterprise. The air of Canada invigorates. The interest of creating something new is a stimulus to these energetic young officers. All are young, it seemed to me, except one, who is called (throughout the Flying Corps, I believe) “ the oldest inhabitant,” and whose spirit,is that of a boy in spite of his nearly fifty years. The driving force of the brigadier-general puts vigour into everyone within his orbit.

All plans are made well in advance and exact time-tables drawn up for their fulfilment. Not once has there been a failure to come, up to time. Already arrangements are on paper for an undertaking almost as big and difficult as the building of the camp. That is the moving of it to Texas, a journey of 2,000 miles. Tn> Texas flying instruction can be given all winter. The climate is mild. There is no snow and not much wind. The United States Government have bargained to prepare three aerodromes in Texas and to provide all that is required as a set-off against the tuition given to American airmen. Tlio move will be made at the beginning of November. On the 2nd of the month one course of instruction will close at Borden. Another course will begin at - Fort Worth, ToJV.aa, m fcitt* a*!). Special Hmnfegf

straight from the aerodrome will carry officer instructors, cadets, mechanics, all the personnel of the camp, and a great mass of necessary material. No one lias anj doubt that the schedule of departure and arrival will be followed to the tick.

A CLASS ON THE CEILING, y At the camp and at the Flying School in Toronto, where it has borrowed quarters from the university, I saw ingenious methods in practice ; of teaching airmen how to use their , Lewis and Vickers gnus, how to drop ; bombs, how to corrects artillery tire. In one class-room a class was sitting on a platform running round the walls just below the ceiling. I ran up a ladder to sit with them. They were watching a big map spread over all the floor space of the room. It was a map of the country round Roperin ghe, in Flanders, drawn to a scale which made it look as the ground would, look from an aeroplane flying at 6,000 ft, Then I sat in a Curtiss machine, on the floor of another class room, and ( dropped bombs. Below the machine was a map like the other, I fixed a spot which looked like a farmhouse. I,pulled a lever and heard a whirring noise from a little apparatus fixed to the side. From the height at which I was supposed to be flyilig the bomb would take 20 seconds to reach the earth. At the end of 20 seconds the little apparatus released a little bomb which fell, not, I regret to say, on the farm, but still not far from it, Until a cadet has shown a certain degree of skill at this gairie he cannot go up and practise bomb-dropping from the air.

•• Oar aim all through,” one of the officer-instructors told me, “is to make the men familiar with the idea of being in the air. Airmen have to act automatically. They have no time to think over what they will do. We try to give them that automatic action, that perfect unison of hand with brain which is so necessary both tor'attack and defence.”

Gun-practice in the air is not easy without an enemy to ’ practise at. But this lack of targets has been in large part circumvented.

THE CADET’S COURSE Gunnery ;is the last course the cadet takes before he passes out. He begins at a camp near Toronto, whore he • learns something about wfiat “ being in the Army ” means. Next lie goes to school in Toronto. Then he goes to camp. Besides Borden there ar four smaller camps. I went to one of these, Leaside, and found it for its size .just as -well equipped and capably managed as the big one. But all cadets have to go through Borden before they are pronounced fit for their commissions. Three wings are permanently there, each consisting of five squadrons. Hn a squadron there are 18 machines and 00 men. Only 18 or 20 are airmen. The rest are meshanics and others engaged in keeping the machines in flying and fighting trim Squadrons are grouped and repairs done more quickly. Centralisation gives excellent results. Yet, even so, the machines in actual use at any given moment are seldom more than half of the total number on the' strength. But the hope is that this figure may be raised to 70 per cent.

For repairs of a more than light character both fuselages (bodies) and motors are sent to repair shops in Toronto. j I went over these. They are full of machine tools of the latest kind and provided with all means of dealing quickly and effectively with every kind of damage. k They ale able also to , make ‘ certain small parts and fittings and so relieve the pressure on the aeroplane factory. 1 This is, as I have hinted already, something new in factories. Designed for its special purpose by an active brain, it has features which, I believe, are original and which are extremely interesting One example. Tn the carpenters’ shop the framework of the wings passes from table to table, beginning as rough wood, becoming at every jstage more and more developed until at the last table the delicate though sturdy skeleton is complete, ready to be clothed with the “ doped ” linen which turns it into a wing. • The building of the factory, organised- by Mr F. W. Baillie—who, I am assured, “is a genius,” and who certainly gave me that impression when he took me round—was, equally with the preparation of the aerodrome, a marvel of speed. It was begun when the thermometer stood at 1 0deg. below zero. That.was in February The wide, high, light, and airy shops were occupied in April., Early in May the first aeroplanes were delivered. But the school orders are wisely not for “so many aeroplanes,” but for “so many machines and so many spares.”

THE SCIENCE OF “-SPARES.” This question of spare parts to replace breakages lias been turned into a science at Toronto Never before has the fixed relation between the supply of “ spares ” and the number of hours flow?! been exactly determined. It is now established that the amount of flying which can be done depends directly upon the number of “ spares ” available. Now the school directors know just, what quantity of “ spares ” must he provided to make that amount of flying possible.

Hew quickly “ spares ” can be used up was impressed upon me by the extent of the central store. In one month, for one wing alone, 190 new propellers were required. The number of damaged fuselages which T saw' being: repaired and of smashed ones which were being taken to pieces in order that the materials might bo used again, proved the good sense of the equipment, department in insisting that the factory devote almost as much of its energy to manufacturing spare parts as to delivering the finished article.

The cadets do not leave before they have passed all tests aud proved themselves f”lly equal to the work they will b# given to do at the front.