AIR TRAINING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 June 1939, Page 2

AIR TRAINING

IMPORTANT EXPANSION PROJECTED DEFENCE MINISTER OUTLINES PLANS. TRAINING AT WIGRAM AND BLENHEIM. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, June 29. Particulars of the reorganisation and expansion of the Royal New Zealand Air Force were announced by the Minister of Defence today. Mr Jones said that the flying training school at Wigram was to be increased substantially in size, so as to provide for the training of 140 pilots a year as against a contemplated output of 80 pilots a year under the earlier expansion programme. To provide for this, it was necessary to purchase some additional land, required in the building area, and to add additional hangars, instructional buildings and accommodation elation for officers and airmen. The Air Force Station at present under construction at Blenheim was to be converted to a flying training school, capable of .an output of 140 pilots a year. That was to say, the flying training school at Blenheim would be of equal capacity to the school at Wigram. The proposal involved the purchase of additional land, the erection of four hangars instead of two, and the provision of technical accommodation and further accommodation for offifficers and airmen. The further expansion in the programme of the Royal New Zealand Air Force would mean that young men selected for short service commissions would in future, instead of going straight to England, receive their first eight months’ training in New Zealand, and it was hoped to commence on the first stage of the expanded training scheme at the beginning of 1940.