AIR TRAINING

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21280, 26 November 1940, Page 7

AIR TRAINING

FLYING SERVICE PLANES R.N.Z.A.F. OHAKEA STATION FINE QUALITY OF AIRMEN Ohakea is one of the Royal New Zealand Air Force stations devoted to the intermediate and advanced courses. There the airman does his flying in service aircraft and feels the atmosphere of the real thing. When the young airman emerges from the elementary flying stages at Taieri, Bell Block (New Plymouth), Harewood and shortly, Whenuapai, he has done 50 hours’ flying in sturdy biplanes—half solo and the other half in dual control machines with an instructor ready to take over if necessary. Some recruits from aero clubs have completed the elementary course with 120 hours of flying to their credit. Planned in peace-time for home defence, Ohakea covers nearly a square mile. Its two immense concrete hangars were built to house the Wellington bombers which instead of coming to the Dominion were diverted on the outbreak of war to active service in Europe. There are now three other hangars and. except for the landing field, there is not much ground unoccupied, an indication of the Air Force’s rapid expansion. The Intermediate Course Half the time of the airman at Ohakea is devoted to lectures, the rest is given to flying. Two months are spent in the intermediate stages, single and multi-engined machines being .used. Flying instruction is so much an individual matter that one flying officer has to be provided for four and not more than five pupils and he spends most of his day in the The pilot navigator is required to fly a triangular course of not less than 150 miles, keeping a log and ! working from strip maps. He is ; accompanied by an instructor, but j there are solo flights of not less than ! 100 miles with a landing at some j other station. Another important test is a flight of 200 miles on a j triangular course, with an inter- , mediate landing, a log being kept of every phase of the flight. The pupil’s | capacity in straight flying at ac- j curate speed and height, as well as In recovering from unusual positions, is carefully tested. “Blind” flying is now important, and apart from tests in the Link trainer, the airman must make a triangular flight of 35 miles with the hood over the cockpit and a safety man at the dual control. Night landings, three with an instructor and three solo, are in the intermediate programme, also a climb to 15,000 feet, at which height he remains for half an hour. He must also be able to do loops, half rolls and slow rolls. Having achieved all these things in two months and passed many more examinations, the young airman receives his “wings”—his pilot’s badge. With Guns and Bombs Then comes the advanced stage. At Weraroa the pilot familiarised himself with all types of guns used in the air. At Ohakea he has range practice on the ground and his first experience with the camera gun which provides a clear record of results and “saves the live stuff.” i Later he deals with realities when he shoots at a drogue or target. A plane tows the drogue 300 feet below it and about a thousand feet astern. The gunner has to chase and fire at the drogue with his front gun. Practical bombing is done in a remote part of the district from a height of 6000 feet. The air pupil is regarded as proficient if he lands a fair proportion of his bombs within 25 feet of the target. Practice bombs fall in the same way as the real thing and release a cloud of smoke on landing. Test charts at Ohakea show that a competent bomber can land eight bombs within a radius of 18 yards of the ground target from a height of 10,000 feet.

Ground tests of bomb markmanship are conducted in a lofty dark room with remarkable optical equipment. The bomber pupil lies prone at a height and looks down at a pictured landscape which is constantly moving—it is the sort of thing he would see from his position in a bomber in flight. The pupil operates his sighting instruments but as he watches the landscape picture, 20 feet in diameter, moving below him he must decide what is the drift and what other factors must be taken into account. Haphazard bombing is not welcome. The pupil is told to hit a particular object in the moving field, and when he presses the firing button a flash records the spot which would be hit. Hundreds of these test cost little and save much petrol and material to say nothing of time. Blind Flying on the Ground Five hours of tests in the Link trainer are essential to the “blind flying” programme. This marvellous machine can reproduce in the lecture room almost every phase of actual flying. The pupil sits in what appears to him to be a hooded cockpit with all the necessary instruments and controls. Through earphones he receives the instructor s orders and accordingly shapes his course. But the Link trainer can be made to drift or uncannily to creep out of control and the airman must meet these conditions as he would in a service aircraft. His reactions are strictly charted and afterwards he may see them, with the instructor to direct his attention to his weaknesses and his successes. This wonderful apparatus can provide him with almost all the problems of flying, and actually it is more sensitive than the average plane. In the air also, severe night tests are applied. Among these are night flights in big machines with five pupils aboard. The courses take the machines over sea as well as over land, and the pupils take turns at navigating, all keeping complete logs of the course and flying conditions.

To keep one airman in service ten other skilled people have to be employed. and the size of the maintenance facilities at Ohakea emphasise this point. All machines in service hangars display a sign. If the notice says “unserviceable” no one may

use it until the responsible maintenance officer certifies in writing that it is again fit for the air. Checks and safeguards are laid down in mandatory terms and admit of no qualifications. There are skilled inspections of planes between flights, periodically at 10, 40 and 120 hours’ flying, the last being a major inspection. At least twenty trades are represented in the N.Z.R.A.F. maintenance staff and the training for these is severe. New Zealand’s Fine Material Throughout the Air Force in New Zealand is a generous supply of former Royal Air Force officers, some on loan, others who have come back from retirement. Wing Commander Hewlett, D. 5.0., 0.8. E., who controls Ohakea, has seen the Royal Air Force develop into its present splendid efficiency. Now he is handling New Zealanders to reinforce that great fighting arm. And what calibre of man is the New Zealand recruit? In a series of articles on the subject, Charles E. Wheeler gives the answer. “From a number of experienced overseas officers I got opinions, readily given because they are so satisfied. ‘Absolutely first class’ is the verdict. These English officers consider that there is more self-reliance, more initiative than they have formerly come across and for that reason they say that, with equal training, the New Zealand airmen are among the best in the world.” Throughout the training the standards are kept high and the axiom learnt early remains “Training makes you one step better than the enemy.” This and the inspiration of the R.A.F.’s. traditions, those of its early years as well as those it has been writing since the war against the Nazis began, go to make the new Zealand flying fighters a credit to their instructors.