Training WW1 Pilots
When the First World War began in August 1914, military aviation was still in its infancy. Britain’s Royal Flying Corps had existed for barely two years, aircraft were fragile machines of wood, wire and fabric, and there was no established system capable of producing the thousands of pilots that would soon be required. During the next four years Britain transformed pilot training from what was often little more than experimental flying into a vast military organisation incorporating more than 100 training squadrons and around 30 specialist schools. By 1918 a young man entering flying training could pass through ground school, elementary flying, advanced instruction, gunnery and combat training before joining an operational squadron in France.
At the centre of Britain’s pre-war system was the Central Flying School at Upavon in Wiltshire. Established on 12 May 1912, it was intended to provide advanced training for both Army and naval aviators. When the school opened its first course in August 1912 there were only eight aircraft available from a planned establishment of 25. The facilities were basic wooden buildings standing on the exposed Wiltshire Downs, where high winds, rain and difficult flying conditions gave the early students an unforgiving introduction to military aviation. Among the officers passing through Upavon before the war were several men who would have enormous influence over the future of British air power. Hugh Trenchard attended the Central Flying School and later became commander of the Royal Flying Corps in France before becoming the first Chief of the Air Staff of the newly created Royal Air Force. John Salmond, another early pupil, would eventually become Marshal of the Royal Air Force. Perhaps the most important figure in the development of actual pilot training, however, was Robert Smith-Barry, whose revolutionary methods later changed the way pilots were taught throughout the world.
Before 1914 becoming a military pilot was remarkably different from the system that followed. Many officers were expected to learn to fly privately and obtain a Royal Aero Club certificate before joining the RFC. Civilian schools at locations such as Brooklands in Surrey, Hendon in north London and the Bristol School at Larkhill on Salisbury Plain therefore played an important role. Smith-Barry himself learned to fly at the Bristol School at Larkhill in 1911 before joining the RFC. The outbreak of war immediately exposed the weakness of this arrangement. When the RFC deployed to France in August 1914 it possessed only a small pool of experienced aviators. As losses increased and the number of operational squadrons expanded, Britain urgently needed hundreds and eventually thousands of replacements. The Central Flying School simply could not cope with the demand, so civilian flying schools were taken over and new Reserve Aeroplane Squadrons and training establishments appeared around Britain.
Large training aerodromes developed at places including Netheravon and Upavon in Wiltshire, Gosport in Hampshire and numerous other sites across southern and central England. By the later years of the war training airfields could contain rows of canvas or wooden hangars, workshops, classrooms, accommodation huts and dozens of training aircraft. What had started as a small collection of pioneering aviators was becoming an industrial-scale training organisation. A prospective pilot normally began as a cadet rather than immediately climbing into an aircraft. By the middle of the war many attended a School of Military Aeronautics, particularly those established at Oxford and Reading. Here they studied subjects that had become essential to modern aerial warfare, including aircraft engines, rigging, instruments, map reading, navigation, signalling, wireless, meteorology, artillery cooperation, machine guns and bomb dropping.
Only after completing this ground instruction did the pupil move to a flying training squadron. Early training aircraft included types such as the Maurice Farman, B.E.2 and various other relatively stable two-seat machines, although the Avro 504 eventually became one of the most important British trainers of the war. Teaching standards during the first half of the conflict could vary enormously. Some instructors were experienced pilots returning from operational units, while others were only slightly more experienced than the pupils they were teaching. Pressure to supply replacements to France meant training was sometimes dangerously rushed. In 1916 regulations required pupils to undertake at least 15 hours of solo flying, but wartime shortages and operational demands meant that even this was not always enough to prepare a young pilot for the realities of aerial combat.
Training itself could be lethal. Mechanical failures, inexperienced pilots, poor weather and primitive teaching methods produced a disturbing number of accidents. For much of the war the number of casualties suffered by training establishments could actually exceed those caused by enemy action among comparable groups of inexperienced pilots. A trainee might survive the dangers of learning to take off and land only to arrive in France with almost no experience of violent manoeuvres, formation flying or aerial combat. One officer became particularly alarmed by the situation. Major Robert Raymond Smith-Barry had commanded No. 60 Squadron in France during 1916 and repeatedly saw inadequately trained replacement pilots arriving at the front. Some could barely handle their machines confidently and were being expected almost immediately to fight experienced German pilots. Smith-Barry concluded that the fundamental method of teaching flying was wrong.
In December 1916 he was given command of No. 1 Reserve Squadron at Gosport in Hampshire and began developing what became known as the Gosport System. Instead of teaching pupils simply to keep an aircraft safely within its normal limits, Smith-Barry deliberately demonstrated what happened when those limits were exceeded. Pupils learned stalls, steep turns and eventually spins, but crucially they were also taught how to recover from them. It was a revolutionary idea. Smith-Barry believed that a pilot frightened of his aircraft would never be an effective combat aviator. The student needed to understand exactly why an aircraft stalled or spun and how his control movements affected it. Flying therefore became something to be understood rather than merely survived.
The Avro 504 proved particularly suitable for this method because instructor and student had their own controls. Communication in the deafening open cockpits was improved using the famous “Gosport Tube”, essentially a speaking tube running between instructor and pupil. The instructor could now talk to the student while manoeuvres were being demonstrated instead of relying almost entirely upon hand signals or conversations after landing. Smith-Barry also standardised the language used by instructors. Rather than every instructor inventing his own method, recognised explanations and demonstrations were developed. His instructors were expected to teach pupils why something happened and then allow them to experience it themselves. The results were dramatic. Pilots coming through Gosport were both more confident and more capable, and the RFC rapidly recognised the value of the system. In August 1917 the establishment became the School of Special Flying, effectively becoming a training centre for instructors who could then take Smith-Barry’s methods to other RFC schools. A manual entitled General Methods of Teaching Scout Pilots followed in October 1917.
Smith-Barry’s influence lasted far beyond the First World War. Hugh Trenchard later credited him with transforming the way pilots were trained, and many principles of modern military flight instruction can be traced back to the work carried out at Gosport. As the war became increasingly specialised, simply knowing how to fly was no longer enough. Pilots destined for fighter squadrons required aerial gunnery and combat instruction, while bomber crews learned bombing techniques, navigation and formation flying. Others specialised in artillery observation, photography, wireless communications or night flying. Air Fighting Schools were established where experienced combat pilots could pass on lessons learned over France. Students practised firing machine guns at ground targets and eventually at aerial targets. They were taught deflection shooting, aiming ahead of a moving aircraft rather than directly at it, together with attacking positions, evasive manoeuvres and formation tactics. A pilot destined to fly a Sopwith Camel, S.E.5a or Bristol Fighter therefore received far more specialised training by 1918 than the men who had crossed the Channel only four years earlier.
Britain also realised that training could not be confined entirely to the United Kingdom. Better weather, enormous open spaces and freedom from enemy attack made overseas training attractive. Schools operated in Egypt, while one of the largest programmes was established in Canada during 1917. Royal Flying Corps Canada created training centres including Camp Borden in Ontario, together with aerodromes around Toronto and specialist establishments such as the School of Aerial Gunnery at Beamsville. The principal training aircraft became the Canadian-built Curtiss JN-4 “Canuck”. The Canadian programme alone demonstrates the extraordinary expansion taking place. By the end of the war approximately 9,200 cadets had entered the organisation and 3,135 pilots had graduated. Around 2,500 of those graduates had already been sent overseas, with roughly another 300 preparing to leave when the Armistice arrived. More than 7,400 mechanics were also trained, alongside observers and other specialists, and the programme also helped train hundreds of American pilots.
Winter created problems in Canada, so RFC training units also operated from airfields around Fort Worth, Texas. Britain was effectively developing an international pilot-production system linking Britain, Canada, the United States and other parts of the Empire. Back in Britain the scale of expansion was equally remarkable. When war had begun in 1914, the RFC effectively relied upon a single central flying school and a mixture of military and civilian establishments. When the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service were combined to create the Royal Air Force on 1 April 1918, the new service inherited more than 100 training squadrons and approximately 30 specialist schools. The training organisation would eventually control thousands of aircraft.
The length and quality of instruction had also changed dramatically. By the Armistice in November 1918 a pilot could undergo a training process lasting many months and accumulate far more flying time than the hastily prepared aviators sent to France in the early years of the conflict. There was also another organisation producing wartime aviators alongside the RFC. The Royal Naval Air Service operated its own flying schools and establishments, developing pilots for reconnaissance, coastal patrols, bombing and naval aviation. Eastchurch on the Isle of Sheppey had been one of the great centres of British naval flying even before the war. Naval aviators such as Charles Samson and Arthur Longmore were among the early pioneers who helped prove that aircraft could operate in cooperation with warships. The distinction disappeared in April 1918 when the RNAS and RFC were merged into the Royal Air Force. Britain now possessed the world’s first independent air force and one of the largest aviation training structures ever assembled.
The transformation is extraordinary when the numbers are considered. In 1912, when the Central Flying School was created, Britain possessed only a tiny number of qualified military aviators. Six years later the RAF possessed thousands of aircraft, more than 100 training squadrons and a worldwide network producing pilots, observers, gunners, navigators, mechanics and instructors. Yet behind those impressive figures were young men learning one of the most dangerous professions imaginable. Their first aircraft often consisted of little more than a wooden frame, fabric covering, wires, an engine and two open cockpits. There were no modern flight simulators, sophisticated instruments or radios to guide them. Mistakes that today could be practised safely on the ground often had to be experienced for the first time thousands of feet above it.
Some pupils were killed before they ever reached the Western Front, while others survived training only to be posted almost immediately into one of the most intense aerial campaigns in history. Men such as Hugh Trenchard helped build the organisation, John Salmond helped shape its professional development, and Robert Smith-Barry fundamentally changed the way its pilots were taught. Of all Britain’s wartime flying schools, Gosport and Upavon therefore hold particularly important places in aviation history. Upavon represents the beginnings of organised British military flying, while Gosport represents the moment pilot training developed into a systematic science. In only four years Britain had moved from teaching a handful of adventurous officers how to operate primitive aeroplanes to running a worldwide system capable of producing thousands of trained military aviators. The methods developed on those muddy grass airfields during the First World War became the foundation upon which RAF pilot training was built for generations.
