TRAINING AIRMEN

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 62, Issue 8, 21 October 1941, Page 2

TRAINING AIRMEN

THE EDUCATIONAL SERVICE. REVIEW BY THE MINISTER. (P.A.) WELLINGTON, October iff. The Minister for Defence (the Hon. F. Jones), in an interview to-day, outlined the present position of pre-entry Air Forco training in this country. The Minister said that pro-entry Air Force training had begun in Zealand in January, 1940, long before other parts of the Empire had commenced similar training. Actually, the preliminary organisation of the work was put in hand a month after war broke out.

The course given to prospective airmen pilots, air observers, or air gunners before they reported for training at the initial training wing at. Levin contained their basic requirements in mathematics and in elementary science, together with a certain amount of elementary air navigation, theory of flight, meteorology, and signalling. The course was available, without cost, to all men between the ages of 17$ and 33 who have been accepted for air crew, and was an essential part of their training.

Since the outbreak of war, Mr Jones said, pre-entry air. crew training had been giyen to a large number of men, actually well into five figures, and the number in training continued to bo large. At present 3758 were under instruction, 1755 in classes from Wliangarei to Invercargill, and 2003 by correspondence from the educational services branch of the Air Department. Signal training, either in classes or over the air, continued to be a valuable part of pre-entry training, and Mr Jones said that as Minister for Defence he wished to express deep appreciation of the work being done by officers of the Post and Telegraph Department, who were co-operating with the educational services branch in rendering this form of instruction possible. As far as he was aware, signal training over the air had not yet been copied in any other part of the world; but it would appear likely that here again New Zealand was giving a lead to other parts of the Empire. The pre-entry training scheme was originally put in hand to afford opportunities for all suitable men to qualify for air crew; hut so effective was this common-sense method that it was being extended to other sections of the Air Force, and to other branches of the service. The special basic needs of these men were mathematics, magnetism and electricity, and radio theory. A programme of instruction had been prepared in these subjects, and for some months now some hundreds of men, enlisted as radio mechanics for the Navy of 1 for the Air Force, had been receiving pre-entry training along those lines. The course of instruction covered a period of some 17 weeks, and as fast as one group reached the necessary standard and finished, • another would take its place. . . > Air Training Corps. The Minister said that a wonderful response had been received from the schools throughout the country in the formation of school units of the Air Training Corps. Already 35 schools—secondary, technical and private—had indicated that units of the corps were being formed. The total enrolment to date from this source was somb 1500 cadets, covering the age group 15-18. These units had all been given a provisional syllabus of instruction, and a more detailed syllabus would be forwarded in a few days. Mr Jones referred to the large number of boys who had left school, but who were living outside centres in which town units of the Air Training Corpse had up to the present been formed, and yet were anxious to join the Air Training Corps. For these boys the educational services branch had arranged an interesting and instructive correspondence course, so that they, too, could, if desired, qualify themselves for entry td the Air Force by the time they reached the age at which they could be accepted. The Minister said he was satisfied that in no country in the world was entry to the Air Force in all its branches made easier than in New Zealand for a lad prepared to apply himself, and in no country was the Air Force more assured of a continuous supply of recruits of the right type and proper educational standard.