AIR FORCE TRAINEES

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23590, 18 March 1942, Page 6

AIR FORCE TRAINEES

* METHOD OF INSTRUCTION

CHANGED

(P.A.I WELLINGTON, March 17. As entrants for the Royal New Zealand Air Force are now to be called up for territorial service, a change in the preliminary method of their instruction has been decided upon, according to an announcement by the Minister for Defence (the Hon; F. Jones) to-night. The present system of instruction in scattered classes and by correspondence will cease. Mr Jones said that trainees when called up for territorial service would perform their normal service with the Army until siome three or four months before they were required for entry into the initial training wing or in the case of radio mechanics to the electricity and wireless school. For this period of three or four months they would then be transferred to the various Air Force stations and be given an intensive course in those subjects in which their predecessors had received instruction at evening classes or by correspondence. Portion of their time, added the Minister, would be devoted to physical training in order that their physical fitness might correspond with their mental fitness. Instruction at Air Force stations would be given by Air Force education officers, some of whom were already at the stations, while others would be transferred from Air Headquarters. The present classes would cease from March 20. The Air Training Corps classes, however, would still continue and would not be affected by the change.