AIR FORCE TRAINING

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29380, 6 December 1960, Page 8

AIR FORCE TRAINING

Six-Day Survival

Course

Conditions in the last few days were appropriate for at Rast one group. The No. 12 training course of the Royal New Zealand Air Force was on a survival exercise in the Take Sumner area from November 29 to December 3. Aimed at supplementing the theoretical training the 17 members had already received on bushcraft and survival techniques, the exercise tried to simulate as closely as possible the conditions an airman would face in the event of a crash.

The party, accompanied by a physical training officer, was dropped near Lake Sumner and issued with the equivalent of emergency rations. For the six days of the course the party camped in the open using parts of parachutes as tents and living only off their rations. Expected to cover a certain amount of country during the course, the party walked from Lake Sumner to Lake Mason and then to Lake Taylor. Here members were allowed to use rifles for the first time to try to supplement their rations. No ill effects were reported by any of the members of the course even though for nearly all the time the weather was wet and cold.