WIGRAM AS CHIEF TRAINING STATION FOR N.Z. AIR FORCE

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 December 1950, Page 6

WIGRAM AS CHIEF TRAINING STATION FOR N.Z. AIR FORCE

CHRISTCHURCH, This Day (P.A.) —With the transfer of multi-engine conversion training from Ohakea to Wigram, the Christchurch station has taken over the complete training schedule for the Royal New Zealand Air Force. Other phases of training of air force men in the Dominion have been done at Wigram for some time, but until lately they always had to go to Ohakea for courses on multi-engined aircraft. The training set up at Wigram has been changed to accommodate the altered syllabus necessitated by the transfer. Formerly Wigram had an advanced flying school, but this has been replaced by an organisation known as a central flying school, the policy of which provides for (1) training and testing flying instructors; (2) instrument weather training; (3) multi-engine conversion training; (4) supervising territorial squadron flying . training; (5) supervising air training corps flying training in aero clubs; (6) testing aero club flying instructors and active reserve flying instructors.

The syllabus for all training will be issued by the Air Department, which in addition will decide monthly the flying commitment for the central flying school on the completion of their “all-through” flying course at flying training school at Wigram. Cadet pilots will be posted to the central flying school for multi-en-gine conversion training. Other pilots requiring advanced flying training will be selected by the Air Department and posted to Wigram.