AIR TRAINING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26540, 15 August 1947, Page 9

AIR TRAINING

COURSE IN AMERICA NEW ZEALANDER CHOSEN P.A. AUCKLAND, Aug. 14. Selected as the first New Zealand airman to receive peace-time tactical flying training in the United States, Plight Lieutenant L. A. Rayner, D.F.C., R.N.Z.A.F.. has left Auckland for San Francisco. The first course of its kind to be held in the United States, the air tactical school which Flight Lieutenant Rayner will attend will take the form of a university course. It will be at Tyndall Field, near Panama City Florida, and will open on September 4. Instruction for the tactics of squadrons, wings, groups and commands will be given in four separate courses. Flight Lieutenant Rayner will attend the first course, which will last four months and will involve flying and ground training One of the top-scoring fighter pilots in the Pacific air war, Flight Lieutenant Ranyer was a member of the original No. 18 (Fighter) Squadron, RN.Z.A.F., and was decorated for his success in an< action against the Japanese over Empress Augusta Bay. Bougainville, late in 1943. He was until recently a flight commander of No. 14 (Fighter) Squadron, British Commonwealth Occupation Forces. Japan.