The Making of an Airman

THE MAKING OF AN AIRMAN.
—
Public School Spirit of the R.A.F.

COMMON-SENSE SYSTEM.

By ERNEST SMITH.
II

    The aspirant has been passed into the Royal Air Force through this one channel, which ensures a standard of fitness. He goes on to the Cadet Brigade, where he secures uniformity of training and equal opportunity. Military drills, physical exercises, and sports engage his working hours for about two months, but really the most important result achieved with the Brigade is the laying of the foundation for the forming of the esprit de corps of the flying branch of the national service.
    Londoner and Colonial, provincial and Irishman are brought together in this great moulding centre. The discipline of the new force, severe on the actual training ground, is based more on the public school lines, even to the nomination of group prefects, for the hours of leisure and recreation. It is the common-sense treatment of a mass of young men, who are put on their honour as cadets to uphold the honour of their corps.
    "I make no regulations," the Brigadier-General told me. "If I put public-houses 'out of bounds' some men might go in for a drink on the sly, and that is what I don't want. I just explain to these lads that the use of alcohol may dull the senses which for an airman it is essential shall be always alert.

TOBACCO AND NERVES
    "I don't restrict their smoking, but I tell them how the abuse of tobacco may affect their nerves; and they know that it is my opinion that any young fellow who contracts a disease that undermines his health is, in these times of war, a traitor to his career—and the result is splendid. It is the rarest thing possible to have any cause of complaint on the score of the lads' personal habits."
    The cadets during this two months' preliminary training are their own disciplinarians. A delinquent brings such discredit on the squadron that his comrades take his conduct in hand, with the result that the best traditions of public school life are early imparted into the spirit of the youths, from whatever social rank they may have come.
    Every cadet is taught boxing. The first reason is its value in promoting agility, body and head balancing which are so requisite to flying, and aggressiveness—an essential qualification for the man who is destined to become a successful air fighter. The second reason is that the boxing bout is accepted by the cadet as the medium of settling any personal differences with a colleague.

ARBITRAMENT OF THE RING
    The boxing gloves are the duelling foils of the aspirant airman. A mess room or dormitory squabble is settled in the squadron boxing ring, but the Brigade Commander says that is rarely happens that lads who have been wrangling don't shake hands before carrying their differences to that tribunal of honour.
    The drill of the Air Force cadets is very much snappier that that of their brothers in the infantry. Their marching is a revelation. The short, quick step of the French piou-piou has been adopted, the arm swing as well as the sharp, jerky salute are characteristic of the alertness that the whole system of physical training is designed to inculcate in the brigade. Its general smartness was admired and praised by the King on the occasion of a recent visit his Majesty paid to the brigade when he first-rate appearance of these bright lads was described in "The Daily News."
    A little instructional training is incorporated in the two months devoted to improving physical fitness and discipline, but it is quite elementary, and the cadet starts off, already more of man than when he attested, to get the theory and practice of flying. He comes into smaller groups, and it is to one of many instructional schools in Great Britain that we proceed to see him graduate for airman.

STUDYING ENGINES
    The classes tend to become smaller, the personal attention given to the individual cadet more noticeable. The first group we came across was learning about the stays and wires forming the framework of a machine, in order that they might satisfy themselves as to its stability before going into the air. The second was studying the fixing of propellers, the problems of ignition. The next groups were busy studying engines. These youths were not only making themselves masters of the motor power of the aeroplane they were qualifying to fly, but they have the opportunity of making themselves acquainted with the mechanism and features of any engine that has been used for aircraft that they may meet on the front.
    Of the hours of personal instruction given to cadets in these instructional schools, the bulk is spent on engines and aerial navigation. The rigging of machines and instruments occupies many hours of study, and there are courses of signalling and wireless telegraphy in addition to the general lectures included in the training. This is the really hard part of the work of the pilot of the future. It has its easy and pleasant stages.

The Daily News - Friday, September 27, 1918