BCATP Back story

[Pathfinder]

Here's one you probably won't find in history books.

While visiting one of favorite haunts--the book shop at the USAFM--a few years ago I looked over and noted the gent standing next to me wearing a blue blazer with a miniature set of Kings Crown RAF wings on his lapel. Not being shy, I asked if he had been in the RAF. In a perfectly West Texas accent he said he was in the AAF during WW2. Of course I inquired about how he came by the wings (an Eagle Squadron vet maybe?) and he told me this story.

He was a flight instructor very early in the war. "We had a thing called the BCATP..." He was surprised when I actually put words to the letters and realizing that I knew something about the subject continued...

"They were sending all the Brits and other Commonwealth flight students over here to learn to fly. In short order they became very concerned that the students were pranging planes (let alone damaging themselves and our instructors) at an alarming rate. General Arnold created a team of investigators to go out and figure out why this was happening. It didn't take us very long to discover the reason.

"Despite being rather well educated and in great physical shape these fledgling pilots came from a culture where the most usual mode of transportation was either a bicycle or a train. Hardly any of them owned a car, and consequently they had no concept of speed, or of physically making a machine go fast. Because of that, when they took a plane up to take off speed the sensation of going faster than they had ever gone before overwhelmed their senses." I then asked the obvious question...what did you do to fix that?

"We phoned our report back to Washington and they instructed us to go to the nearest junk yard and buy up all the running automobiles we could get our hands on. We put these at the end of a runway and got the students in them as passengers--then sort of taught them how to drive--and had them floor the thing and get it up to about 80 mph simulating a takeoff. After doing this several times they understood the concept of speed and the rate of crashes declined significantly."

What about the wings? "We were cited in orders from the RAF for our investigation and solution to the problem so I wear the wings to reflect that."

Just thought I'd share this story...

Dave

[Django]

That's cool!

[Second Air Force]

This isn't totally related to the auto training, but there were a couple of civilian-run flying training schools here in the Tulsa area during the War. Spartan School of Aeronautics originally started training RAF students at what is now Tulsa International and later moved to Miami, Oklahoma and Muskogee Hatbox Field. I have read accounts of how many of the students had never driven a car. They also couldn't fathom how stinkin' HOT it gets in the middle of the USA in the summer months!

Great thread!
Scott

[K225]

The American involvement in the BCATP is outlined here:
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/ ... RTA0010398.
Its no wonder Texas was considered the 11th province! (Billy Bishops comment at the wings cemony in Captain of the Clouds)
When Pearl Harbour was attacked Dec 7, 1941 6129 Americans were serving in the RCAF and 3797 went back when the US entered the war.
By war's end 8864 American's served in the RCAF and 5263 completed their service with the RCAF, 704 were killed either in training or combat. A further 300 Americans served in the RAF.