a flight lieutenant, who sported the half-wing of an Air Electronics Officer. They had been successful with applications to retrain as pilots. Phil, like me, was essentially straight out of school, but dry of wit and approachable.
Several older cadets had a good amount of flying experience with the civilian world. Some of the ‘crabs’ were brash and worldly, and what I would come to know as the usual jokes about the navy flew our way; there was cause for much hilarity in the showers that first night. The ex-sailors on our course had spent time at sea, and due to the hazard of scalding water and doubtful water pressure in the ships’ showers, it was de rigeur for them to call, ‘Watch your backs!’ when the taps were turned on or off. It was from that a natural progression for the air force to joke about ‘dropping the soap’. Many of them were just, as were we, little more than schoolboys.
In all, there were some forty of us. We were attached to Number One Flying Training School (1 FTS). The RAAF cadets had just completed their introductory officer training and, like us, were about to commence proper flight training. But there were shadowy references to names of others who were not now present, and we midshipmen learned that there had already been some dropouts, and a failure or two. The aim was to successfully complete some sixty hours of basic flying training at Point Cook. Those who made the standard would then proceed to advanced training on the Macchi jet trainer at Number Two Flying Training School (2 FTS) at RAAF Base Pearce, Western Australia.
Next morning, the air over the base was filled with two distinct sounds. A throaty roar from big, stocky Winjeel trainers, and a higher pitched snarl and buzz from other more streamlined but smaller machines – these were CT-4’s. The Winjeel was singing its swansong as a tool for training military pilots. Australian-designed, powered by an American ‘radial’ engine, the Winjeel dated back to the late 1950s, but as we were to later find, spoken of fondly by the instructors. Its engine had nine cylinders radiating from a central crankshaft and produced 450 horsepower. It stood imposingly on tail wheel-type undercarriage, its blunt nose upthrust. A man’s aeroplane! However, 100 Course was to fly the CT-4.
I caught glimpses of the CT-4s during the days of the initial ground lectures. Derived from an Australian design, these New Zealand-built machines sat on springy ‘tricycle’ landing gear, level on a nose wheel, which made for easy handling on the ground. I savoured the sight of a CT-4 taxiing, two white-helmeted figures under a glistening ‘bubble’ canopy which promised a great view of the earth and sky. A red beacon pulsed purposefully behind the cockpit. Unlike the gaudy silver and ‘DayGlo orange’ Winjeel, the CT-4 was mustard yellow on top with dark green lower surfaces, punctuated by the air force’s ‘kangaroo’ roundels and large ‘side numbers’. The wings were square and stubby. The engine’s horizontally-opposed six cylinders, three on each side, snarled through whiskery exhaust stacks. It would be thrilling to fly one of these machines: so modern in comparison with the old Auster, with me kitted out like a fighter pilot under a white helmet and spooky opaque black visor, encased in a fire-resistant green Nomex flying suit, gloves and a yellow ‘Mae West’ life jacket. But, before that would be ‘ground school’.
Air force cadets and by association, we naval midshipmen, were not treated with the grudging respect as trainee officers that we had been in Cerberus. 1 FTS students Messed (ate) with several hundred Air Force Academy students who were working towards degrees in Engineering or Science prior to aircrew training in a huge dining hall, which was at least of a modern construction, unlike our accommodation. I felt very insignificant among the forty odd members of 100 Pilots’ Course, the two senior courses and the masses of Academy cadets. There was, however, a Senior Naval Officer (SNO) assigned to 1 FTS who was also a working flying instructor, one or two other navy instructors, and a petty officer who attended to the administration of the midshipmen on the pilots’ courses. The navy instructors mixed and matched with those of the air force in exactly the same role, and trained air force students as well as the navy midshipmen. The SNO and the other navy instructors were reasonably approachable, but I was to find out that some of their air force counterparts would not be so easy to deal with.
It was initially a matter of doing what I had done in my last year of high school: study diligently, summarise, and prepare, prepare, prepare. The routine was: awake early after a fitful sleep on an ancient, sagging sprung-wire bedstead, downstairs to the communal shower and toilet, dress, cold eggs and greasy bacon cafeteria-style in the Cadets’ Mess, form up outside the accommodation block complete with bulging brief case of manuals and notes, then march off to lectures. One cadet or midshipman would be nominated as the Course Orderly (‘Course Horse’) for the week, responsible for punctual attendance at all lectures, and other menial responsibilities, including fetching the evening sangers from the Mess. Aircraft Operations (engine and airframe construction), Airmanship (rules and regulations, air traffic control), Aerodynamics, Navigation, Flight Instruments, Radio … each alone not a difficult subject for a motivated trainee military pilot, but the sheer volume of information was a challenge, along with the short time allocated to absorb it all and then to regurgitate it on an examination paper.
After a hurried lunch there would be afternoon lectures and possibly a physical training session or drill. We then marched back to Block 46 to study or chat with course-mates. We might have a few drinks before dinner in that vast Mess with the food slopped out of tureens that we would take back to bare wooden tables topped with blue plastic table mats. After dinner would be evening study in earnest. There was always an exam to prepare for and I was now well aware of the situation: a failure would result in just one re-test and if still unsatisfactory, the candidate would be ‘scrubbed’ even before flying training commenced. Later, the shout of ‘sangers!’ would result in the noisy stampede down the wooden stairs, the sandwiches devoured in an instant. Then more study for me until lights out with the clatters, door slams and bangs in the old wooden building slowly diminishing as my course-mates turned in.
Scrubbed. One can scrub a floor, dirty clothing, or scrub a sporting match or other event due to bad weather or change of plans. Since World War II, the word has been brutally applied to the removal of a pilot from his course after failure at RAAF flying training units. Course photographs displayed in various locations of the 1 FTS administration and operational areas baldly bore crosses through the faces of those students who had been scrubbed. Some faces were just white silhouettes after liberal use of correction fluid. Failed students would be offered the choice of other career paths in the air force, or a return to civilian life. One or two of the students on 100 Course were already starting to struggle, and the day came when a further one or two were scrubbed before they got near an aircraft. I recall despondent yet relieved faces that it was all over. It was usually the younger ones, like myself, and most would be off the base in a day or two. The training of a military pilot was expensive, and, while an individual student may have been intelligent and motivated, he had to come up to standard within the required time: the air force and navy had neither the budget nor the manpower for much remedial training. Failure of an air test would be followed by a session of remedial instruction, then one more, and only one, retest, known as a ‘scrub ride’. For the ground school, my previous avid reading, aviation background, motivation and diligent study habits kept my head above water, and my academic training results were good.
Interspersed with the aviation theory was drill (air force style) and occasional weapons training. We were issued with Self Loading Rifles (SLRs), 0.762 calibre weapons that were to be kept clean, used for drill and very occasionally, live firing. These were kept in racks in our rooms and subject to inspection. My room (there were no cabins in the air force) in the old block was a wooden world. Green-painted planks lined the walls down to a blue linoleum floor laid on second-floor boards that supported a small mat, an old wooden wardrobe, a tiny wooden desk and the ancient iron bedstead. It was of course kept in military neatness, but a few photographs and cuttings of military aircraft and one or two familiar books added a homely touch. Rooms and personal kit were inspected on Tuesday evenings, the air force colloquialism being ‘panic night’, and in fact ‘panic’ was also a verb in the air force: one ‘panicked’ one’s room before inspection by the Warrant Officer Disciplinary, or WOD. The WOD shadowed the courses like a predator, eying dress and drill standards,
