Nova Scotia/Nunavut Command of The Royal Canadian Legion www.ns.legion.ca 69 continued ... On returning to Bournemouth a Warrant Officer advised me that there had been an administrative error and that I should have been posted to No. 52 Operational Training Unit, Royal Air Force, Aston Down, Gloucestershire, and that I was to go there immediately. He had packed my kit, had the completed posting papers and train tickets. He had a taxi and escorted me to the railway station and made sure that I was on the right train. He told me that there had been a mix-up and that another ‘Banks’ had been sent to No. 52 Operational Training Unit and that it would be “straightened out” when I presented the papers he had given me to the administrative officer at the school. No. 52 Operational Training Unit, Royal Air Force, Aston Down, Gloucestershire, England 15 Sep 41 I never met the other ‘Banks’ who, apparently, was also from Nova Scotia and had been selected to become a Bomber Pilot. (He was hustled off to a bomber training school - Handley Page Hampton aeroplanes, if I remember correctly) probably carrying instructions explaining the posting mix-up. I arrived at the Operational Training Unit and presented my papers. I was told that I had missed the ground school which gave technical instruction about the school’s Hawker Hurricane areoplanes, that the ground school was over, and that I should report to “D” Flight and read the Hurricane Manual. The Unit Instructors were pilots who after flying an operational tour were posted to non combative duties. After a period of time, usually six months, they were posted back to an operational squadron. I read the manual and was assigned to a P/O Kopecký who was from Poland or Czechoslovakia, and who, like many other pilots, had escaped from German occupied countries and joined the Royal Air Force. He spoke very little English and I could barely understand him. We commenced flying training in a Miles Master aeroplane. The Miles Master was an advanced trainer designed by Miles in the late 1930s. It was powered by a 715 hp Rolls Royce Kestrel 30 engine. It had two cockpits allowing the instructor to fly with his student. We flew two refresher and assessment flights in the Miles Master aeroplane; one for 20 minutes followed by one 40 minutes flight practicing circuits and landings. Then I flew solo for 1 hour and 5 minutes. Next came a check flight with a F/O Wheeler and I was deemed ready to fly a Hurricane. The school’s planes were Hurricane Mk. I models powered by 1,030 hp Rolls-Royce Merlin III b engines. They were armed with eight .303 inch Browning machine guns mounted in their wings. The first production aircraft had a Warren girder type fuselage of high tensile steel tubes, over which sat frames and longerons that carried a doped linen covering. The wings were fabric covered. The steel-tube structure allowed cannon shells to pass right through the wood and fabric covering without exploding. The school’s later models, which I flew, had metal-covered wings and a de Havilland or Rotol constant speed metal propeller. On the 28th of September, 1941 (one day past my birthday) a certificate was pasted into my log book. It certified that I had completed at least seven hours solo on a Master or Harvard aeroplane, had obtained 100% in the Standard Hurricane written exam and could perform all cockpit drill blindfolded in an instructional fuselage. In reality I had missed ground school, and the certificate was being pasted in my log book while my blindfolded cockpit check was being completed in the cockpit of the Hurricane I was about to fly solo. There was a second certificate which stated that I knew the correct fitting of theoxygen mask, the method of attaching the oxygen pipe to the mask and socket in the aircraft, how to read the gauges, how to turn on the oxygen and use the flow meter. continued ...
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