Chapter 13 Basic Flight Training -2 Enid, Oklahoma

Officially, we were doing our basic pilot training at the US Army Air Force Flying School in Enid, Oklahoma. We were Aviation Cadets. We were still on a fast and tight training schedule at Basic because the war needed pilots. Civilian manufacturers were building planes as fast as they could and the Army Air Force was training the men to fly them. Up until December ’42, when voluntary enlistments were terminated, the Army Air Force had been a volunteer organization. Then, if you were drafted into the Army, you could apply for enlistment in the Air Force but the Air Force recruiters skimmed “the best of the best” men from the Army for their program – and they told us about the rigorous selection because it meant we were surrounded by men of caliber. They were building our confidence, attitude and pride.

Things were a little less stressful at Enid because we knew we’d made the cut. Almost half the guys that started were gone, but we hadn’t washed out. Physical training was still a big part of our daily regimen. We marched to classes and infantry drill singing the Air Corps song, “Off we go into the wild blue yonder…”. We became part of a coordinated team.

Flight training in basic involved a lot of navigation, instrument flying, night flying, cross country flying, and formation flying. Learning how to do all these maneuvers involved both actual flight experience and learning in flight simulators called Link Trainers. Link Trainers were used mostly for learning instrument flying.

Formation flying was a challenge for most of us. You had to tuck your wing right behind the instructor’s wing and stay in exactly that position. It was easy if he was flying level and going straight ahead. It was still pretty easy to stay in position through speed increases and decreases. Soon there were turns, then climbing turns and even loops. We practiced over and over, the instructor constantly stressing the importance of formation flying. It seemed like that’s all we would be doing. Later, when we were in combat we’d be thankful for those stringent exercises.

Night flying was another challenge that required learning to go over and over the flight details from weather to headings to checkpoints. Every morning went to ground school learning how to navigate, studying plane engines and systems, practicing Morse Code. We learned radio procedures and theory of flight.

Finally, after weeks of practice we got to the end of Basic Training and were waiting our assignments to the next phase of training. Assignments were finally posted. I would be going to multi-engine advanced flight training in Pampa, Texas! Our graduation was celebrated at a Stag Dinner held in the cadet mess hall, but we didn’t eat out of our mess kits that night.