This Link Trainer is a box-like contrivance shaped like an aeroplane that moves up, down, sideways, and around very much like an aeroplane in the air. It can spin and dive and even crash, and sometimes is so realistic as to make the nervous squeamish and sick. There were many
airmen who got violently sick, and that usually spelled their doom for pilot training. Moving about on its sockets inside a circular room with mountains, lakes, and fields painted on the walls, the Link trainer all but put a man in the air. This machine operates on a system of air bellows that move the craft in various motions. After a couple of hours flying with the scenery, they would close the hood and then you were supposed to try to fly by instruments. The Link would respond to its control column in the same manner as would a real aircraft and gave the
instructor some indication as to whether or not a student was of pilot material.
As part of their training, they were put into the decompression chamber to test their airworthiness. This machine teaches the students how to act under most of the conditions they will have to face. A batch of men enter the chamber that will never leave the ground, but the pumps faithfully reproduce the conditions of an ascent to the stratosphere. The crew are tested at various levels of indicated altitudes. When the chamber climbs to 17,000 feet, blue finger tips tell of the lack of oxygen and respirators are donned.
The altitude chamber takes sixteen air recruits a day for a two-hour trip to the sub-stratosphere, where they will face conditions identical with those they will meet above Mother Earth. Here his reactions to power dives, sharp climbs, his responses to varying atmospheric conditions, with and without oxygen are recorded. Machines are hooked onto the crew such as the electrocardiogram that tests the young man's heart, and an electroencephalography that checks the reactions of his brain.
One person recollects that at ITS, the day started about six o'clock in the morning, and went right through until five o'clock at night. Then they had enough homework to keep them going until midnight. There were few people who took off for weekends, because it was really a high pressure study situation, and you always had the worry that you had to pass or you weren't going to get to pilot training. They lived this fear of not making it, and that made them work just that much harder. Life at the ITS is lived in an atmosphere more rarified than the rough and-ready, hop-to-it air of recruiting days. Life on an ITS station is not all work and psychoanalysis, however. Evenings are free and social relaxations are handy. On the station itself, as at the Dep-ot, movies, softball games, and other sports are at hand. In adjacent towns, homes and hostels are open to him; many a lifetime love affair had its beginning there.
At the completion of ITS, the students were selected on a basis of
academic standing, physical fitness, psychological factors, and personal preference as to future employment in the service. Upon graduation from here, there is a step-up in pay to $1.50 per day plus 75 cents flying pay.
The pilots-to-be went to one of the 22 Elementary Flying Training Schools (EFTS) while those selected for Observer training went to any one of the nine Air Observer Schools. At EFTS the student pilots finally got into the air. In appearance at least he is now the full-fledged
airman, possessor of flying suit and boots, gauntlets, goggles, and helmet. With his instructor he would spend ten flying hours over a period of some weeks, practicing landings and takeoffs in a Tiger Moth or Fleet Finch until the big day arrived when he went solo.
The first solo remains the greatest thrill of every flying man's career, something he remembers for the rest of his days as he tells of his squeegee take off and the hop, skip, and jump landing which, when he made it, brought him the greatest pride of a young airmans
life. Before this big event when the student goes aloft into the sky alone, little by little the instructor breaks him in and watches the student carefully. The lad must not solo before he is ready, nor while he is too cocksure, nor when he is jittery, nor must he wait too long and
go stale at the stick.
Soon after the solo, he is trying the gentler spins and short cross-country flights. It was not all flying though; almost half the time was taken up by classroom work. By the end of the seven-week course, the student pilot had a good basic knowledge of aviation and about 50 hours of flying in his log book. The successful graduates of EFTS got an increase in pay to $2.70 per day plus $1.00 flying pay, and went on to Service Flying Training School (SFTS).
