The SFTSs were divided into single-engine and multi engine schools with those slated as fighter pilots being sent to an SFTS equipped with Harvards, and the potential bomber pilots being sent to the schools flying either Ansons or Cranes. The endless routine of aeroplanes moving in and out of the training schools was as smooth as the clockworks of a precision watch made by a craftsman.

The ten-week SFTS course was also a combination of ground school and flying exercises, but with more advanced flying exercises such as night flying and instrument flying being added to the curriculum. In classrooms the pilot must move again through higher courses in navigation, engines, airframe, airmanship, meteorology, armament, wireless and photography. In his leisure he studies.

His day may begin at 2 am, for he is an all-hours flier. Inclement weather does not keep him grounded, as at his elementary school. His flying tests beyond the realm of aerobatics take in all manner of landings; forced, power, gliding, rough ground. He must become acquainted with all the wrinkles of trick take-offs. He must pass navigation tests in which he must fly for ninety miles on a given bearing, change course and fly hooded, on instruments, for another distance then with the aid of a map, fly home by checking objects such as rivers and towns on his map. The pilots also went for a two week course at Bombing and Gunnery School (B&Gs) where they learned the basics of this area.

Then the day to remember-Wings Parade, the graduation of the pilots. Approximately one-third of the students would be commissioned as Pilot Officers upon graduation. The pilot officers were given an increase in pay to $4.25 a day plus $2.00 for flying costs, and got the next train home for a ten-day leave, before leaving for the actual Theater of War. They would usually have to spend some time at an Operational Training Unit (OTU) either here in Canada or overseas, flying actual battle conditions, without being involved in the fighting function.

The students selected to be trained as observers (navigators and bomb-aimers combined) pored over maps and charts for 14 hectic weeks as they worked in ground school and flew training trips, until they had mastered the fine art of navigating an aircraft with pinpoint accuracy in any kind of weather.

The great Bomber and its cargo of "sudden-death-to-the-enemy" lose all value, as well as the lives of the crew, should the young man in the navigator's seat, the Air Observer, be improperly trained, slipshod or inaccurate in guiding the aircraft to its target and bringing it home again.

Maps, charts, compasses, bomb-sights, and cameras become the undergraduate's tools from the moment he reports from Initial Training School, or from the Elementary Flying School (which has retired him from a pilot's course) to his Observer's station. He had to learn Morse Code both on the buzzer and the aldis lamp. He had to be able to navigate the bomber as well as aim the bomb load and push the button to drop it at the precise moment, and photograph to record bomb destruction, troop placements, railway yards, etc. He must know how to place a stick of bombs neatly astride a target from a mile to four miles aloft. That meant knowing how to calculate the speed of his own craft, the wind speed and that of his target, if it should be a moving object. This he learns on the bombing range adjacent to his school, over which students practice under actual conditions to be met later. He must know what to look for as he flies, how to report it to his station and to other members of his crew. He learns that the job is to come upon the enemy unseen, pounce, and get away.

Originally the Plan provided for the training of three aircrew but the training became more diversified. The category of air observer was abolished and replaced by four specialized trades of straight navigator training, a navigator with specialized wireless training, air bomber which drops the bombs, as well as additional classes of straight air gunner and flight engineer. The straight AGs, as they became known, took a twelve-week course on air firing, then went directly overseas.