in-line, including the Rolls Royce Merlin which at that time was powering the still-operational 4-engined Lincoln bombers and other aircraft. These engineering aspects were taught by a very experienced Flight Sergeant of the 'old school' who was a wonderful artist when it came to blackboard and chalk drawings of engines, propeller hydraulics, and carburettors. He was a joy to watch and learn from.
Aviation medicine was further explained to us by the Station MO, Sqn.Ldr. Routh. I was to meet him again at the very end of my RAF career. There were sessions in the gym, Wednesday afternoon sports, and a range of other activities all designed to further our knowledge of flying and associated subjects.
One thing that particularly sticks in my mind about ground school was the lecture cinema. It had very comfortable club chairs, and if a film was shown immediately after lunch following a morning's flying it was not unusual for at least half the class to fall sound asleep and for the other half to have missed at least some of the film. Fortunately for us, most films were shown more than once during the 6 month course. The films themselves covered topics extending from medical matters, road safety in RAF vehicles, arctic, jungle, and desert survival, surviving crash landings and ditchings, technical topics directly related to aircraft management and, most interestingly, the latest in aircraft developments. We were grateful, owing to the 'sleep factor', that we were never tested on the subject matter of any film until it had been shown at least twice.
Unlike Desford there were parades each Saturday, and an AOC's inspection and parade to prepare for.2 There were many rehearsals so that we would put on the best possible demonstration of parade ground discipline and not let ourselves or our Station down.
Before our flying began we had to report individually to the Parachute Section to collect a parachute and see it checked over before signing for it. The Section was run entirely by WRAFs. On approaching the open door the continuous string of expletives I heard as part of their normal conversation almost made me cringe. I had never heard women using such language before. If the bawdy song episode at Desford was rough, the way these women strung the most unmentionable words together was a lesson in the grammar of the obscene. The swearing stopped as I entered. I chose my parachute - No.13 - the one that no-one would ever take instead of their own, and took it back to my clothing locker in the Flight hut. Everyone flew with almost anyone else's parachute but mine stayed where it was, just as I thought would be the case. From then on, wherever I flew in the RAF I always chose the same parachute number. It never was borrowed and, thankfully, I never had to use it. We were, however, thoroughly trained in how to bale out, how to control a parachute, and in landing techniques. We had by this time spent many hours in the gym learning how to fall and roll over properly so as to minimise injury on landing.
Flying a stolid, slow, clapped out, twin-engined, non-aerobatic Oxford was entirely different to handling the light and agile Chipmunks we had left behind. I think what worried us most at first was the retractable undercarriage. We all dreaded forgetting to raise it or, worse, lower it before landing. Such basic operations were, of course, instilled into us when we learned, even before our first flights, all the necessary cockpit drills by heart and, indeed, as with all service pilots, to recite them at all appropriate stages of start-up, flight, in the circuit, after landing, and shut down.
Taxying was easier than in a Chipmunk for several reasons: the forward view was better, tarmac taxiways were used rather than grass, the wheels were set wider apart and differential braking was more effective, and it was possible to increase
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2 The annual visit and inspection by the Air Officer Commanding the Group in Flying Training Command of which our Station was a part. This was a very important occasion and things had to be absolutely right throughout all aspects of the Station and its work. 25