The Training Standards

raining was a field in which there were large differ­ences between the men of the two air forces. In 1941 all Luftwaffe airmen were carefully hand-picked vol­unteers. The basic training of the recruited Luftwaffe personnel was conducted at the Flugzeugfuhrerschulen (pilot training schools) of the Luftwaffe’s Fliegerausbildungsregiments (flight training regiments). Here, individuals suitable for pilot training were selected. Following basic training, the prospective pilots were trained at the A, B, and C pilot training schools. Each letter—A, B, and C—corresponded to different aircraft classes. The different classes were in turn divided into Al, A2, Bl, B2, Cl, and C2.

The Luftwaffe flight training opened with the A level and extended over Bl and B2 to Cl and C2. All levels included successively detailed training in aerobatics. At the A and В flight training schools, the would-be pilot received intense theoretical training followed by training on how to fly aircraft in various ways and in various situations. The conditions for the A2 flight certificate included a basic training of sixty training flights with a total of fifteen flight hours, including long-distance cross­country flights, formation flying, dead-stick landings, and four landings on open ground away from an airfield.

To receive his Luftwaffe wings, the pilot candidate then went on to the В and C courses. The В courses included high-altitude flights, precision landings, cross­country flights, instrument flights, night landings, and training to handle the aircraft in dangerous situations.

Having completed the В schools, the half-trained pilot was posted either to the weapons school or to a C school, depending on his goals and abilities. At the

special field-bomber, dive-bomber, Zerstorer, fighter, reconnaissance, or transport aviation—with thorough gun­nery and bombing training. The C student was then trained in handling multi-engine aircraft types. With pro­ficiency in navigational and instrument flying taught here, the basis for blind-flying training was created. For a bomber, reconnaissance, or transport pilot, blind-flying school was the last step before he received his Luftwaffe wings. As he finally arrived at a combat unit, the fresh Luftwaffe bomber pilot usually had 250 flight hours.

A graduate from a complete A-through-C military pilot training course normally was transferred to an Erganzungsgruppe (replacement group) of a combat wing. Here the new pilots received combat training under supervision of experienced pilots prior to being posted to a combat group. In 1941, Luftwaffe airmen were doubt­less among the best educated fliers of the world.

The training of a Soviet combat pilot in the early forties was inferior in most aspects to the German train­ing and had deteriorated considerably during the thir­ties. The German system of picking volunteers had no Soviet counterpart in 1941. Instead, large numbers of draftees were simply sent to military’ flight training schools.

The first Soviet air academy, the Zhukovskiy Acad­emy, was founded in 1922. In the late twenties and thirties, aviation was very popular in the Soviet Union. A key role was played by the Communist Friends of Aviation association, which in 1927 merged with similar associations for the promotion of volunteer defense work into the Osoaviakhim Society. The first commander of Osoaviakhim, General Robert Eideman, a hero from the Russian Civil War, managed to raise public military interest to a point where Osoaviakhim reached fourteen million members in 1934. Under Eideman’s supervision, aviation clubs mushroomed all over the country. A severe setback to the continued progress of Osoaviakhim was the purge and execution of Eideman, who was accused of “Trotskyism,” in 1937.

During the early years, the Osoaviakhim aviation clubs ensured that there were more than enough volunteers competing for military flight training schools. However, the system of “special recruitment” played an increas­ingly sinister role. Party or Komsomol (Communist Youth Organisation) branches received instructions from above to send certain percentage of their members to military flight training schools. These political branches picked

through “special recruitments” became good pilots; but; there were several who never should have been assigned to aviation.

Between 1927 and 1938 the flight training schools; trained pilot candidates for two and a half years. In 1938,’ the third Soviet Five-Year Plan called for shorter pilot training. In February’ 1941, a new system of yet again shortened pilot training in the USSR was establish® For prospective “ordinary” pilots there were primary flight training schools (Aviatsionnaya Shkola Pervonachal’nogc Obucheniya), with a four-month course in peacetimeand three months in wartime, followed by military flight train­ing schtxtls with a ten-month peacetime course and six months in wartime. Prospective aviation unit command ers received more training at secondary flight training schools (Voyennoye Aviatsionnoyc Uchilishche)-atwo year course in peacetime and one year in wartime. On top of this, there was an insufficient number of expert enccd (light instructors due to the rapid growth of the flight training program. In 1939, there were thirty™ pilot and pilot-technician schools in the Soviet Union. It mid-1941 there were 111 different schools preparing aviation personnel, including 3 Air Force academies,; military secondary flight training schools, 29 primary flight training schools, 21 fighter pilot schools, and 22 bomba pilot schools.

The pilot training mainly consisted of elementary takeoffs and landings. Thus fresh pilots earned the nick’ name “Takeoff-Landing” from combat pilots. It was not uncommon for fresh combat pilots to arrive at combat units with only eight to ten individual flight hours, often not even on the aircraft they were intended to fly in combat. There was practically no training in night flying, blind fly ing, or even in complicated meteorological con ditions sucli as fog. There was nothing correspondingt< the Luftwaffe В course training to handle the aircraft in dangerous situations. In fact, the “corkscrew” (vertical spin) was removed from the fighter training course, since it was regarded as too dangerous! The gunnery training was limited to simplified techniques, Most graduatesfroti the military flight training schools, in fact, had not learned how to aim and shoot accurately in the air. A completed Soviet flight training course in 1941 was perhaps roughly comparable to the Luftwaffe A 2 or B1 flight certificates

On top of all this came the disparity in the standards of the combat aircraft entrusted to the fliers of both sides;