WAR

in august 1917 Naval Ten switched from Sopwith Tri planes to Sopwith Camels;
in October the squadron moved to a new field near Teteghem, east of Dunkirk
on the Belgian coast; and a young Canadian named Wilfred Austin Curtis joined
"A" Flight, which he subsequently commanded. Curtis is one of Canada's great
aviators, a retired Air Marshal today and former Chief of Staff of the RCAF. A
native of Toronto, he is the founder of the Toronto Flying Club and an active
representative of the Royal Canadian Flying Club Association.
In the summer of 1915 Curtis applied, as a civilian, for flying lessons at the
Curtis Flying School in Toronto. The RNAS would not accept anyone who
did not possess a private pilot's license. The Flying School could not take any
more students, however, so Curtis joined the Canadian Army. In April 1916
Curtis.
he had just completed an officer's training
course when the Navy wrote to inform
him that his application was before them
and asked him to report for an interview.
It was arranged that Curtis would take
flying lessons and pay for them himself—$400.00
for 400 minutes of flying
time. The instruction was given flying
back and forth in front of the hangar on
a six-acre field where the class lined up
and took turns one by one. To communicate
with the pupil in flight, the instructor
throttled back the engine and
shouted at the pupil, and those on the
ground could hear what was said. The
comments were, for the most part, more
amusing than instructive.
Those students
that passed the tests were shipped in
batches to England for further instruction.
"Further instruction" that at
the time did
not include aerobatics. This was typical
of all the air services and is in no way an
implied criticism of any of them, but
merely a reflection of the casual approach during aviation's raw youth. The British
Government refunded Curtis £75 and paid his passage to England.
Curtis learned the stall the hard way—he crashed. Having walked away from
that he was ready to try the next step: "The first time I tried to loop was just
before crossing the Channel to France. I dived to pick up speed, but when I was
upside down I unintentionally let the joy stick go back to the neutral position
as a result of which I was floating along upside down, my weight hanging in the
belt. It was quite frightening. When I recovered my position and equilibrium I
climbed to 7000 feet, flew over a large forest which I thought would be softer
to fall on than the hard earth and looped six or seven times, until I was satisfied
that I could do it."
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