A Citizen Soldier in the Air - a B-24 Liberator pilot's story.

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A Citizen Soldier in the Air.

Basic Training (BT-15)

Basic training was at an Army base in San Angelo, Texas, "out in mesquite country," Charlie says. "We flew the BT-15, which was the lousiest airplane I ever flew. It was under-powered and couldn’t do much of anything, not even aerobatics" (students nicknamed this plane the vibrator because they shook like mad when you tried to pull them out of a spin).

The Vultee BT-15 Valiant basic trainer, 1942

I asked if they worked on formation flight there, and Charlie said no, he never got formal formation training until he got to bombers (though this photo suggests they were at least doing some informal formation flight at this stage!).

"We did some cross country flights, improved our navigation, but basic training really wasn’t much."

They did have a little fun on the ground, though. "We organized a barbershop quartet, and we would put on a little entertainment at the base - I was first tenor." They also got some flight simulator time in Basic, but not like the flight sims we have today. They practiced "needle, ball, and airspeed" instrument flying in Link C-3 Trainers.

The Link 'Blue Box' was used for instrument flight training.

This was a full motion simulator driven by compressed air, but there were no visuals at all, just a cockpit with instruments and controls and an opaque hood. Instrument flying would prove to be very important when Charlie flew combat in the stormy skies of New Guinea. Charlie again did well in his flying and went on from Basic to Advanced Training in the AT-6 Texan.

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