OFFICERS AND STAFF, ARMAMENT SCHOOL, HAMILTON.
RIGGING FLIGHT, SCHOOL OF AERONAUTICS.
AEROPLANE DESIGN, SCHOOL OF AERONAUTICS.
In May three officers and two non-commissioned officers left England to form the nucleus of the instructional staff, bringing with them such material as could be provided at the moment. The Aviation Department of the Imperial Munitions Board assumed responsibility for the physical portion of the work in hand, under the supervision of the Royal Engineers section of the brigade. This provision included ranges, armouries, workshops, instructional and lecture buildings, a hospital, and the general adaptation of the interior of the factory buildings to the purposes required.
All this advanced so swiftly that by June 19th, the factory building was equipped, and the Armament School, which up to this time had formed a portion of the Cadet Wing at Long Branch, moved to its new quarters on June 20th.
The course of instruction called for a much further excursion into applied mechanics than any portion of the tuition formerly given. As it progressed, it soon became evident that the embryonic pilot was keen for intimate knowledge of the guns on the efficiency of which his future victories depended, and his general course was so modulated as to give him the opportunity to master the last detail. The question of a method of sighting which would allow a deflected aim to be laid on a moving machine received mathematical attention, as was also the synchronizing of a gun with the revolving blades of the propeller. On this and other points, information was continually being received and communicated through the School to other units of the brigade.
Drafts of cadets, arriving on Wednesday afternoons, were immediately handed over to the quartermaster’s department, where arrangements for their domestic comfort were made for the four or five weeks they were to remain. The following morning instruction began, first with one gun, its description, action, care and possible troubles in the air, accompanied by range work and constant handling. The question of aiming was gradually introduced and ran progressively throughout the course, until the pupil felt that he could, without effort, fire the gun in the air, making allowances for his own speed and direction, his enemy’s speed, direction and range, and instantaneously adapt his fire to meet the ever-varying and never-ending manoeuvres of his own and his enemy’s machine.
Both guns and sights having been mastered, the cadet was introduced to the subject of gearing his gun to fire through his propeller at varying rates of revolutions. The principle upon which this gearing depended, though one of great difficulty in instruction, was nevertheless the subject which, of all others, provoked the greatest interest amongst the pupils.