ATA Training in Practice
Although the ATA was conceived as means to employ skilled pilots in support roles, the pool of trained pilots was soon drained by the demands of war. The ATA and no choice but to start training pilots in order to meet the demands placed on it. With astonishing speed, it created a large -- and highly efficient -- training establishment. Women were as fully integrated in training as they were in flying. Below one of ATA's women instructors, Joan Hughes, instructing on heavy bombers. The ATA's first operational training school was co-located with ATA Headquarters at White Waltham. It opened in March 1941 with twenty instructors and twenty-nine aircraft. Just one year later, the number of training aircraft had grown to 100 and it was no longer safe to do all instructing at a single airfield, so a new training field was established at Luton. All the slow, elementary aircraft -- and the training conducted on them -- were moved to Luton, leaving only the faster, operational aircra...