RAF Cadets' Handbook - Table of Content

Pilot Elementary Training: RAF Flying Cadets' Handbook

Every self respecting flight training agency will provide its pupils with some reference material for self study. The most common is a manual explaining the very basics of flying. The format and content of these "basic manuals" has changed very little over the course of time and is quite interchangegable between the various air services..

We found that "Cadets' Handbook of Elementary Flying Training", Air Publication 1979A, 1st Edition, London, April 1943, issued by the Air Ministry, is a very usefull booklet for a general overview of flight issues.

The "Cadets' Handbook" was handed out to the RAF Flying Cadets when commencing ground school. This manual should be used together with TM "Elementary Flying", since this way both sides of the flight training - the pupils and the instructors perspective - are covered.

INTRODUCTION

THIS manual is intended to serve as a notebook, to which you, the elementary flying pupil, can refer in order to refresh your memory on the flying instruction you receive both on the ground and in the air. If you take some pains to go over by yourself on the ground what the instructor has told you during any exercise in the air, you will find that exercise easier to carry out on the next occasion.

The last part of the manual is concerned with the various flying exercises that you will undergo, while the earlier chapters contain an account, in very -simple language, of the principles of the, mechanics of flight. If you regard this part of your instruction as mere theory, as something only remotely connected with the actual flying, you will make a serious mistake. The elementary pupil is not expected, and does not need, to acquaint himself with all aspects of aerodynamics and aircraft design; but he must, if he is to become a really efficient pilot, know the fundamental facts about the forces involved; since, in flying, he is always concerned with the utilization and control of these forces.

Without this knowledge, you do not know what you are really trying to do in any manoevre with it, the reasons for the various control movements are clear, and you can learn, not as a dog learns a trick, merely by repetition, but with intelligent understanding of the whole problem.

Although the basic principles are set out as simply as possible, you will probably find that they call for some concentration before you can master them; since the extent of freedom of movement in the third dimension in the air, and its problems, are quite novel to your normal experience. But it is this freedom that provides most of the fascination of flying; and the trouble of understanding what it involves is a very small price to pay for the feeling of mastery over your aircraft, which will come as your skill in flying grows.

Table of Contents

I. FIRST PRINCIPLES

1 THE AIRCRAFT AND ITS COMPONENT PARTS

2 WHAT KEEPS THE AIRCRAFT IN THE AIR: THE FORCES ACTING ON IT

3 THE CONTROLS AND THEIR EFFECTS

4 BEFORE YOU LEAVE THE GROUND

II MANOEUVRES - Part I

5 TAXYING

6 FLYING STRAIGHT AND LEVEL

7 CLIMBING

8 GLIDING

9 STALLING