It is a far cry from the one-time pilot who, between the vagaries of his machine, took pot shots at his opponent with a revolver or sporting rifle, to his successor of to-day armed with a machine gun that discharges bullets at the rate of 600 per minute through a four-bladed propeller revolving at the rate of 1,200 times a minute. It was, therefore, the object of instruction at the Armament School to so train the would-be pilot that he might have a thoroughly grounded knowledge of the weapons he was destined to use. The need of special tuition there given was further accentuated by the increasing pressure on the instructors at the School of Aeronautics.

In March, 1918, the O.C. proposed to the War Office that this School be set on foot immediately, and matters had been so far advanced by May that necessary construction was well under way. Here again the R.A.F., Canada, was fortunate in being the recipient of much consideration from Canadian organizations. On learning that accommodation was required for the purposes of the School, the Canadian Westinghouse Company Limited, one of the most important industrial concerns in Canada, most generously offered the use of a large factory in Hamilton free of charge, together with adjacent grounds, and shortly afterwards the brigade was further helped by permission to use the area of a 9-hole golf course immediately adjoining. This very considerate proposal was made by the Hamilton Golf Club, and was gratefully accepted.

These preliminaries successfully arranged, the matter began to move rapidly.

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.

Arrangements were completed to enable the pilot actually to carry out the process of synchronizing his gears and propeller under conditions which perfectly simulated his position in a machine. He was thus enabled to watch the principle at work.

Instruction being completed in two guns, ammunition, aerial bomb sights and synchronizing gears, another section of the School undertook the pupils’ training in bombs, bomb dropping and bomb sights.

The increasing importance of this subject was appropriately balanced by the very wide range of sights and bomb-dropping apparatus demonstrated by specially experienced instructors, whereby the pupil was made cognizant of all the operations of loading bombs on machines, fusing them, attaching the necessary releasing gear, and so loading his machine that he could at will drop any type of bomb suited to any target which might suddenly present itself, from a group of infantry which needed scattering, to the ammunition dump to be exploded.

The peculiar path taken by a bomb in falling from a machine with a forward momentum imparted by the speed of the machine, needed very special mathematical calculation to enable the pilot to release it at a considerable distance from his objective, and to this end a variety of bomb sights were explained and practised with from dummy machines with unfused bombs over mechanically moving scenery.

The flying camps, to which cadets were posted on the completion of their course in elementary gunnery, carried on further practices in coÖperation with this school, and instructors were sent to these wings from time to time to coÖperate, and to insure that no gaps or overlaps occurred in the cadet’s training. By this means the pilot who left this country for overseas was assured that he had covered every section of the field of armament, and that no situation was likely to occur during his flying career with which he could not deal.

In addition to the training of embryo pilots, courses of instruction were conducted for observers, during which, for a period of three weeks, they were made competent to handle the gun which they would be required to use overseas. By the use of guns with camera attachment, recording a photograph on a graduated screen instead of firing a shot, the resultant photograph revealed to the observer the effect of his shoot, and his graduation was not considered complete until he was able to produce a collection of photographs which evidenced an automatic and deadly aim.

During the period in which this School operated, an average of more than 400 cadets per month was instructed, and the record which each carried overseas showed a complete and thorough course of ground training performed entirely under Canadian tuition.