Compulsory Military Training

An RNZAF Tiger Moth

In those days everyone had to spend thirteen weeks soon after turning 18 learning to be a member of the armed services. 

This was in the days of the cold war, and the western powers were fighting the communists in Korea. CMT had been approved by a referendum in 1949, though I doubt if it would pass today. 

You were allowed to opt for your favourite armed service, and I chose the Air Force – who wouldn’t want to learn to fly if it was offered to you on a plate. 

So during my nineteenth year I had my medical. I lined up with a lot of other guys my age and we were all put through our paces by a doctor. The one who examined me said: “I wish I had your bloodpressure (or chest expansion, I forget which)!” 

I was then advised I had been selected for pilot training, and given instructions to report on Boxing Day at the end of 1952 at the railway station in Auckland an hour or so before the express left for Wellington. Because I was a University student, I had only ten and a half weeks of training so that I didn’t miss too much study time. They paid everyone ten shillings and sixpence a week pocket money, but pilots got an extra three shillings danger money! 

So I reported as instructed, and found that everyone else going into the Air Force with me was also a student. We travelled on the express to Wellington, then over Cook Strait on the ferry to Lyttelton, and then on another train to Dunedin, where Air Force trucks took us out to the airfield at Taieri, where there was an Air Force base. 

Taieri was at the northern end of the Taieri Valley near Mosgiel, at the opposite end of the valley from the present Dunedin Airport. The airfield was grass, and served Air New Zealand (then NAC) as well as the Air Force, so you had to keep your eyes open for passenger Dakotas landing and taking off. 

The course was divided into two parts: one would be trained to fly first and then do the theory and the square-bashing later; the other would learn the theory and do the military drill first, and learn to fly later, when the planes were no longer needed for the first lot. I was in the first lot. 

So, a couple of days after arriving at Taieri, settling into my barracks and getting my issue of uniform, I was up at 5 30 for my first flying lesson. The planes were Tiger Moths from before the war, at that time used in civvy life for spreading fertiliser on farms. They couldn’t fly in any wind above 21 knots, so when the wind got up to that speed, as it did every day, the planes had to stay on the ground. That was why we started at 5 30 in the mornings. 

Our instructors were wartime pilots who were mostly now working in topdressing, (like the plane from Te Papa shown on the right) so they knew what they were talking about! The commandant of the base was Wing Commander Checkers, a war hero. 

So I was introduced to the Tiger Moth. It was made of wood and canvas.  It had two cockpits, each with minimal controls: a joystick (control column), throttle, trim control, rudder bar. The dashboard contained a speedo and a turn and bank indicator, and on top of the petrol tank, which was just above our heads for gravity feed, was a glass tube which showed how much fuel was left. 

The only other control was a switch, which gave us ignition when turned on. I learned to swing the propellor, to place and remove the chocks (essential since Tiger Moths had no brakes) and how to check the plane for damage before getting on board. 

The instructor, who sat in the rear cockpit, took the plane slowly to the end of the runway, explaining what he was doing all the time, and when he saw a green light signal from the control tower he took us round into wind, pushed the throttle right ahead to get maximum revs, and took off. No radio, only a speaking tube between him and me. 

He showed me how to fly straight and level, which I practised for a while, and then he took us to the other end of the runway and showed me the landing procedure. It seemed a very short lesson, but it had actually taken an hour and a half.