Flight Training Accidents

Heroes Remember

Flight Training Accidents

Transcript

Interviewer: As an instructor you would of course be instructing young student pilots. . . . Oh yes. Interviewer: . . .who weren't nearly as adept at flying as yourself. Would they be, but they wouldn't be much younger either. When I got, when we got through at Trenton I was posted to back to Uplands as an instructor back in to E flight and we would have maybe half a dozen students and as you say they were all young. I trained New Zealanders too, fortunately, they were a great bunch. Oh yeah, but they catch on pretty quick. Interviewer: They were all eager and bright? Oh yeah. Interviewer: Were there dangerous incidents during these teaching sessions? Oh yeah, we killed a few. I was put on a court marshal, under training and word sifted in that there had been an accident. And as it turned out, two students had been killed and then a little while later there was another one came in that two students had been killed, and we thought it was the same accident, but it was two different accidents, within about a half an hour, two different places. After you got a certain number of hours you were allowed to take another student under the hood and take him up and have him practice instrument flying and you would be the outlook to see that they're not going into any or hitting any other aircraft. But they never did that, they all did aerobatics. Practised aerobatics. What happened, one fellow lived down on southern Ontario he dove down to his farm and did a loop, came around to do another loop and stalled it up here and crashed and killed two students. The other one did a similar thing at his farm, only he was doing steep turns, like this, going around and he pulled it too tight, stalled it, spun it, and killed two more. None of them were my students fortunately. Oh there was accidents, we had an officer, we had an auxiliary field near there and they use to take the students over there and let them practice what we call circuits and bumps. Taking of, coming around, landing and taking off. And this instructor had a student down there and he was being married that night, Saturday night and I don't know what happened, but they forgot to let the under carriage down and he landed without undercarriage. The backseat of a Harvard, you can't put the undercarriage down, but the instructor thinking about his wedding, I guess, forgot to ensure that the student had done his cockpit checks so he would drop the undercarriage.

Description

Mr. Sproule recalls some dangerous incidents during his time as a flight instructor at Uplands Airport in Ottawa.

Frederick Howard Sproule

Mr. Sproule was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, on September 22, 1918. He first served as a cadet with the Seaforth Highlanders before joining the regular service. He switched to the air force as soon as he was able, first being accepted as a gunner, and then into pilot training. After serving as a flight instructor on Harvards, Mr Sproule was shipped to Great Britain where he trained on a Hurricane. Eventually, he piloted a Typhoon as a bomber in the Burma Campaign, helping to drive back the Japanese. His tour finished as the Japanese were completely driven out of Burma.

Meta Data

Medium:: Video
Owner:: Veterans Affairs Canada
Duration:: 03:20
Person Interviewed:: Frederick Howard Sproule
War, Conflict or Mission:: Second World War
Location/Theatre:: Canada
Branch:: Air Force
Rank:: Pilot Officer
Occupation:: Flight Instructor

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Flight Training Accidents

Heroes Remember