CPTP students and instructor returning from a training flight at Meacham Field. The Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP) was a flight training program (1938–1944) sponsored by the United States government with the stated purpose of increasing the number of civilian pilots, though having a clear impact on military preparedness. Establishment In the years immediately preceding World War II, several European countries, particularly Italy and Nazi Germany, began training thousands of young people to become pilots. Purportedly civilian in nature, these European government-sponsored programs were, in fact, nothing more than clandestine military flight training academies. In October 1938, General Henry H. "Hap" Arnold brought in the top three aviation school representatives to request they establish an unfunded startup of CPTP schools at their own risk. These were Oliver Parks of Parks Air College, C. C. Moseley of the Curtiss-Wright Technical Institute, and Theophilus ...