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| 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 Lee Jr. of the Boeing School of
Aeronautics; all agreed to start work. The Civil Aeronautics Authority Act of
1938 formed the Civil Aeronautics Authority headed by Robert H. Hinckley. The
act contained language authorizing and funding a trial program for what would
evolve into the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP), as run by the CAA.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveiled the program on December 27, 1938,
announcing at a White House press conference that he had signed off on a
proposal to provide a needed boost to general aviation by providing pilot
training to 20,000 college students a year.
Following the precedent established in Europe, the CPTP was
established as a civilian program, but its potential for national defense was
undisguised. The program started in 1939 with two laws passed by Congress in
April and June, with the government paying for a 72-hour ground school course
followed by 35 to 50 hours of flight instruction at facilities located near
eleven colleges and universities. It was an unqualified success and provided a
grand vision for its supporters – to greatly expand the nation's civilian pilot
population by training thousands of college students to fly.
A joint publication released in 1970 by the Department of
Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration recounts the historical
success of the CPTP, stating the program "was planned originally as an
experiment in vocational training." The intent was to boost industry and
aviation manufacturing, with the "added benefit to the Armed Services
building a reserve of knowledgeable pilots." It began in 1939 with 13
colleges and 330 students, and by the summer of 1944 had grown to incorporate
1,132 educational institutions and 435,165 qualified trainees – including
several hundred women, all of whom had been qualified by 1,460 contractors.
Members of the CPTP became an impetus of innovation which transformed United
States history, long after World War II. Their efforts proved the necessity for
a radical departure from conventional thinking, when required, to preserve
failing sectors of industry and become a vital adjunct to national defense.
Controversy
The military establishment was initially unenthusiastic
about the CPTP concept, quite unimpressed by any program initiated and
administered by civilians. Congress, too, was split along mostly party lines as
to the value of the CPTP. Isolationists branded the program as provocative
saber-rattling that threatened the nation's neutrality; others slammed it as a
pork barrel waste of tax dollars, while supporters touted the positive impacts
on the aviation industry and the defense value of a vastly enlarged base of
trained pilots.
After the Nazi invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939,
triggered World War II, the military value of the CPTP became obvious, even to
the program's detractors. The United States started to evaluate its ability to
fight an air war and the results were appalling. Pilots, instructors, and
training aircraft were all in short supply. Acknowledging the shortage of
trained pilots, both the Army Air Corps and Navy reluctantly waived certain
“elimination” courses for CPTP graduates and allowed them to proceed directly
into pilot training.
The Army Air Corps deemed the situation to be so grave it
proposed that private aviation be suspended and all pilot training (most
notably the CPTP) be brought under the control of the military. The December
13, 1940, issue of American Aviation Daily carried this account of the Army's
intentions:
Preliminary
plans are understood to be already drafted by the Army to ground all private
flying in the United States for the duration of the national emergency...The
Army will take over all training (including CPTP).
The Army's proposal met with stiff resistance. Just two
weeks after the American Aviation Daily article appeared, 83 companies with a
vested interest in general aviation organized the National Aviation Training
Association (NATA). NATA members recognized that, if left unchallenged, the
Army plan would, for all practical purposes, ban private aircraft from U.S.
skies. The NATA and other aviation interests blunted the Army's bid with an effective
lobbying campaign in Congress. Their actions not only saved the CPTP, they may
have saved the entire general aviation industry in the United States.
Buildup
The result was a revitalized CPTP and an expansion of its
curriculum to a larger segment of the nation's colleges and universities. In
May 1939 the first nine schools were selected, nine more were added in August
1940 (as the Battle of Britain was raging), 11 more in March 1941, and 15 more
by October 1941 – four months after the formation of the USAAF – and just two
months before the United States' entry into World War II. By the program's
peak, 1,132 educational institutions and 1,460 flight schools were
participating in the CPTP. Institutions such as the University of Michigan;
University of Virginia; University of Washington; Georgia Institute of
Technology; Pomona College; San Jose State Teachers College; and the Tuskegee
Institute, all included the CPTP in their curricula. (See References below to
access complete list of educational institutions participating in the CPTP.)
The inclusion of Tuskegee University in the ranks of CPTP
participants, along with Hampton University, Virginia State University,
Delaware State University, and Howard University, helped open the doors for the
first African-American military pilots. The onset of World War II and political
pressure combined to compel the U.S. Army Air Corps – as it was known before
June 20, 1941 – to employ African-Americans as officers and pilots, with the
majority of its personnel being graduates of the CPTP.
The decision to train civilian pilots also produced an
unexpected, but welcome, side effect on the general aviation industry. As it
turned out, the United States faced just as large a shortage of training
aircraft as it did civilian pilots. The federal Civil Aeronautics Authority
(predecessor of the Federal Aviation Administration) regulations required a
CPTP-participating flight school to own one aircraft for every ten students
enrolled in the program.
Furthermore, the requirements specified for these aircraft
narrowed down the field to only several models in production at that time, with
most flight schools preferring the tandem-seat configuration of the Piper Cub.
Seizing the opportunity unexpectedly thrust upon them, several light aircraft
manufacturers quickly filled the market void with CPTP-compatible aircraft of
their own, such as the WACO UPF-7 and the Meyers OTW biplane. Aeronca and
Taylorcraft also produced tandem versions of their existing side-by-side
seating high-winged monoplanes, each of which would lead to their own military
equivalents.
War Training Service
After the attack on Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entrance into
World War II, the CPTP changed forever, including the name. The Civilian Pilot
Training Program became the War Training Service (WTS), or Civil Aeronautics
Authority (CAA) War Training Service and, from 1942 to 1944, served primarily
as the screening program for potential pilot candidates. Students still
attended classes at colleges and universities and flight training was still
conducted by private flight schools, but all WTS graduates were required to
sign a contract agreeing to enter the military following graduation. There is a
list of colleges and universities participating in the CPTP in '43–'44 in the
appendix of "They Flew Proud".
The CPTP/WTS program was largely phased out in the summer of
1944, but not before 435,165 people, including hundreds of women and
African-Americans, had been taught to fly. Notable legends trained under the
CPTP include: Astronaut/Senator John Glenn, top Navy ace Alexander Vraciu,
Douglas test pilot Robert Rahn, top World War II ace Major Richard Bong, triple
ace Bud Anderson, future Senator and presidential candidate George McGovern,
WASP Dora Dougherty Strother and Tuskegee airman Major Robert W. Deiz. The CPTP
admirably achieved its primary mission, best expressed by the title of aviation
historian Dominick Pisano's book, To Fill the Skies with Pilots.
Two of the largest CPT/WTS schools were Piedmont Aviation,
operated by Tom Davis, and Southern Airways, operated by Frank W. Hulse.
Piedmont's school was based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, while Southern
had schools in Charlotte, North Carolina, Greenville and Camden, South
Carolina, and in Birmingham and Decatur, Alabama. Both companies trained over
60,000 war pilots including young men from Brazil (Piedmont) and a large number
of Royal Air Force pilots from England (Southern). By 1947 Davis had turned his
school into Piedmont Airlines with scheduled passenger flights between North
Carolina and Ohio. In 1949, Hulse had Southern Airways flying commercial service
between Jacksonville, Florida and Memphis, Tennessee, and between Atlanta and
Charlotte. Both airlines began operations with war surplus Douglas DC-3
aircraft that were modified for commercial service in their former CPT/WTS
maintenance hangars.
One of the few women instructors in the CPTP later wrote
about her experiences. With the threat of war rising on the horizon, Opal Kunz
renewed her pilot's license after taking a refresher course at Hagerstown,
Maryland, and began teaching aviation students at the Arkansas State College
(now Arkansas State University). She later moved to Rhode Island, and at the
start of World War II became an instructor at the Rhode Island State Airport
Terminal for Navy cadets and the government sponsored “Civilian Pilot Training
Program (CPTP)” during the war, teaching over 400 young men how to fly for the
Air Corps. This was her old dream of the Betsy Ross Air Corps come true, as she
helped train the men who would fly fighter aircraft in combat. An account from
the time shows the work she was doing by saying: “Mrs. Kunz has been in
Providence since January [1942] as a member of the staff of E.W. Wiggins
Airways. She has a mother’s confidence in her ‘boys’ and they reciprocate with
respect and enthusiasm. Nothing gives her greater joy than to see them solo, to
know she has taken them one step nearer to Uncle Sam's aerial defense line.”
Later, at her home in California, she would recall her experiences with
fondness. “I trained about 400 boys and it was easily the highlight of my career.
I really became a sort of foster mother to them. You would be surprised how
many of my boys brought their wives and children to see me after the war.” She
also indicated in a letter that she had trained combat pilots. "...I was a
flight instructor all during the war. Had over three hundred students who
served as combat pilots in the war.”
Several CPTP graduates, including Betty Tackaberry Blake,
Florence Shutsy-Reynolds and Betty Jane Williams, went on to serve as a Women
Airforce Service Pilot (WASP).
Bibliography
Birch, Jane Gardner. "Events and Book Excerpt".
They Flew Proud. Retrieved 1 March 2020. The excerpt page has a complete list
(by state) of the educational institutions that participated in the Civilian
Pilot training Program.
Craft, Stephen G. (2010). Embry-Riddle at War: Aviation
Training during World War II. University Press of Florida.
Guillemette, Roger. "Civilian Pilot Training Program
(CPTP)". U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission.
Harlan, John C. (February 1965). Early Aeronautics Program
at West Virginia State College (PDF) (Report). Institute, West Virginia: West
Virginia State College.
Pisano, Dominick A. (1993). To Fill the Skies with Pilots:
the Civilian Pilot Training Program, 1939–46. Urbana: University of Illinois
Press.
Strickland, Patricia. The Putt-Putt Air Force: The Story of
the Civilian Pilot Training Program and the War Training Service (1939–1944).
Department of Transportation.
Weatherford, David Lenton (1993), Route of the Aristocrats:
The History of Southern Airways, Center for the Study of Southern Culture
(University of Mississippi) This is a master's thesis.
Wiener, Willard (1945). Two Hundred Thousand Flyers: The
Story of the Civilian-AAF Pilot Training Program. Washington: The Infantry
Journal.
Williams, Edwin L. (November 1956). History of the Air Force
Civilian Training Program, 1941–1951 (PDF) (Report). USAF Historical Studies.
Maxwell Air Force Base: USAF Historical Division.
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| Student Pilot Training Centers, 1940. |
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| Instructor with group of student flyers under Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP). Congressional Airport. Rockville, Maryland, in September 1941. |
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| A September 1941 photo of an instructor with group of Civilian Pilot Training Program student flyers in front of a Waco UPF-7 at Congressional Airport. |
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| A September 1941 photo of an instructor with group of Civilian Pilot Training Program student flyers in front of a Waco UPF-7 at Congressional Airport. |
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| A September 1941 photo of Civilian Pilot Training Program student flyers walking in front of 2 Piper J3 Cubs at Congressional Airport. Note one cub was marked “Congressional School of Aeronautics Congressional Airport”, and the other “Hyde Field Clinton MD”. |
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| A CPTP instructor explains the operation of a parachute to student pilots at Meacham Field in Fort Worth in January 1942. |
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| A CPTP instructor explains the operation of a parachute to student pilots at Meacham Field in Fort Worth in January 1942. |
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| A CPTP instructor explains the operation of a parachute to student pilots at Meacham Field in Fort Worth in January 1942. |
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| A CPTP instructor explains the operation of a parachute to student pilots at Meacham Field in Fort Worth in January 1942. |
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| A CPTP instructor explains the operation of a parachute to student pilots at Meacham Field in Fort Worth in January 1942. |
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| A CPTP instructor explains the operation of a parachute to student pilots at Meacham Field in Fort Worth in January 1942. |
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| CPTP student and instructor preparing for takeoff at Meacham Field. |
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| CPTP student and instructor preparing for takeoff at Meacham Field. |
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| Les Bowman, director of Civilian Pilot Training School at Meacham Field, circa 1944. |
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| CPTP student pilot and instructor at Meacham Field. |
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| CPTP instructor at Meacham Field. |
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| CPTP students and instructor returning from a training flight at Meacham Field. |
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| CPTP student working on an engine at Meacham Field. |
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| The Civilian Pilot Training Program and War Training Service produced 435,165 pilots for the war effort. During the war, all were required to enlist in military service. |
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| The Civilian Pilot Training Program created opportunities for women to fly. These Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASPs, got their first aeronautical training through the CPTP. For example, Dr. Dora Dougherty Strother (top) flew a wide variety of missions during World War II, including reliability tests of the B-29 Superfortress bomber. She went on to a long career in flying and aircraft engineering, and set women’s records flying rotorcraft. |
