| Event type: | National and Regional Zoom Events |
| Date: | Tuesday 6th October 2026 |
| Time: | 10:00 am - 12:00 pm |
| Venue: | Zoom |
| Organiser: |
The Third Age Trust
|
| Cost: | Free |
| Booking: | Note that booking is required. |
Discover how aviation learned to train pilots, from trial and error to structured flying schools in little more than a decade.
Early aircrew training
Today, pilot training is built upon more than a century of accumulated knowledge, experience and hard-earned lessons. But what happens when there is no accumulated experience and the people doing the teaching have themselves only just learned to fly?
That was the remarkable challenge facing aviation’s earliest instructors. In the years following the Wright brothers’ first powered flight, there were no experienced flying instructors, established training programmes or proven techniques. The pioneers teaching others might themselves have possessed only a handful of hours in the air. Much of what they knew had been discovered through experimentation, observation and sometimes painful trial and error.
Early flying training was therefore extraordinarily simple: watch someone else, receive a few basic instructions, and then try it yourself. A pilot might be considered trained after only a few hours.
The Wright brothers’ demonstrations at Le Mans in 1908 and Blériot’s crossing of the English Channel in 1909 triggered enormous public interest in aviation. Aircraft manufacturers began teaching customers how to fly their machines, while national Aero Clubs introduced some of the first pilot certificates and rudimentary training standards.
Aircraft, however, rapidly became more capable and complex, forcing training to evolve alongside them. Ground instruction appeared, flying hours increased and dedicated training aircraft gradually emerged.
Then, just eleven years after the first powered flight, the world went to war. The First World War transformed aviation and pilot training with it. Within only a few years, informal instruction by barely more experienced pilots evolved into structured flying schools, specialised aircrew training, dedicated training aircraft and overseas training establishments.
This talk explores that extraordinary journey: how aviation learned to train pilots while it was still learning how to fly.
The Flight Inspirations u3a Aviation group is organised by Don Mobley of Stowmarket u3a and Barbara Cordina of Lea Valley u3a. Meetings are usually held on the first Tuesday of every month at 10am.