BCATP/EATS
I discussed this with Keith the other night, and I hope I'm not veering too far from the topic of this thread.
It is often referred to on this site (by Canadians) that the training scheme of aircrew from all parts of the Empire to particpate in the air campaigns over Britain and Europe was the "British Commonwealth Air Training Plan" or BCATP. It's a term not heard of before in Australia. In Australia, the same programme of training was known as the "Empire Air Training Scheme" or EATS. Is there some misunderstanding here, or is this just some reference to some smaller portion of the overall training. Typically aircrew were trained in Australian Air Training Schools in rudimentary subjects of navigation or pilot training in Tiger Moths before shipping out to Canada for conversion to larger aircraft and molding into crews (often of mixed nationality ie Aust, NZ, Canadian, Brit , South African), before moving across to Merry England.
Does EATS only refer to the basic training in Aust, or are we seeing two names for the whole scheme?
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