In Canada, the Canadian government / RCAF bought and owned all
BCATP aircraft as well as all the aircraft flown and operated by the RCAF's "home squadrons"--those numbered in the No.
Includes transportation by air-conditioned, washroom-equipped bus, morning al fresco refreshments at Camp Hughes, lunch, dinner, admission to the
BCATP Museum and The Royal Canadian Artillery Museum at Shilo and all taxes and gratuities.
Robin Higham, Professor Emeritus, Military History, Kansas State University, Sometime
BCATP Graduate
Of the 701
BCATP hangars constructed, only forty-one are known to have survived.
Part of the agreement that set it up in 1939 stated: "The United Kingdom Government undertakes that pupils of Canada, Australia and New Zealand shall, after training is completed, be identified with their respective Dominions." But the British mostly ignored that and sent hundreds and then thousands of Canadian
BCATP graduates to Royal Air Force squadrons when they arrived in Britain.
He explains, "The Cornell was a low-wing, two-pilot elementary training aircraft that had been supplied in considerable numbers to the government of Great Britain, by the government of the United States, for use in the
BCATP, under the 1941 'Lend-Lease' agreement between those two countries."
The two-seater trainer was used extensively at
BCATP elementary flying schools until 1943.
The first draft of
BCATP pilots went overseas in March.1941.
Local citizens of a particular generation vividly recall the war effort and the daily appearance in the skies of
BCATP aircraft with their distinctive yellow colour.
By 1941, about one-third of RAF aircrew were Canadian (although airmen from several countries were also trained in Canada as part of
BCATP).
A few days later, he eagerly embraced the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (
BCATP) proposed by Vincent Massey, Canada's High Commissioner to Britain, and his Australian counterpart Stanley Bruce.
In the early days of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan (
BCATP), Canadian aircrew candidates were pawns on a treadmill over which they had no control.