2nd Lieutenant Charles William Janes,RAF

[Guest Rechlin]

2nd Lieutenant Charles William Janes died whilst flying at a School of Gunnery at Turnberry, 11th April, 1918. From 1914 to April 1918, it appears he served with the 3rd County of London Yeomanry. As the RAF was only formed on 1st April 1918, could he have learned to fly in less than two weeks? I made an assumption that he must have been RFC or RNAS, before they became the RAF, but this appears not to be the case, therefore in 1918 how long did it take for a pilot to learn to fly?

Paul

[Guest Pete Wood]

Paul you really are getting confused, and/or twisting what I said in a previous post. I am sure Janes WAS in the RFC for some weeks/months - then when the RAF came into being, he swapped his RFC badge for the RAF one.

You originally thought he had been a pilot from day one. What I previously tried to explain, obviously badly, was that your earlier assumption (that he was a RFC/RNAS pilot in Egypt) was not necessarily correct. Just by looking at his MiC I was able to tell that he was in the Yeomanry, and joined as a Private before getting a commission, and I worked out (based on his number, and the fact that he had been in Egypt and Galipolli) which unit he had probably been in.

I suggested that he may have only recently passed his pilots licence, and then crashed while training on a Camel before being posted to a fighter squadron.

But please(!) take a look at his records - and then you'll have the defintive answers. There is no point in guessing, or assuming, when the information is available.

I'll let the experts tell you how long a flying course would have been. BUt you also need to ask how long a gunnery course would have lasted, as Turnberry was a gunnery school.