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CPT Enlisted Reserve Wings


DMD
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Here is a pair of wings from the Civilian Pilot Training Program. The CPTP was started in 1939 as a New Deal program to stimulate the growth of general aviation and was origninally not associated with the military. The US government paid for ground school and 35 to 50 hours of flight instruction at civilian flight schools near thirteen colleges and universities. The idea was to generate interest in aviation and give an economic boost to the light plane industry. After Pearl Harbor, the CPTP became the War Training Service and provided elementary flight training for aviation cadets prior to Primary Training.

 

These wings are generally thought to be flight instructor wings, but they are actually wings given to students after solo.

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These photos are from The Putt-Putt Air Force: The Story of the Civilian Pilot Training Program and the War Training Service (1939-1944), by Patricia Strickland, US Government Printing Office, 1975. The caption for the photo on the left is "Twenty-year old CAA cadet John R. Boyd of Hornick, Iowa was a student at Drake University, Des Moines, when this picture was made on May 3. 1943. Cadet Boyd was assigned to the group taking Air Force preliminary flight training." The caption for the other photo is "CAA cadet Wayne Ralph Ayers of Pender, Nebraska. Ayers, 32 at the time of this photograph (May 14, 1943) was enrolled at the Colorado Agricultural College, Fort Collins, Colorado, for training as a service pilot."

 

Note the wings, the CAA collar insignia, and the CPT patch on Ayers' left shoulder. The book says, "Trainees wore forest green uniforms and CAA insignia. They were housed in dormitories and took their flying lessons, as always, at a nearby field. When they soloed they wer given silver wings."

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  • 2 years later...
flyingfortress

I have a CPT wing including the pilot's Ferrying Division Air Transport Command ID card, graduation certificate, and a Ferry Pilots Guide at the US Naval Air Station, Alameda, California. On the certificate it states the pilot "HAS SATISFACTORILY COMPLETED THE COURSE OF PURSUIT TRAINING IN AT-6, P-39, P-40,

P-47, P-63 AIRPLANES / GIVEN AT 4th OPERATIONAL TRAINING UNIT / FERRYING DIVISION - AIR TRANSPORT COMMAND / BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS".

 

Regards, George

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  • 3 years later...

A museum I'm associated with just received a pair of these interesting wings in a grouping of a WW II USN Carrier pilot. I was unfamiliar with them so, of course, I came here and did a search. Our wings are the same as in the photo's, made by Danecraft.

Thank You CAA for your photo's and great information!

Our pilot apparently went through the Navy V-5 program as there is some of that insignia in the group also.

BKW

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  • 8 years later...

I just saw a set of these wings and did a google search.  Of course this forum same up first. :D

 

I like what they’re for.  I’m a student pilots whose training got really messed up at a former flight school, though the school I’m at now has a couple CFIs who seem almost offended on my behalf at what happened, and they’re pretty set on helping get things back on track.  Needless to say, I may hold the record for the most hours and dollars spent without soloing yet…and the problem really isn’t me.  It’s maddening.

 

So finding out about these wings right now hits on a personal level.  I must get one now.

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