Kelly Field, Texas, was the major Air Service facility in the United States during World War I.
[1] Advanced flying training during the war occurred primarily at Ellington Field, Texas, where bombing instruction was taught.
Taliaferro Field, Texas, among other locations, provided reconnaissance and observation training, while pursuit (fighter) courses were restricted to the 3d Air Instructional Center, Issoudun Aerodrome, France because of a lack of necessary equipment in the United States.
[2][3] At the end of the war, the Air Service, along with the rest of the Army, faced crucial reductions and most wartime training fields were closed.
They became proficient in landing on small fields, aerial gunnery, individual combat, battle maneuvers, and bomb dropping.
Training exposed them to Army paperwork and the duties of operations, armament, radio, engineering, supply, and mess officers.
It sought to turn out first-rate pursuit pilots who were confident, accurate flyers and excellent shots, possessing quick keen judgment.
Students flew DH-4s and were schooled in flying, bombsights, camera obscura, gunnery, and, among other things, the history of the development of aviation.
There were courses on formation and cross-country flying; visual and photographic reconnaissance; surveillance; intelligence; liaison with ground forces; observation and adjustment of artillery fire; map reading; meteorology; maintenance and operation of radio, telephone, and telegraph; Liberty engines; and rigging.
Some people would go so far as to let enlisted men be pilots in tactical units, with commissioned officers serving as their flight leaders and commanders.
Assuming the enlisted graduate elected to stay in the Air Corps, he had but a few years (perhaps just a few months) before he could no longer pass the physical examination for flying.
[2] The decision by the Coolidge Administration in 1926 to expand the Air Corps mainly affected the primary flying school.
In 1931, a reorganization of flying training in the Air Corps led to the demobilization of the 10th School Group, and its squadrons being transferred to Randolph.