8 SFTS) was a flying training school of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) that operated during World War II.

Responsible for intermediate and advanced instruction of pilots under the Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS), the school was based at RAAF Station Bundaberg, Queensland, and operated Avro Anson aircraft.

It spawned two maritime patrol squadrons in early 1943, raised in response to increased Japanese submarine activity off Australia's east coast.

[1][2] While CFS turned out new flight instructors, the EFTS provided basic training to prospective pilots who, if successful, would go on to an SFTS for further instruction that focussed on operational (or "service") flying.

8 SFTS was no exception; taxiing collisions, crash landings in the surrounding cane fields, and runway overshoots were regular occurrences.

The school's first fatality, however, was from drowning, when staff were called out to assist victims of local flooding in February, and an aircraftman died during an attempted rescue.

[5] On 1 June 1942, an Anson crashed into the sea off Bargara, near Bundaberg; the pilot and two crew were reported as missing, believed killed.

[9] The school suffered a ground fatality on 25 April 1944, when a mechanic walked into the spinning propeller of an Anson he was servicing.

[13] One of the Ansons assigned to the squadron crashed on 5 June 1942 after running out of fuel in bad weather at night, killing the pilot and two crew members.

[14] In response to Japanese submarine activity off Australia's east coast, the Federal government formally established two RAAF maritime patrol units in the first half of 1943 with personnel and aircraft from No.

71 Squadron was formed as a separate entity to the flying school on 26 January at Lowood, maintaining detachments at RAAF Stations Bundaberg and Amberley in Queensland, as well as at Richmond and, later, Coffs Harbour in New South Wales.

[19] His passing-out parade was delayed by a month because, as Evans later discovered, the British government had peremptorily decided in April that it no longer required graduates from Australia, leaving the RAAF with a surplus of some 7,000 aircrew.

8 SFTS winding down, in October 1944 a civil operator, Aircraft Pty Ltd, began using Bundaberg for its flights between Brisbane and Rockhampton.

The school spent the next few months preparing the base to be handed over to elements of the Netherlands East Indies Air Force before disbanding on 25 July 1945.