About This Unit
No. 5 Service Flying Training School, Uranquinty
No. 5 Service Flying Training School (No. 5 SFTS) was a Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) flight training unit that operated during World War II. It was one of eight Service Flying Training Schools established by the RAAF to provide intermediate and advanced flying instruction to new pilots as part of Australia's contribution to the Empire Air Training Scheme.
No. 5 SFTS was formed at RAAF Station Uranquinty, near Woagga Wagga, New South Wales, in October 1941, and disbanded in February 1946. Its staff and equipment were employed to re-establish No. 1 Flying Training School, which transferred to RAAF Station Point Cook, Victoria, the following year.
RAAF aircrew training expanded dramatically following the outbreak of World War II, in response to Australia's participation in the Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS). The Air Force's pre-war flight training facility, No. 1 Flying Training School at RAAF Station Point Cook, Victoria, was supplanted in 1940–41 by twelve Elementary Flying Training Schools (EFTS), eight Service Flying Training Schools (SFTS), and the Central Flying School (CFS). 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 techniques.
The course at SFTS typically consisted of two streams, intermediate and advanced, and included such techniques as instrument flying, night flying, advanced aerobatics, formation flying, dive bombing, and aerial gunnery. The total duration of training varied during the war as demand for aircrew fluctuated. Initially running for 16 weeks, the course was cut to 10 weeks (which included 75 hours flying time) in October 1940. A year later it was raised to 12 weeks (including 100 hours flying time), and again to 16 weeks two months later. It continued to increase after this, peaking at 28 weeks in June 1944.
Along with No. 2 Service Flying Training School at nearby RAAF Station Forest Hill, and the later No. 1 Basic Flying Training School at Uranquinty, No. 5 SFTS was one of the so-called "Wagga Flying Training Schools", which together graduated over 3,000 pilots in the 1940s and '50s
No. 5 SFTS began flight training in February 1942 using 28 Wirraways. The unit grew over the next two years, and by early 1944 was operating 128 Wirraways, two de Havilland DH.84 Dragons, two de Havilland Moth Minors and a CAC Wackett. It typically graduated one course of pilots each month,[1] although the wastage rate sometimes exceeded 40 per cent.
Losses in training during WW2 were high, with a total of 48 students and instriuctors being killed inaccidents of various kinds.
Care and Maintenance Unit Uranquinty was also formed from No. 5 SFTS's facilities, to look after surplus aircraft at the base prior to their disposal, and disbanded in December 1948.
Source - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._5_Service_Flying_Training_School_RAAF