Evening star., 1942-10-18
By Richard L. Stokes.

Tree now OF language from instructor
to pupil, and on occasion vice versa.
The average domestic radio is proof
against extremely rapid impulses, and
no need was felt to shock the Nations
housewives. Various improvements in
the original set-up have been made, but
the details are restricted.
Vocabulary Not Standardized.
Hundreds of hours of instruction were
recorded, and when the transcriptions
were analyzed one of the first discoveries
which may be of interest to scholars
of linguistics and the evolution of idioms
was that aviation is still too young to
have standardized Its vocabulary, in
contrast to that of the sea, for example.
1t was learned, in fact, that each in
structor may be said to have his own
private jargon.
Four flight instructors. on whom the
apparatus eavesdropped for some scores
of pre-solo flying hours, were found to
have used 498 technical terms which are
unlntelligible to an educated layman.
Only one Of seven expressions actually
10 out of 498-was used by all four in
structors. More than haf-265 out of
and not the other three. One deduction
drawn was that the average pupil was
expected to learn some 200 new words
or phrases during the first 10 hours of
instruction.
There were IA different expressions to
direct students to increased power and
20 to reduce power They were in
structed to execute IA types of banks 80
kinds of turns and Is different sorts of
control motions. Sometimes" report
stated cautiously, students experience
difficulty in understanding what an in
structor means by a given expression"
This. was perhaps fortunate, it was
added. when the direction was pull the
throttle off" or "kick out the motor" or
"go off on wing"
British Add to Babel.
The babel of terms was intensified in
the case of thousands of English cadets
training in the United States. When an
instructor ordered: Lets go to town."
the untutored Briton would streak away
for the nearest city. When the command
was give her the gun" he would look
nervously about for some hidden weapon.
The primary job for. DR.. Kelly and his
staff was to standardize and simplify
the entire vocabulary Of pilot instruction.
The second task was to choose among a
crowd of variants the clearest and most
effective expression in actual use for
each operation. Both goals were at
tempted in a so-called "Patter Book"
covering for the present basic training
alone, which has been issued in scores
of thousands of copies for use at naval
and civilian air schools
The United States, British and Ca
madam air forces have long had their
own "patter books" but these are de-
clared to have been evolved from their
own consciousness by officers sitting
about tables. The CAA book Is thought
to be the first in this country, and per-
haps in the world, to be based scientifi-
cally on authentic lessons which were
recorded verbatim, and then analyzed
and sifted by professional educators. 1t
has been revised again and again.
1T is not expected" foreword states,
"that the instructor will always follow
the "patter' word for word. But is es-
sential that he stick to the. order Of
maneuvers and the technical express
sions suggested. Substitution of other
expressions Just as good'-such as gun
for throttle and 'nippers' for elevators
tends to confuse the beginning student
and make the instructors task more
dimcult."