 RAAF flying training was heavily reorganised soon after the outbreak of World War II, in response to Australia's participation in the Empire Air Training Scheme (EATS). Several elementary flying training schools were formed, to provide basic flight instruction to cadets, while more advanced pilot instruction was to take place at service flying training schools. On 1 May 1940, No. 1 FTS was re-formed at Point Cook as No. 1 Service Flying Training School (No. 1 SFTS). Its inaugural commanding officer was Group Captain John Summers, who led Fighter Squadron in the early 1930s and had taken over No. 1 FTS in December 1939. The school's Instructors' Training Squadron was detached to become the nucleus of a re-formed Central Flying School, which relocated to Camden, New South Wales, in June. Courses at the service flying training schools consisted of two streams, intermediate and advanced; the total duration varied during the war as demand for aircrew fluctuated. Initially running for sixteen weeks, the course was cut to ten weeks (which included 75 hours flying time) in October 1940. A year later it was raised to twelve weeks (including 100 hours flying time), and again to sixteen weeks two months later. It continued to increase after this, peaking at 28 weeks in June 1944.
