page_title: British Commonwealth Air Training Plan
section_title: Canada
hierarchical_section_title: British Commonwealth Air Training Plan / Legacy / Canada
caption_attribution_description: De Havilland Tiger Moth C-GYGU Recreation of a BCATP base at the Western Development Museum, Moosejaw, Saskatchewan, Canada
context_page_description: The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, or Empire Air Training Scheme often referred to as simply "The Plan", was a massive, joint military aircrew training program created by the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, during the Second World War. BCATP remains as one of the single largest aviation training programs in history and was responsible for training nearly half the pilots, navigators, bomb aimers, air gunners, wireless operators and flight engineers who served with the Royal Air Force, Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm, Royal Australian Air Force, Royal Canadian Air Force and Royal New Zealand Air Force during the war.
  Under a parallel agreement, the Joint Air Training Scheme, South Africa trained 33,347 aircrew for the South African Air Force and other Allied air forces. This number was exceeded only by Canada, which trained 131,500 personnel.
  Students from many other countries attended schools under these plans, including Argentina, Belgium, Ceylon, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Finland, Fiji, France, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland and the United States, where the similar Civilian Pilot Training Program was already underway by the end of 1938.
context_section_description: The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan illustrated that the Commonwealth still had some military meaning during the Second World War and was one of Canada's major contributions to the early war effort. The BCATP was an impressive and uniting national achievement. Canada became, during the Second World War, one of the great air training centres contributing more than 130,000 trained aircrew to the Allied Cause. The federal government paid three-quarters of the total bill, an amount in excess of two and a quarter billion dollars.
  On the third anniversary of the Plan President Roosevelt enthused that the BCATP had transformed Canada into the "aerodrome of democracy", a play on his earlier description of the United States as "the Arsenal of Democracy."
  Wrought iron gates were chosen by the UK, New Zealand and Australia to commemorate Canada's contribution to the Plan, and were placed to overlook the parade square at CFB Trenton.
  Various aircraft, transport and training artefacts may be seen at the Commonwealth Air Training Plan Museum, located in Brandon, Manitoba.
  As Canada was the main participant, the legacy of the plan there included a strong postwar aviation sector and many new or improved airports across the country, the majority of which are still in use. The classic BCATP airport consisted of three runways, each typically 2,500 ft (760 m) in length, arranged in a triangle so that aircraft could always land (more-or-less) into the wind – that was critically important at a time when most light training aircraft (such as the North American Harvard) were taildraggers, which are difficult to land in strong cross-winds.
  That triangular runway outline is perfectly preserved at Claresholm Industrial Airport, but is still easily visible under later runway extensions at most Canadian BCATP airports, such as Kingston/Norman Rogers Airport, Boundary Bay Airport and Pendelton, Ontario airport. Later modifications have often resulted in one runway being lengthened to handle larger aircraft such as jets, and in less-used runways being closed or converted to taxiways.
  The BCATP provided an economic boost in the Western provinces that were still recovering from the decade long depression.  The final report of the BCATP Supervisory Board calculated that "more than 3,750 members of the RAF, RAAF, RNZAF and Allied nationals under RAF quotas married Canadian girls," many of whom remained in Canada to raise families.
  In 1959, Queen Elizabeth II unveiled The Ottawa Memorial, a monument erected to "(commemorate) by name, some 800 men and women who lost their lives while serving or training with the Air Forces of the Commonwealth in Canada, the West Indies and the United States and who have no known grave."
  The Commonwealth Air Training Plan (CATP) Museum is a non-profit, charitable organisation in Brandon, Manitoba, founded and operated by volunteers. The museum is dedicated to the preservation of the history of the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan and serves as a unique memorial to those airmen who trained and served, and especially those who died, while serving their country in the air war of 1939–1945. This is the only museum in the world dedicated solely to this goal, located in Manitoba where so much of the training was carried out. The collection includes 14 aircraft on display with the museum's Auster, Harvard, Cornell and Stinson HW-75 airworthy.
  The Commonwealth Air Training Plan may also be regarded as the precursor of post-war international air training schemes in Canada, many of them involving personnel from other NATO powers. These include the NATO Air Training Plan (1950–1957) that graduated 4,600 pilots and navigators from 10 countries. Later bilateral arrangements with individual NATO powers (1959–1983), the Military Training Assistance Plan, which has trained aircrews from developing countries since 1964 and NATO Flying Training in Canada (NFTC), since 1998, a partnership of the Canadian Forces, Bombardier Aerospace Corporation and participating air forces. In 2005, the Canadian Department of National Defence awar
caption: Re-creation of a BCATP base at the Western Development Museum, Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada
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