User:Kges1901/Soviet Air Force education and training

Russian Civil War
After the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks did not demobilize the Imperial Russian Air Service, unlike the rest of the army. The Imperial Air Service included 31 training establishments of all types by the revolution. The Council of People's Commissars on War and Navy Affairs decreed on 25 January 1918 that "all aviation schools would be preserved for the working people." However, the collapse of the aviation training system began following the October Revolution, with only about 300 pilots and 150 observers supporting the Bolsheviks. In addition to the resulting shortage of flight crews there were insufficient engine mechanics for the nascent Red Air Fleet. In the initial organization of the Workers' and Peasants' Red Military Air Fleet (RKKVVF), the aviation schools were placed under the administration of the School Department of the Main Directorate of the Red Air Fleet (Glavvozdukhflot), and A. I. Kostusev was appointed department head on 11 March.

In order to consolidate aviation schools for increased efficiency, a plan for the School Department was outlined in June. The plan involved the reorganization of the schools based on their specializations. Among the schools to be created were the flight school (from the Gatchina aviation school, evacuated to Sarapul), the specialist reconnaissance pilot school (from the Petrograd and Moscow Aviation Schools of the All-Russian Aero Club relocated to Kazan), consisting of training on combat aircraft of reconnaissance types, and combat employment departments. A specialized fighter pilot school was also to be created from the aerobatics department of the Gatchina school, consisting of fighter aircraft training and aerobatics departments. The aerobatics department was to include an air gunnery section.

The plan envisaged the creation of Central Theoretical Courses for the preparation of students having appointments for flight schools, and the Theoretical Courses for preparation of observers. For simulated combat exercises it was envisaged to send the graduates of the theoretical courses to the combat employment department of the Specialized School for Reconnaissance Pilots so that they could work with trained pilots. For mechanics, the plan envisaged the creation of the School for preparation for motor mechanics, whose graduates would be sent to specialized aviation schools depending on their specialty for practical experience in aircraft maintenance. To supply the aviation schools, a School Depot was to be created in Kazan. A Higher Aviation Institute and Secondary Aviation Institute were to be create to training aircraft designers and engineers.

However, this plan was not fully realized as many aviation schools fell into the hands of the Whites during their advance in 1918 and 1919. As a result, in late 1918 the aviation school complex was created in the Moscow region instead of in the Volga region. The former Wartime Aviation School of the Moscow Aeronautical Society prepared to be sent to Kazan to unite with the Petrograd School to create the Specialized Reconnaissance Pilot School. Instead, it became the Moscow Aviation School, the main school that trained pilots during the war. The former Gatchina Military Aviation School, renamed the People's Socialist Aviation School, relocated to Yegoryevsk, where it became the core of the new Yevgoryevsk Aviation School. The Odessa Fighter Department of the Gatchina school was evacuated again from Samara first to Alatyr and then to Zaraysk, where it became the Zaraysk Department of Combat Employment of the Yegoryevsk Aviation School. The aviation schools trained both pilots and mechanics.

Kostusev suggested in a November 1918 report to the head of Glavvozdukhflot that the training system be modified with the Petrograd school being used for observer training and the Moscow and Yegoryevsk flight schools each annually training a hundred pilots. The subsequent report of the head of Glavvozdukhflot to the Revolutionary Military Council (RVS) convinced them that the Air Fleet was unable to manage training, and on 5 February 1919 it ordered the transfer of responsibility for the political education, supply, and administration of aviation and aeronautical (observation balloon) schools to the control of the Main Directorate of Military Educational Institutions (GUVUZ), with Glavvozdukhflot retaining equipment inspection functions with temporary staffing to be determined by agreement between Glavvozdukhflot and GUVUZ. The GUVUZ 's Aviation and Aeronautical Department took over administration of the aviation schools. Not until a reshuffling of the Glavvozdukhflot directorates on 25 February 1920 did responsibility for the aviation schools return to it.

Due to desertions of pilots to the Whites, it became clear to the air fleet leadership that pilots could only be relied on if the frontline situation was in favor of the Bolsheviks, and Communist pilots needed to be trained. As a result, starting in 1918, flight schools and courses were brought up to strength mainly from the Communist soldiers and mechanics of aviation detachments. The Moscow Aviation School's instructors and students were assessed for their political reliability in August and September, resulting in the dismissal of 47 of them. Henceforth, only Communists with more than six months of party membership were accepted to aviation schools, and by the end of the year 80 percent of the student pilots at the school were Bolsheviks.

The new leadership of the Red Air Fleet was dissatisfied with the slow progress of pilot training, which was blamed for holding back the formation of new units. The Moscow Aviation School was the only establishment graduating pilots in 1918, but a March 1919 inspection found that it lacked the space for training the critical skill of aerial gunnery, and that the few aircraft types used for training held back the process of preparing the graduates sent to the operational units for combat. As a result, a plan was made to create three types of schools: flight schools with 150-man classes, then specialized fighter and reconnaissance pilot schools with 100 and 60 men per class, respectively.

New aviation schools began operating in 1919. On 15 January the Petrograd Communist School for Observers was established and its first graduation came a month later. After the Czechoslovak Legion was forced out of Samara in late 1918, the Naval Aviation School there, formed from several flight schools evacuated from Petrograd, began training naval pilots. The footprint of aviation schools was expanded in July 1920 by the creation of the Tashkent Aviation School with a 100-pilot class to take advantage of the favorable flying climate in the region and the effective use of aviation on the Turkestan Front. The graduation requirements for the school were the successful completion of flights challenging pilots' landing accuracy and altitude, and two flights testing landing on unfamiliar terrain.

The Yegoryevsk Aviation School began graduating land pilots in 1919, and started six-month theoretical courses for students to prepare them for further flight training. The RVS decreed new tables of organization for the Moscow and Yegoryevsk aviation schools in March 1920, which stipulated that no more than seven students were to be assigned to a single instructor. Under the new organization, the schools included 22 instructors for a class of a hundred students. Because the growing number of students in the theoretical courses at the Yegoryevsk school increased the workload on the instructors, the RVS decreed in September that the school be split divided into an aviation school training 250 pilots a year and a theoretical school with capacity for 500 a year. The engine mechanic courses at the Yegoryevsk school were transferred to the Moscow School for Aviation Mechanics and Technicians, expanded to train 200 men a year. This change came as part of the separation of mechanic training from flight training at aviation schools.

Aside from flight and mechanic schools, the air fleet established several specialized schools. The Aerial Survey and Photogrammetry School (later the Moscow School for the Specialized Services) was established on 29 April 1919 and held its first graduation of thirteen aerial photographers and observers a few months later. The Military Aviation Technical School was established in Kharkov in May 1919 to train aviation technicians to supervise mechanics, but had to be evacuated to Moscow in the face of the White advance that summer. Not until 6 April 1920 was the school fully staffed as the Moscow School for Aviation Technicians and Mechanics, and its first class of twelve aviation technicians graduated on 18 January 1921.

Student pilots initially received the same rations as ordinary Red Army men, but in September 1920 their rations were increased by decree of the RVS in order to match their work requirements. Thus, by the end of the war the aviation training system was based on three basic principles: that aviators be firmly loyal to Soviet rule, stricter medical standards were required for entry into aviation schools, and rations needed to be commensurate with physical and mental exertion.

The Aviation Tekhnikum (also translated as Air Technical College) headed by Nikolay Zhukovsky was created in 1919 and reorganized into the Institute for Engineers of the Red Air Fleet. (333-334) Initially under the jurisdiction of the People's Commissariat for Education of the Russian SFSR, it was transferred to military control on 10 July 1922 and renamed the Professor N. E. Zhukovsky Academy of the Air Fleet on 9 September of that year. The academy was renamed the Military Air Academy of the Red Army on 17 April 1925.

On 7 October 1918, ground commanders at the General Staff Academy began to be taught aviation subjects.

A shortage of competent aviation commanders up to the level of heads of front aviation forced the RVS to establish Aviation Courses for Command Personnel of the Air Fleet in May 1920. The courses included departments for command personnel and observers with 125 students per class. As a result of the Polish–Soviet War and the transition to positional warfare in 1920 aerial artillery observers were acutely needed, but there were practically no trained artillery observers. As a result, the training of observers from 53 artillery commanders at the Higher Artillery School for Command Personnel began in June. For training of additional observers an aviation department was established at the Petrograd Infantry School in December.

The Air Fleet trained a total of 292 specialists, including 155 pilots, 75 observers and 62 balloonists during the war. This could not by itself replace the 300 pilots and 118 observers lost during the war. Between January and May 1920 fifty pilots and nineteen observers entered operational units from aviation schools, but this was dwarfed by the 97 former White pilots and 40 observers who either switched sides to the Reds or were taken prisoner during the defeat of the White forces.

Interwar period
By 1930, the following schools trained air force personnel:


 * Military-Theoretical School for Pilots (Leningrad) - courses for land and naval pilots, graduating student-pilots for land and naval flight schools, accepted military servicemen, sailors, and direct entrants. Training duration: 1 year 6 months for land pilots, 1 year 3 months for naval pilots
 * 1st Military School for Pilots (Sevastopol) - courses for land pilots, graduated pilots, accepted graduates of military-theoretical schools for pilots, training period 1 year 6 months. From 1 July 1930 switched to school for military pilots with a training period of one year.
 * 2nd Military School for Pilots (Borisoglebsk) - courses for land pilots, graduated pilots, accepted graduates of military-theoretical schools for pilots, training period 1 year 6 months. From 1 July 1930 admitted 192 cadets for accelerated one-year training using methods of the Central Institute of Labor
 * 3rd Military School for Pilots and Observers (Orenburg) - courses for land pilots, observers, equipment instructors, armament technicians, graduated pilots, observers, weapons instructors and technicians, for pilot courses accepted graduates of the pilot courses of the Combined Military School for Pilots and Aviation Technicians (1 year 6 months training period), for observer courses accepted Red Army commanders (1 year training period) and observers from operational units (6 month training period), and for armament technicians and instructors accepted military servicemen familiar with weapons (1 year training) - Red Army commanders had to successfully complete three months with an air force unit for practical experience before graduating
 * 7th Military School for Pilots (Stalingrad) - offered theoretical and flight courses for pilots - graduated pilots - accepted servicemen and direct entrants, theoretical course 1 year 6 months, flight course 1 year - school began classes on 1 January 1930, by 1 June 1930 only had students for the theoretical course, pilot training began 1 January 1931 and first graduation 1 January 1932
 * Military School for Naval Pilots (Sevastopol) - courses for naval pilots and observers - graduated naval pilots and observers - accepted graduates of the naval department of the Military-Theoretical School for Pilots for the pilot course (1 year of training) and naval commanders for the observer course (1 year of training). Naval commanders had to successfully complete three months with a naval aviation unit for practical experience before graduating
 * School for Military Pilots (Odessa)
 * 1 year courses for military pilots, graduated military pilots, accepted Red Army conscripts and graduates of civil aviation schools
 * Military-Technical School of the Air Force (Leningrad) - courses for junior aviation technicians - graduated aviation technicians - accepted servicemen and direct entrants (2 years of training)
 * Combined Military School for Pilots and Aviation Technicians (Volsk) - courses for land pilots (1 year 6 months) and junior aviation technicians (2 years) - graduated student pilots from the pilot courses and aviation technicians from the junior aviation technician courses - accepted military servicemen and direct entrants
 * Military School for the Specialized Services of the Air Force (Moscow)
 * 6 month courses for instructors of specialized services - graduated instructors for photo, aerial navigation and radio for operational units, accepted observers
 * courses for technicians of specialized services graduated photogrammetrists, darkroom assistants, radio technicians, etc., accepted servicemen (1 year training) and direct entrants (1 year six months training)
 * 82nd Courses for Military Pilots of the Moscow Military District (Serpukhov), 83rd Courses for Military Pilots of the Ukrainian Military District (Kiev), 84th Courses for Military Pilots of the Belorussian Military District (Smolensk), 85th Courses for Military Pilots of the Leningrad Military District (Krasnogvardeysk) all graduated military pilots

By 1932, there were fifteen air force schools.

The operational, command, and navigation departments of the Military Air Academy and the improvement courses for command personnel (KUKS) were merged on 29 March 1940 to create the Military Academy for Command and Navigation Personnel of the Red Army Air Force.

World War II
The air force rapidly expanded during 1940. On 24 August 1940 the air force had 55 military schools, including 36 schools for pilots, four military aviation colleges for pilots, four military aviation colleges for observers and navigators, and five colleges for technical officers, one school for mechanics, and three improvement courses for command personnel. On this date responsibility for military educational institutions of the air force shifted from the disbanded Red Army Directorate of Military Educational Institutions to the head of the Main Directorate of the Red Army Air Force.

On 1 January 1941 the Red Army Air Force had 130 military schools, including:


 * Five military aviation colleges (училище) and higher schools
 * 40 military aviation schools for pilots (VAShP), of which twenty trained fighter pilots and twenty bomber pilots
 * Ten schools for air gunners and bombardiers
 * Six schools for mechanics, of which four trained mechanics for operations, one for armament mechanics, and one for specialized services mechanics
 * 69 schools for junior aviation specialists (the lowest level of mechanics, gunner-radio operators) (ShMAS)

By the end of 1941, 44 military schools were formed:


 * Five aviation colleges, of which two were for flight personnel, two for maintenance personnel, and one for staff officers
 * 30 basic training schools
 * Nine schools for aviation mechanics, including seven for mechanics for operations, one for armament mechanics, and one for specialized services mechanics

During the second half of 1941, 71 schools were disbanded:


 * Five schools for fighter pilots
 * Nine schools for bomber pilots
 * Two schools for air gunners-bombardiers
 * Sixteen basic training schools
 * 39 schools for junior specialists

Thus, by the end of 1941, the Red Army Air Force had 103 military schools.

The 1941 plan sought to train 18,000 fighter pilots, 14,500 bomber pilots, 5,700 gunner-bombardiers, 16,000 operations mechanics, 1,750 armament mechanics, 3,285 specialized services mechanics, and graduate 1,050 officers in technical colleges and schools, a total of 60,285 personnel. In reality, 9,229 fighter pilots, 9,103 bomber pilots, 4,901 gunner bombardiers, 108 officer pilots, 18,674 operations mechanics, 3,326 armament mechanics, and 4,925 specialized services mechanics were trained, with 713 officers graduating from technical colleges and schools. In total, 50,979 personnel were trained in 1941. The air force was thus short of almost half of its target for fighter pilots and almost forty percent of its bomber pilots, but massively exceeded its targets for mechanics.

In 1942 seven schools for pilots were shifted to train ground attack pilots, addressing the near-total lack of prewar ground attack pilot training, as the air force increasingly emphasized ground attack aircraft. During 1942 new military schools were not formed, but disbandments continued. 24 more military schools were disbanded, including a fighter and bomber pilot schools, four gunner-bombardier schools, nine basic training schools, and nine schools for junior aviation specialists. Thus, by the end of 1942 the air force included 79 military schools.

The disbandment of schools was carried out for several reasons, including the reduction of schools that did not finish forming before the war began, deemed surplus to requirements in wartime. Colleges and aviation schools that trained personnel for specializations deemed unnecessary were also disbanded. Another reason was the requirement of the operational air units for equipment destroyed in the first months of the war, whose replacements were drawn from disbanded schools.

The 1942 training plan sought to train 69,318 personnel but the air force only managed to train 50,539 personnel. The air force fulfilled only half of its target for fighter pilots, almost 60 percent of its target for bomber pilots, and just under a quarter (743 out of the 3,200 required) of the target for ground attack pilots. A similar situation came about with gunner-bombardiers, of whom 2,620 were trained out of a target 4,500. The training plan exceeded its target for operations and specialized services mechanics again and produced roughly three-quarters of its targeted armaments mechanics. The failure to meet goals was a result of the disruption caused by the relocation of schools from the European part of the country into the deep rear as a result of the war.

Reductions of military schools continued in 1943. The air force included 73 training schools when the year began. The annual training plan targets were lowered to 62,468 personnel, but the air force again fell short with 46,192 personnel trained. The demand for fighter and bomber pilots as well as mechanics was reduced from the targets of earlier years while the demand for ground attack pilots increased due to the air force's increased emphasis on ground attack. The losses of mechanics were relatively insignificant compared to pilots, and the previous training targets were exceeded in 1941 and 1942, so there was no increased demand for them.

In 1944, one school for bomber pilots and seven new basic training schools were formed. Only one school for junior specialists was disbanded in 1944. One fighter pilot school was transferred to the air defense forces, and one basic training school to the Polish Troops. Thus, the air force included 78 training schools. The training targets for 1944 were increased to 81,586 personnel, with 63,458 personnel actually trained. The fighter and ground attack pilot goals were increased from 1943 but training still fell short of them, while the targets for mechanics remained mostly unchanged.

Until 1 May 1945 the number of training schools remained unchanged except for the transfer from the Airborne Forces of the Saratov Aviation Glider School and the Radiotelegraphy courses from the Red Army Signals Directorate. The training plan from January to May was slashed due to the approaching end of the war, with 9,765 personnel trained out of a goal of 10,212 during this period.

During the war, the training establishments failed to meet targets to address the pre-existing pilot shortage and to replace casualties. These failures were attributed to the disruption caused by the need to relocate schools into the rear, and a lack of qualified instructors and equipment that continued until the end of 1943. After the turning point on the front, the quantity of training instructors increased and logistical support for training schools improved.

Postwar
In the postwar period, a large number of schools for junior aviation specialists (ShMAS) continued to train enlisted specialist personnel of the air force, with their intake consisting mainly of conscripts with complete secondary or vocational education. On completion of the six-month training course, ShMAS graduates could receive a range of military registration specialties including aviation mechanic, radar operator, mechanic for the operation of aviation weapons, electrics, panels, oxygen, radioelectronics and other equipment.

Amidst shifts in defense policy that emphasized the Strategic Missile Forces and air defense over frontal aviation, the strength and training establishments of the Air Force were sharply reduced. The Armavir Military Aviation School for Pilots, a fighter pilot school, and the Dvinsk Military Aviation Technical College for Specialized Services of Long-Range Aviation were transferred to the Soviet Air Defense Forces in 1960. Before then, the Dvinsk Military Aviation Technical College was a secondary training institution that prepared maintenance officers.