Form Letter Regarding the British Air Transport Auxiliary

BRITISH AIR TRANSPORT AUXILIARY American Women's Section c/o Royal Air Force Ferry Command JACQUELINE COCHRAN, Organizer MONTREAL, CANADA As requested I am giving you further details of the Air Transport Auxiliary. The Air Transport Auxiliary carries out in Great Britain, ferrying duties of all types of military airplanes for the Royal Air Force. Contract for these duties is for eighteen (18) months, and you will be provided with a free passage from your home town to the headquarters of the Air Transport Auxiliary in England and on expiration of your term of service free return passage to your home, together with one hundred dollars ($100.) out-of-pocket expenses. In England you may be required to be posted to any of the ferry pools situated throughout the country; but every effort will be made to insure that American women pilots are kept together so far as possible. In order to fit you for flying these military airplanes you will undergo on arrival in England a conversion course in the Air Transport Auxiliary school. This course will include additional instructions on navigation in the United Kingdom and also technical instructions on propellers, motors, carburetors, etc. The greatest care is exercised to insure that a pilot is competent to fly these airplanes before being posted to a pool. I propose during the course of the next few weeks to carry out an extended tour of the United States to interview applicants. For my initial interviews I will limit it to women pilots who have three hundred (300) hours or more. When due to arrive in your district, I will notify you beforehand to meet me at a predetermined city, for which journey you will receive free transportation and ten dollars ($10.) expenses for a night's lodging away from home if necessary, Subject to a satisfactory interview you will then be sent to Montreal for flight and medical tests. During this time you will receive ten dollars ($10.) in Canadian money per day subsistence allowance, this commencing from the time you leave your home town until arrival at headquarters of Air Transport Auxiliary in England. If you fail the tests in Montreal you will be furnished with free transportation home. The flight test will be carried out on North American trainers, but you will be given an opportunity of familiarizing yourself with this airplane in the company of an instructor before being asked to submit to a flight check. In England you will receive as remuneration when fully qualified to fly military airplanes on ferry duties an average of four thousand dollars ($4,000.) per year which will include twenty-five dollars ($25.) a week payable in United States currency to your bank in the United States. The salary in England is paid in English sterling