Arnold Scheme

The Arnold Scheme was established to train British RAF pilots in the United States of America during World War II. Its name derived from US General Henry H. Arnold, Chief of the United States Army Air Forces, the instigator of the scheme, which ran from June 1941 to March 1943.

In the early years of the Second World War there was an acute need to train pilots for the Royal Air Force. The United Kingdom was considered largely unsuitable due to a combination of enemy action, high operational traffic at airfields, unpredictable weather and a shortage of training instructors. Several overseas training schemes were therefore established, including the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan, the British Flying Training Schools and the Arnold Scheme. The scheme was one product of the climate of greater co-operation between the United Kingdom and the then neutral United States following the introduction of Lend-Lease in March 1941.

In April 1941 General ‘Hap’ Arnold flew to London and met with RAF officers at the Air Ministry, offering to train four thousand British pilots alongside American aviation cadets. The British Air Council accepted the generous offer and planning began immediately. On 10 May 1941, in a telegram to US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill referred to the “splendid offer which General Arnold made to us of one-third of the rapidly expanding capacity for pilot training in the United States to be filled with pupils from here”, stating that “the first five hundred and fifty of our young men are now ready to leave”.

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