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The Aero Club of America (ACA) was a social club founded after the Wright Botrothers flight Charles Jasper Glidden, Augustus Post, and others to promote aviation in America (1905) They issued the first pilot licenbses. The ACA steadily expanded until transformed into the National Aeronautic Association (1923). As air ports were built around the United States. Flight schools appeared at these new air ports. Many were small, indepebndent operations. The number of flight schools rapidly increased. There wwere some larger operations such as the Curtis-Wright Flying Service. An important step in the development of an aviation industry was Congress' passage of the the Air Commerce Act (1926). This created a bureau to regularize and administer the licensing of aircraft, engines, and pilots. The development of civil aviation created a demand for pilots which were filled by the flight schools. The number of commercial passangers was miuniscule as late as 1930s, but increased exponentially during the 1930s. As flight trining sas expensive, the numbers of mostly young men were limited and increasred onky somewhat as commercial aviation grew. There were 48 airlines serving 355 American cities, but the number of passengers were still tiny (1928). The Schweizer brothers manufactured sport sailplanes to meet the new demand. Sailplanes continued to evolve through the 1930s and sport gliding became the main application of gliders. Some European nations with the rise of the NAZIs began building up their air forces and iuninited programs train civilians as pilots if war came. Here the United States was late to respond, but initiated its own civilian effort -- the Civilian Pilot Training Program (CPTP) (1938). President Roosevelt supported the CPTP to train 20,000 civilian pilots a year. The President understood more than most Americans that another war was coming. The U.S. Army Air Corops (USAAC) had only 4,502 pilots (1939). This included 2,007 active-duty officers, 2,187 reserve officers and 308 national guard officers. The result was a rapid increase in the USAAC wjich became known as the U.S. Army Air Forces. The number of new pilots increased: 982 (1939), 8,000 (1940), and 27,000 (1941). Even after Peral Harbor and American entry into the War, the civilian role in pilot training did not end. The USAAC/USAAF did not have the capability of immediately creating flight schools for the number of aviators needed. The USAAF utilized the CPTP and a separate network of civilian schools under contract to the USAAF, as well as training programs in its own schools. The The CPTP eventually ran operations at 1,132 colleges and universities and 1,460 flight schools. CPTP-trained pilots receibed advanced traiuning at USAAF schools. Recording nearly 12 million flying hours, the CPTP eventually trained trained 435,165 pilots during the World War II era (1939-44). Military suuccess in Europe and the Pacific clearly showed that that Axis had been defeated and training huhe numbers of new pilots was unnecessary. The military terminated the agreement with the CPTP/WTS (early-1944). The whole program was ended (1946).
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