Wayne H. Heiser’s
U.S. Naval and Marine Corps Reserve Aviation, Volume I, 1916-1942 Chronology includes the following description of the Naval Aviation flight training syllabus at Pensacola in 1935
“The primary and advanced flight training syllabus at NAS Pensacola was revised on 1 May 1935. The new syllabus required completion of about 300 hours of flight instruction and 465 hours of ground school instruction in a period of one year. The flight syllabus was divided into nine weeks in primary seaplanes, eighteen weeks in primary landplanes, nine weeks in observation landplanes, nine weeks in service seaplanes, and seven weeks in fighter planes. There was no distinction between training given to regular Navy students and aviation cadets except that the cadets had to complete an additional 90 hours of indoctrination in naval subjects.
Training was not ended for aviation cadets with the designation as naval aviators and assignment to the Fleet. Comprehensive syllabi were prepared and followed for training in all aspects of flying at sea. In addition, to correct deficiencies in general seagoing knowledge, training and study courses were conducted aboard ship in gunnery, engineering, etc.”
It looks like the doctrinal training for specific military tasks was conducted at the unit level after the aviator was assigned to sea or shore duty, and not during flight training. Never-the-less, it appears there was a pattern in the search for AE by the
Colorado’s planes in that each island was evaluated in a similar fashion:
Circle Island, Search target will be: Plane/raft,
If none, check for:
Habitation, Evaluate contemporary or dated?
If recent,
Determine presence of people: Circle and Zoom
If people present: land
Interrogate witnesses
If no news of sightings
Continue on
If people not present, observe conditions suitable for forced landing report such for additional searches if required.
It wouldn’t be surprising if the experience gained by the Colorado’s air crews during the Earhart search was used for unit level “training” for new pilots and observers, and the Earhart searchers used what advice they could glean from previous search experiences.