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De Havilland 82C Tiger Moth basic trainer with night flying kit
(J.S. Bond, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons)
The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan aimed to train more than 131,000 Canadians and Allied aircrew during WWII. Airfields, schools, and other training establishments were built from scratch or improved from existing facilities. It resulted in nearly 200 training and support establishments including the No. 8 Elementary Flying Training School.
No. 8 Elementary Flying Training School (EFTS) was established beside the Vancouver Airport on Sea Island in Richmond, British Columbia in Canada, on July 22, 1940. EFTS gave a trainee 50 hours of basic flying instruction on a simple trainer like the De Havilland Tiger Moth, Fleet Finch, or Fairchild Cornell over 8 weeks. Elementary schools were operated by civilian flying clubs under contract to the RCAF and most of the instructors were civilians.
In January 1942, No. 8 EFTS was re-located to RCAF Station Boundary Bay in Delta, British Columbia (where present-day Boundary Bay Airport is located) and became No. 18 EFTS.