Not all Air Force pilot trainees are called ‘dodos’

This is a rejoinder to the Aug. 19 column of Gen. Ramon Farolan.

The last paragraph of his piece states: “A bit of trivia. Fernando Air Base is also known as ‘the home of the dodo,’ a now extinct bird that used to inhabit the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. It was a bird covered with thick plumes. It could not fly because its wings were too weak to support its body for flight. In the Air Force, all candidates for flying training were considered ‘dodos’ since we had plumes but could not get off the ground on our own. Only after our first solo flight did we graduate from being derisively nicknamed ‘dodos.’”

To clarify things, the aviation cadets of the Philippine Air Force Flying School in Fernando Air Base, Lipa City, are the only ones called “dodos,” and this is in the early stage of their officer and pilot training. The other students of the PAF Flying School are “student officers” (SOs). The SOs are mostly Philippine Military Academy graduates. A few of them are from the so-called direct commission program and have graduated from the PAF Officer Candidate School. These are officers with the rank of second lieutenant or first lieutenant, and they are never called dodos. They just undergo the pilot training program, while the aviation cadets have to undergo both the officer training and the pilot training programs simultaneously. (The aviation cadet program was stopped in 2001, if I am not mistaken).

Right on the very first training day of the aviation cadets, they are given a manual called the Aviation Cadet Primer. This primer contains among other things a list of several “dodo knowledges” which the dodos or the new aviation cadets are required to memorize. First in the list is the definition of a dodo. Anytime an upperclass cadet asks “What is a dodo?” the underclass cadet or dodo should reply without hesitation with these words: “A dodo is a flightless bird related to a pigeon but slightly larger than a turkey. This once celebrated bird inhabited the isles of Mauritius, but due to its inability to utilize its wings and negotiate the atmosphere, it is now extinct. However, one sunny afternoon of April 13, 1983, this once celebrated bird was resurrected! And I, sir, am the happy resurrection!”

The underclass cadets are called dodos until their first solo flight. They wear a “brazard” with the word “DODO” on their left upper arm. That brazard is discarded after their first solo flight, after which the soloist cadet is carried by his classmates from the aircraft and then dumped in the “dunking pool” where he says his last “dodo’s prayer” before removing his dodo brazard. At that point, he ceases to be a dodo. Those who were once dodos may be called “ex-dodos.”

I hope this would clarify things about the dodos of the PAF Flying School.

—ELMER A. DOMINGO, PAFFS Aviation Cadet Class 85-A, remle514@yahoo.com