Robert Smith-Barry

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Robert Raymond Smith-Barry (4 April 1886 – 2 May 1949) was an officer in the Royal Flying Corps and its successor, the Royal Air Force. His most notable contribution was in developing flying instruction methods. In December 1916 he masterminded a complete reorganization of flying training methods at Gosport.

The curriculum combined classroom training and dual flight instruction. Students were not led away from potentially dangerous manoeuvres but deliberately exposed to them in controlled environments so they could learn to recover from errors of judgement.