From the year 1947 and onwards, the US Air Force Mission in Greece undertakes the financial support of (then) Royal Hellenic Air Force (RHAF) replacing the British Air Mission, which of course continues its direct involvement in RHAF issues. It was more than obvious that the time of re-equipment, the education and reorganization of the structure of RHAF would be based on US standards. The RHAF ΗQ’s considering the new doctrine which would transform the air force decided to send some of the aviation cadets, known in Greece as ‘Icarus’, to be trained in the United States. The high education costs, which reached $ 50,000 per student, for a full educational cycle, dictated that only a small number of aviation cadets could be trained overseas. Fifty young Greek men transferred from March 8, 1948, with successive flights of the C-54 Skymaster of the Military Air Transport Command, to the United States. These students belong to the 21-B Class and they were accepted for training in RHAF, on February 21, 1948. The 21-A Class began its training 2 months earlier and it had already decided to be trained entirely in Greece. The RHAF students were based is Randolph Air Force Base, in San Antonio, Texas, where they were trained their USAF colleagues of 49A-Class. Both American and Greek cadets were divided into four Training Units.

The entire training program, from ground school to flying training was in the English Language enriched naturally with the countless Americans idioms, something leniently tyrannical for the young Greeks. Flight conducted in T-6D aircraft Texans (the well-known Harvard in Commonwealth service) in which the RHAF cadets flew about 200 hours, both with their instructor as well as solo. It must be noted that the 21-B Class pilots, were the first who were granted with the so-called ‘White Card’ meaning their proficiency in IFR flight, which was achieved in the modern Link trainers used by USAF during those years, in Randolph AFB. The T-6s of the four training squadrons were painted silver, except the engine cowling which was painted with the squadron colors. So there were Texans with red, green, yellow or blue cowlings. Unfortunately, we do not know the color the squadron were the Greeks flew, however, it was either red or green. T-6 serials numbers in Randolph A.F.B. used by Greek trainees (without great certainty) are 42-86460 (TA-460A), 42-86128 (TA-128) and TA-027, TA-492A, TA-560, TA-572B, TA-622, whose USAF series numbers could not be confirmed. Of course, all the T-6s were flying with American national markings. Many interesting incidents happened during the cadets training. In a lecture which was given in the Hellenic Air Force Veterans Association one of the members of the Greek Mission in the US, Major General (rt) Ilias Tsamousopoulos (later the leader of the Hellenic Air Force Acro team) remembers:

"During the briefings we had interpreters. In one occasion the training officer ordered the cadet repeatedly to close his canopy in the Harvard (i.e Texan), while on air. The cadet couldn’t understand the order so the pilot landed the airplane, closed his canopy and took off again to complete the flight training!"

After successfully ending their first phase of education, the Greeks were transferred to Williams Air Force Base, in Phoenix, Arizona. For the first time, RHAF pilots would fly the famous North American F-51D Mustang, probably the best American fighter in WW2, which was used with great success by many Greek American pilots. Worthy of note is that many of their training officers were Greek Americans because the young cadets felt better with them, as they had common ethnicity and many of them spoke Greek also. The Mustang now was known as F-51D as the prefix ‘P’ for Pursuit was substituted by the ‘F’ for Fighter. Most of the cadets flew direct solo on the F-51D, while if needed some did flights with the Piggy Back Mustangs were the trainer sit at a rudimentary seat behind the pilot. During their training, the RHAF cadets detached for one and a half month to Nellis AFB in Nevada where they were trained in the ground strike and close air support missions. The Greeks logged around 120 flight hours in the F-51D’s.