 In August, his unit deployed to Gallipoli, where he fought as a machine gunner before being hospitalised the following month, suffering from typhoid fever; he was evacuated to England in December.Determined to leave the trenches behind after recovering, he volunteered for the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and was discharged from the AIF on 21 February 1916 to take up his commission as a temporary second lieutenant in the RFC.His first solo flight in a Maurice Farman Longhorn at Brooklands, after two hours of dual instruction, ended with him overshooting the runway and crashing in a sewage farm, but he was unhurt and immediately undertook a second solo attempt, landing successfully.