FOR WOMEN FLEET AIR STAFF

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 171, 21 July 1943, Page 5

FOR WOMEN FLEET AIR STAFF

WOMEN MECHANICS

BUT NO FLYING WRENS YET

LONDON. The Fleet Air Arm —like the R.A.F. —is to have a women's ground stair. Training of the first course of Wrens air mechanics started at a northern station in four specialised groups—electrical, engineering, air frame, and ordnance. Aii- mechanics in the electrical group are to have 24 weeks' training. Applications will be considered from volunteers with school certificates credit in mathematics or physics. Other groups receive 17 to IS weeks' training, but vohmteers will be drafted from the ranks of women already serving in the Wrens. For many months Waal' flight mechanics have been servicing aircraft at maintenance and flying training units, checking and repairing bombers and training and fighter planes of the R.A.F. Flight mechanic is a popular category with the Waaf because the duties include flying. Not to Fly Wren air mechanics in the Fleet Air Arm, however, will not fly. At any rate, not yet. I suspect, however, that the navy's women mechanics, like those in the R.A.F., will fly before they have been long on a station, says Iris Carpenter in the Daily Mail. The R.A.F. also carried a ban on women mechanics testing their work out in the air—at first. Radio mechanics in the Fleet Air Arm already fly regularly to test out the radio sets they repair. Wren air mechanics will survicc and repair every type of plane now usee] by the navy — Swortilish, Walrus. Hurricanes, Aibacores and Seafires. But these Wrens will not work at sea. They are to be posted only to stations where the navy's wings are shore-based.