AVIATION

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 79, 27 December 1929, Page 15

AVIATION

AERO CLUB AFFAIRS URGENT NEED FOR MORE MEMBERS x (By "Propeller.”) With the pageant past and £9OO clear profit, the officials of the Wellington Aero Club have been turning their attention to the problem of starting training operations. A Simmouds Spartan 'plane will be arriving next month, and although arrangements have been made to give dual instruction, the time that this privilege will be available is limited to a month or two, and unless the membership of the club is quadrupled within a very short time, a desperate position will arise. An estimate of the first year’s working anticipates a loss of more than a thousand pounds. That difference must be made up in membership fees. The present total of the club comprises a hundred flying members and about thirty honorary members. So that a great effort must be made to secure more honorary members. As Mr. Wallace remarked at the .last meeting of the club, there must surely be many more members of the community who are sufficiently interested in flying to pay a membership fee. “Propeller” suggests Jhat all members joining the club from now on should come in- as honorary members, graduating, if they so desire, to flying members as the earlier members receive their “tickets.” The number of flying members eager to receive tuition makes it clear that it will be a very long time before the last of the list qualifies. Therefore, there should be a “waiting-list” established, comprising those who will be joining the club in the 'future, and as those who have been the longer in the club cease to need the services of an instructor, the others become flying members, in order of their joining the club. A lot of trouble which will loom up in the future will be avoided if this is done. The estimate of receipts and expenditure, which provides for two 'planes, au instructor at £5OO per annum, and a ground engineer with a salary of £3OO, anticipates that thirty pupils will be trained in the year. Each of these, it is thought, will take eight hours of dual control at £3 per hour and six hours solo flying at £2, the cost of the course being £36. The details are as follow: — Income: Subscriptions, £3BO/2/-; tuition fees, £1080; joy rides (240 at £1), £240; Government subsidy, £3OO. Total, £=2ooo/2/-. Expenditure: Instructor, £500; ground engineer, £300; ground rental, depreciation ,On two machines, £6oo_; crashes, two at £6O each and eight at £u each), £160; amount written off improvements. £150; petrol and oil, £420; joy rides, £6O; insurance, £lOO. Total, £3040. Deficit. £1039/18/-. The officers of the club have taken n tremendous amount of trouble over the figures, and they call for little comment. “An aero club must be run as a (business concern,” said Mr. McArthur, "and that, fact must be faced. Many members hope to take their first solo flight after much' less than eight hours, though, of course, others may take as long ns ten hours, but the less they take, the more members will qualify within the twelve months.” The committee are also to be commended for their decision not. to make each member put down a deposit to complete the course. There are many obvious drawbacks to the practice, and it was wise to have none of it. New Rank Titles in Air Force.

The picturesque titles of rank used in the Royal Air Force, and hi every other air force in the British Empire, have at last been approved for the New Zealand Air Force (both permanent and Territorial). Ever since the creation of the N.Z. Force we have carried on with the old names used by the Army, and the welcome change is, no doubt, due to the enterprise of the new Director of Air Services (Wing-Commander S. Grant-Dal-ton).

Force. J Lieut.-Colonel. Wing Commander. Major. Squadron Leader. Captain. Flight Lieutenant. Lieutenant. Flying Officer. 2nd Lieutenant. Pilot Officer. The only changes in the “other ranks” division are that privates, become aircraftsmen. with lance-corporals as leading air-craftsmen.

It is to be hoped that the change marks the first act in the casting off of the Army control of our Air Force. The latter body has had to act far too long as a forlorn part of the Dominion’s military forces/ The annual grants seem to have been in the nature of pittances. So much so. that the “Air Annual” finds sufficient grounds to declare that: “The main obstacle in the way of this, small but extremely keen and efficient force is the lack of funds, ns the annual vote is ridiculously small.”