LEARNING TO FLY

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 38, 13 August 1935, Page 4

LEARNING TO FLY

AT £1 A TERM

London University Air Squadron, the formation of which was approved by the Senate last March, will come into being next term, writes Major C. C. Turner in the "Daily Telegraph." A proposal that it should be organised on O.T.C. lines has not been approved, and the London Squadron will be akin to the Oxford and Cambridge University Air Squadrons. The University Squadrons are not military organisations, and the principal air officer appointed is designated Chief Instructor. He will be Wing Commander F. H. M. Maynard. In the present year twenty-five undergraduates will be admitted. Next year there will be twenty-five more, and in the third year the squadron will be brought up to seventy-five, the same strength as' the other two University Squadrons. Already there have been enough applications to complete the strength, despite the Selection Committee's "weed-ing-out" process. In each squadron twenty-five members leave each year and twenty-five new members join. The cost to members is only £1 per term, and this outlay covers the cost of the Air Ministry flying certificate. The cost to the State is small. The squadrons of Oxford and Cambridge Universities cost together less than £5000 a year. Members do not wear uniform, and the discipline is not military. Order and behaviour are, however, maintained at a high standard, and membership is regarded as a privilege: Town headquarters at South Kensington have been approved for the new London Squadron. Flying headquarters will be at Northcroft Aerodrome. : From the University Air Squadrons a few members join the RAF.' A larger number go in for civil flying. The bulk of the direct entry into the flying categories of the Reserve of Air Force Officers comes from the Universities. ' ■> Some members spend part of the long vacation in aeroplane works.

The study of aerodynamics, as well as engineering in ..all branches, is encouraged at all the Universities, and Cambridge has a Chair of Aeronautics.