FLYING IN BRITAIN

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20063, 21 March 1935, Page 2

FLYING IN BRITAIN

ACTIVITY OF AVIATION CLUBS (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, February 5. British flying clubs reached a high point of activity in 1934. Returns already to hand, though not complete, indicate that new records were set for hours flown, flights made, aircraft employed and aviators trained. On every hand a big advance is shown over 1933. Thirty clubs, of which two are at present only in the early stages of formation, receive a measure of Government subvention. Returns from twentysix of them yield an aggregate membership of 7,116 (as shown on the books on December 31) against 4,800 for all subsidised clubs one year before. Active flying members totalled 4,016, against 2,565 on December 31, 1933. Hours flown were 33,968, as compared with 26,695. Incidentally, the 1934 hourage is equivalent at a conservative estimate, to more than three million miles. Number of flights made shows an increase from about 70,000 to more than 75,000. The work of these twenty-six clubs engaged 97 aircraft, or thirty more than were required by all the subsidised clubs in 1933. Amateur pilots trained to the stage of qualifying for the “A” pilot’s license in the year numbered 486, against 433 by all subsidised clubs in the previous year; club members qualified as “B,” or commercial, pilots totalled 50. against 42; second-class navigators 9, against 5 and ground engineers 17, against 8. Unsubsidised clubs also did well. Returns from eleven of them show membership aggregating 2,392, of which 772 rank as flying members; 8,257 hours flown; and 34 aircraft in use. Considering only subsidised clubs, the average club aeroplane in 1934 flew 350 hours, a substantial improvement on earlier years. Some of the clubs used their aircraft much more inten-

sively. Thus the Brooklands club and school flew 3,390 hours with five aeroplanes, an average of 678 hours per machine. The Bristol and Wessex Club, owning four aeroplanes, flew 1,704 hours, averaging 426 hours; the Cardiff Club, with vo, averaged 514 hours; the Herts and Essex Club, with five, averaged 570 hours; and the London Aeroplane Club, with seven aircraft, averaged 445 hous. Testing Aircraft and Engines These clubs made good use of their equipment. Six hundred hours in the air is equivalent to about 50,000 miles. Most club flying is done in short trips and involves thousands of landings, frequently with a clumsy, ham-handed pupil in control, and frequent fullthrottle ascents. The severity of the strains imposed on aircraft and aero engines is evident; British light ’planes and their engines owe much of their strength and endurance to lessons j. learned in the course of years of club and school flying.