EVE IN THE AIR.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 193, 15 August 1931, Page 24

EVE IN THE AIR.

English Women are Accomplished Flyers. The modern English woman has taken very kindly” to the air; not only has he accomplished amazing feats, but as passenger as well as pilot, and socially as well as in matters purely sport, she is arranging her life in the new element. This accounts for the successful establishment of flying clubs throughout England (remarks “The Queen”); apd accounts also for the fact (which is extremely gratifying to remember!) that the largest and most comprehensive air club in the world is in the Air Park of London, at Hanwortli. The flying club of to-day is a social asset; what woman member (whethei she be a flying member or socially interested in the club) does not now recognise the hardly veiled hints from relatives suddenly effusive friends that they have always longed to see flying close .up . . . that they often wonder what flying lessons look like .... and does Captain Schofield really fly upside down in a closed machine? . . . and

so on, ending with the innocent and purely rhetorical question: “Oh, by the way, you are a member of Hanwortli. aren’t you?”

If the answer to that is an invitation, and the visit materialises, it is hardly to be wondered at that this club is roping in new members at the rate of one each day! However, since the modern aero club is a thing without precedent —and it seems to have fallen to the National Flying Services to establish that precedent—it is interesting indeed to explore all the various excitements and “amenities” that have grouped themselves under the now familiar oiange and black club colours, whether at the parent club or the increasing number of new style “county clubs” all over Britain. Gone for ever is the era of the gaunt tin hangers on the windswept muddy tarmac . . . the intrepid leatlier-clad males (watched by admiring females) who stepped into their machines and rose into the almost unknown while the women waited and wondered! Yet this was all flying had to offer us but a very few years ago. Now —the contrasting picture: A lovely country house, standing in its own vast wooded estate, ideally situated (as the house agent might say this time with truth!) on the banks of a stream that once mirrored Henry VIII. and his variegated Court, and strangely blended (and perfectly harmoniously) with all that endears it to the modern mind. You may equally praise the lay-out of the lovely gardens, or the perfect sight 0f the yellow and black “Moths” drawn up, ticking over, on the instruction tarmac. You may wander out of the quiet leisure of the drawing room and across to the commercial side, where the first air taxi rank in the world is working full steam ahead.

It is necessary as well as interesting to give some idea of the costs of this newest development of our social life. The entrance fee to the Hanwortli Air Club is five guineas and the subscription is five guineas yearly. The 11011-flying woman is equally catered for; in fact, the passenger-potential is wooed with care and kindness away from the increasing horrors of the toll of the road! And because, these days, one must be nothing if not practical in one’s attempt to remain solvent, it is interesting to most of us, mothers with air-eager daughters, daughters with allowances, young professional women chary of taking up more than they can pay for—and even that race of aunts with energetic and almost contemporary nieces and nephews, to examine in some detail the practical issues of the new social development and the probable cost in £ s. d., and time.

Your meals—and (if you live at the club as so many do while they are learning to fly) your living expenses come to no more than at a good class but not expensive hotel —the various club “occasions,” dances and functions do not rook you —actually cost you less than a London show and supper. Then comes the special activities, and these are really endless! Leaving the actual learning of the art of pilotage for the moment, w r hat else is there? There is, of course the endless joy of the taxi rank. A two-passenger Desoutter coupe will take you anywhere at a moment’s

notice for 1/G a mile (Continental 1/9) “there-and-back”; if you are bored witli the view, for instance, at Hanworth before lunch and tea, you send a polite message over to ace of pilots, who is in charge of the commercial side of the organisation, and ask for a machine to take the two of you to the Reading Club for tea ... it takes a very short time indeed, and the provincial club houses built on the same pattern are pleasant places to land at; after tea you return, purring your way above Bucks at some 1500 ft up, with the heat and the congestion of arterial traffic below! It is a novel form of entertainment for your guests and less costly than dinner and a theatre! Imagine now that, having been a member of this (or indeed any other aero club of repute) for a little time, you get thoroughly bitten with the desire to learn to fly yourself. How much will it cost, and how long will it take and, having learned, what on edrth is going to be the use if it is too expensive a luxury to possess a machine! These days these questions are easily answered; it is not too expensive for the “ordinary woman” to learn to do that very thing that, in a few years, will be as usual as car-driving Actually it takes about fifteen flying hours, or perhaps a little less, to learn to fly. The rate charged for dual instruction is £3 an hour, and for the first 25 hours of solo flying £2 10/ an hour, and naturally in this first 25 hours (after w'hich the price per hour is only £2) are included your very first; solo flight. Until you have qualified in practice and in theory for what is called your “A” licence, you may not leave the three-mile radius of your aerodrome; once fortified by your pilot’s “ticket” you are free of the air, but you must not ply for hire.