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Aviation History
1936
1936 - 0930.PDF
AIRCRAFT ENGINEER AND AIRSHIPS fJRST AmONAUTICAL~WEEKLY IN THE^WoRLD i FOUNDED 1909 Editor C. M. POULSEN Managing Editor G. GEOFFREY SMITH Chief Photographer JOHN YOXALL Editorial, Advertising and Publishing Offices: DORSET HOUSE, STAMFORD STREET, LONDON, S.E.I Telegrams : Truditnr, Scdist, London. Telephone : Waterloo 3333 (SO lines). HEETFOKD ST., COVENTRY. Telegrams: Autocar, Coventry. Telephone: Coventry 5210. GUILDHALL BUILDINGS, NAVIGATION ST., BIRMINGHAM, 2. Telegrams: Autopress, Birmingham. Telephone: Midland 2971. 260, DEAN8GATE, MANCHESTER, 3. Telegrams: Jliffe, Manchester. Telephone: Blackfriars 4412. 26B, RENFIELD ST., GLASGOW C.2. Telegrams: Iliffe, Glasgow. Telephone: Central 4857. SUBSCRIPTION RATES ; Home and Canada : Otbcr Countries : Tear, £1 IS 0. Year, £1 15 0. 6 months. 16s. 6d. f> months, 17s. 6d. 3 months. 8s. 6d. 3 months, H». !W. 1425. Vol. XXIX. APRIL 16, 1936. Thursdays, Price 6d. The Provision of Pilots SOME few years ago a school at Highgate, inspired, doubtless, by the Air Ministry's patronage of the flying clubs and the University Air Squadrons, decided to start instruction in aeronautics. Since then the training ships H.M.S. Worcester and Conway have started special classes for cadets who wish to take up civil flying as their work in life ; and it may be taken as certain that as the opportunities of careers become more general every leading educational establishment will have to place aeronautics on its syllabus. Solo flying is forbidden by law to those under the age of seventeen, but there is nothing to prevent even babies in arms from being taken up as passengers and so growing accustomed to the air. With this experience, and a good grounding in the principles and practice of flying, such youngsters should readily become competent pilots as soon as they reach the legal age. Horsemen, seamen, and airmen are all of them the better for having grown up with the art which they practice. That it is very desirable for the British to become a nation of airmen will be seriously disputed by none. 1 his dogma used to be supported by the advice to look a* the map of the British Empire. It was good advice, but now it is better still to look at a similar map with >e routes of Imperial Airways marked on it, and also e routes which that company has in mind. Such a ™aP will convince even a doubter, if any such exist, nat the British must seek their future in the air, while forgetting the claims of the sea. ^ the present time, however, we must not disregard Lor !^d- °f an amP"e suPPty of pilots for air defence. ioin tHTt0n Says that he needs 6o° ab initio Pilots to two Reserve this year, and 800 in each of the next tut ftuf^i ^at sriould make a very useful nucleus, work f °f-the Reserve are taught only part of the an Air Force pilot. On mobilisation they would be attached to regular squadrons and would have to learn squadron work before they could become really useful cogs in the machine of air defence. Twelve good pilots in twelve good aeroplanes do not make a working squadron until they have had a considerable period of combined training. That is a point which some people are inclined to overlook. In the air, quality is more important than mere numbers. As Lord Trenchard once said to the County of Middlesex Squadron, a good squadron will cut its way through a lot of inferior material as a knife cuts through butter; and a high pitch of training is one of the most important of the elements which go to make up excellence. For that reason there need be no apprehensions that the destruction of London is imminent because this or that foreign nation may have recently built a large number of aeroplanes and trained a large number of pilots. Until those pilots have been thoroughly drilled to work as an air force they are a danger to nobody. For the same reason it is very desirable that at least a large proportion of our own Reserve should be attached to regular squadrons as part of their training. Expanding the A.A.F. An increase in the Auxiliary Air Force is another way of getting pilots, not only trained to fly, but trained in combined work. To quote Lord Trenchard again, he suggested in the House of Lords last month that there should be a squadron of the A.A.F. at every town of over 20,000 inhabitants. It is a most excellent sugges tion. Other suggestions for increasing the number of pilots in the country have been put forward, and a few days ago a correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, in a letter which was published on the principal page of the paper, urged that what he called a Territorial Air Force should be formed, with a unit in each county. He evidently overlooked the fact that the Auxiliary Air Force is on the same footing as the Territorial Army in that it is managed by the Territorial County Associa-
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