FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1937
1937 - 2165.PDF
AUGUST 5, 1937. FLIGHT. *37 [Three University Squadrons — [Oxford, Cambridge <nd London — \yisited at Their Annual Camps Illustrated with "Flight" photographs Members of the C.U.A.S. and their instructors. Second from the left is the Chief Instructor, Wing Cdr. Lockyer, and fourth is the C.F.I., Sqn. Ldr. Mason. aircraft provided were fourteen Tutors and two Harts. Owing to the great demand for training aircraft at the time, two of the Tutors provided had been used by the C.F.S. for inverted flying at Hendon, and were still painted with red and white stripes. These were single-seaters and were used only by advanced pupils. During each fortnight a formation cross-country flight was undertaken by six machines, each flown by a member with an instructor in the back seat. In the first fortnight tne formation went to Waddington and spent the night there, returning next day via Birmingham. The second flight went to Cranwell and up the coast to Usworth (Durham) and next day returned by a zig-zag route over Doncaster and York to Hucknall, and then home. Halton is very crowded at present, and the aerodrome, though most picturesquely wooded, is not the easiest for instruction. Wing Cdr. Thompson hopes to get the squadron sent elsewhere next year. O.U.A.S. This is the last year in which Wing Cdr. C. N. Lowe, M.C., D.F.C., will be Chief Instructor of the Oxford University Air Squadron. He is shortly going to Cranwell as Assistant Commandant, where he will continue the work of instructing youth. Though he is a Cambridge man himself, he has done great work for Oxford, and Cranwell's gain will be Oxford's loss. For his last year he decided to hold a real camp, and tents were pitched on Ford Aero drome, where only the local flying club kept Oxford com pany. Ridge-pattern tents proved much more comfortable than the former bell tents. The aerodrome is not large, and the landing area includes some land which still looks like ploughed field but is quite safe to use. Strict rules were drawn up about landing on the right and taking off on the left, quite on the approved system of commercial aerodromes and it worked very well. Flying started at 06.00 hours and went on till 12.30, except when Press photographers insisted on pictures, which upset the programme ; but the undergraduates did not seem to mind an extra half hour's work in the least. In the afternoons the members worked at maintenance of their machines until about 15.00, and then, they were free to amuse themselves. The whole squadron was permitted to ]oin a club at Middleton on payment of a moderate lump Sl ™- and there they could get swimming, lawn tennis, and other ways of stretching limbs which might have been cramped by hours in a cockpit Littlehampton, with all its delirious delights, is quite close. There were admittedly a few drawbacks to Ford. There were too many telegraph wires round the camp, and the O.U.A.S. disapproved of them and wished somebodv woukl remove them. There was a constant hope and expectation that one of the ciub Moths would oblige ; but it never did. Also the wind sometimes annoyed by blowing in the wrong direction, wrong, that is to say, from the point of view of the pilot who wanted to land. It was liBiBliiiilf' London University in the air : " echelon stepped up' the U.L.A.S. in their Tutors. by
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
