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Aviation History
1952
1952 - 1716.PDF
746 FLIGHT 20 June 1952 The home of Air Service Training is set in the pleasant countryside at Hamble, on the east side of Southampton Water. A.S.T. COMES OF AGE The Story of "Britain's Air University" IN the late 1920s, pilots of the Royal Air Force Reserve received their training at four civilian schools. One such school was at Whitley, near Coventry, and it was run by Sir W. G. Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft, Ltd. In 1930, Mr. J. D. Siddeley (Lord Kenilworth), one of the Armstrong Siddeley directors, decided that there was a strong case for the establishment of a better school on a new site. For one Thing, the training of foreign pupils in the R.A.F. was costing more than the Air Ministry could really afford in that period of depression; and the Ministry was also rather dissatisfied with the continued use of Whitley as a training station, the airfield being suitable only for the lightest aircraft. Accordingly, Mr. Siddeley began to gather a staff and look for a suitable airfield. His plan was to establish a school offering all kinds of aeronautical training—for both civil and Service pupils from home and overseas. The school was to be run on essentially R.A.F. lines, and the first man Mr. Siddeley approached was G/C. R. J. F. Barton, the com manding officer of No. 1 F.T.S. Netheravon. G/C. Barton secured his release from the Service and engaged one of his former Netheravon instructors, F/L. H. F. Jenkins, as the first staff member of the new school. On January 5th, 1931, Air Service Training was born, when —still at Whitley—the two ex-officers and Mr. H. J. Dav, a clerk, sat down to formulate syllabi. Meanwhile, Mr. Siddeley had found a home for the school. The Hamble, Hampshire, factory of A. V. Roe and Co., adjoined a good airfield, and the A.S.T. nucleus moved there on January 9th. The aircraft arrived at Hamble during March and April; some were brought from Whitley, while others were new aircraft from Armstrong Whitworths and Avros—Siskins, Atlases and Tutors. On April 9th most of the initial staff arrived, many of whom had come from G/C. Barton's unit at Netheravon. On the 14th of the month Air Service Training unofficially opened with twelve aircraft and ten R.A.F.R. pupils. The official opening was performed by H.R.H. The Duke of Gloucester on June 25th, 1931—twenty-one years ago next Wednesday—a special train, bearing A.S.T.'s new crest, bringing 66 guests from London. The first civilian pupil had already arrived by this time; he was an Anglo-American by the name of B. B. Bossom. Other students arrived in ones and twos, and about a dozen were in residence by the summer. The school was, of course, on a comparatively firm foundation, being backed by the (Left) First published in "Flight" of August 7Jt, 1931, this picture shows, left to right, F/L. R. F. P. Pope, F/0. M, C budding, G/C. R. 7. F. Burton. F/L H. F. Jenkins, and f/0. R. C. berlyn; the aircraft is an A.W. Mat. (Centre) G/C. R. J. F. Barton, O.B.E., the present manag ing director. (Right) W/C. H. F. Jenkins, O.B.E., A.F.C., director of training; notes on their careers are at the end of this article.
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