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Aviation History
1956
1956 - 0812.PDF
814 FLIGHT Two of Hamble's international "clientele" discuss a flight with an instructor alongside one of fire Chipmunks. "Flight" photograph Three AS.T. instructors—S/L. George Webb, A.F.C., who is C.F.I, (centre). F/L. ft. A. V. Hazlehurst (left) and F/L. L. A. Fieldhouse. A.S.T.'s QUARTER CENTURY... Licence involves far more than flying instruction, and that the Flying Wing is only one of four equally important schools at Hamble. To qualify for a Senior Commercial Pilot's Licence, for example, a pupil must pass examinations in nine subjects, includ- ing aviation law and flight rules, flight planning, aeronautical charts, navigation, radio aids, instruments, meteorology, signals and aircraft technical knowledge. All these are covered fully by A.S.T. courses in lecture rooms and workshops located in blocks of buildings situated between the airfield and road at Hamble. One of the three specialist sections is the School of Naviga- tion, under S/L. C. N. Hoy, which offers advanced technical training for- the Flight Navigator's Licence in addition to the instruction it gives to pilots up to the standard required for the Airline Transport Pilot's Licence. Then there is the School of Aircraft Radio, headed by Mr. F. E. Barltrop, with courses for Aircraft Radio Officers' Licences and for radio officer/wireless mechanics. Allied to it is the School of Marine Radio and Radar for merchant marine radio officers. Finally, the world-famous School of Aircraft Engineering, of which Mr. S. Ward is chief instructor, provides training for all Aircraft Engineers' Licences and has an average of 80-100 pupils at all times. There is a special course for technical officers of Dominion and foreign air forces, and a diploma course which covers material testing, physical laboratory work, aerodynamics, and the application of electronics. To supplement their training at Hamble, the men can be sent on engine courses with B.E.A., Rolls-Royce, Armstrong Siddeley and other organizations, or to Field Aircraft Services at Bovingdon for practical experience when studying for their X (instruments) Licence. Inevitably, a short conducted tour of these Schools gives anything but a well- balanced picture. The all-important basic equipment and techniques are taken for granted and one remembers only a few details such as the sectioned Jumo turbo- jet which forms a surprise exhibit in a lecture room of the Engineering School, side-by-side with a sectioned Derwent and Theseus, a row of piston-engines and a highly-polished exhibition Mamba. The School of Navigation has two new Air Trainers Link D4s. These have been set to simulate a Dove, which is important, because the Links on which pupils take their M.T.C.A. tests also simulate a Dove and the flying tests from Stansted are made on this type of aircraft. In the D4s, pupils can learn to use every type of radio aid except VOR, and the standard course covers such up-to-date techniques as trans-polar navigation and pressure- pattern flying. Another of AS.T.'s activities — the School of Aircraft Radio. A surprise here is a picture of what must surely be one of thefirst-ever flight simulators, built at A.S.T. in 1935 by F/L. H. F. Jenkins and F/O. R. C. Berlyn. Built of Tutor componentsand worked by lead weights and suction, it gave a fairly accurate representation of flying in a Tutor. Biggest surprise of all, though, is in one of the engineeringhangars, where one is confronted by a strange wingless airframe that seems ready to have a tug-of-war with itself. It is in fact, nore-incarnation of the wartime Dornier Do 335 "push-and-pull" concept, but merely the forward fuselages of two "retired TigerMoths, each complete with centre section and undercarriage, joined together to form a convenient mobile test-bed for equally-retired Gipsy engines assembled by pupils under training. All this ignores the mass of first-class equipment and materialprovided for the pupils' use, which ranges from a well-equipped drawing office to electrical test rigs, an industrial microscope,radar sets and a small wind-tunnel. Suffice to say that nothing is missing that would help a pupil to reach the highest standardof efficiency, for the whole principle of A.S.T. training is to teach men to become the finest possible airmen and engineers, notmerely to ensure that they gain a paper licence by cramming the essential minimum of study and experience into the shortestpossible time. After the public school atmosphere of the A.S.T. TrainingDivision, it is a little startling to have to sign registers and carry passes when one merely crosses the road to the Aircraft Division.But the security checks are necessary, for this branch of the business is extremely busy on important and, to a large extent,secret work. Although its history can be traced back to 1917, it cannot sharefully the A.S.T. "silver jubilee," as it remained under Armstrong
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