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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 30, 1942)
Page 4- THE BATTALION -THURSDAY MORNING, APRIL 30, 1942 9 New Air Schools For Texas by July Bomber Crews, Pursuit Pilots Will Be Trained at Fields HDQS Gulf Coast Air Corps Training Center, April 29. — By mid-summer Texas will have nine more airfields for training Air Crew members and pursuit pilots, Major General Hubert R. Harmon, commander of the Gulf Coast Air Corps: Training Center announced today. In trend with the heavier pres sure for training of Air Crew members to man bombers, the Army Air Force’s most effective, long arm weapon, the Training Center announced additional schools for bombardiers will be activated at San Angelo, which al ready has a basic school and Big Springs, Advanced twin-engine pilot schools are in the plans for Lubbock and Waco, which already have training schools in operation. A new school for navigators is to be set up at Hondo, 40 miles west of San Antonio. The Center’s only navigation school now is at Kelly Field. It will be transferred to Hondo when the station there is ready. Kelly also gives advanced pilot training. Down on the coast where they will have the Gulf of Mexico to shoot into, pursuit plane gunners from the four single-engine schools will be trained on gunnery ranges at Matagorda Island and Mata gorda Peninsula. Company or group banquets up to 100 persons /PHONE 2-1501 LA SALLE HOTEL BRYAN, TEXAS Wing Tip to Wing Tip Over the Eagles’ Nest Returning from a formation mission, Uncle Sam’s embryo eagles sweep over the “West Point of the Air” before settling to their aerial formation flying, as well as night flying, instrument work, cross-country missions, and precision flying are included in the 70 hours Aviation Cadets spend in sleek 450-horsepower basic training planes at Randolph Field, Texas. Completing this basic stage, cadets can look forward to a brief ten weeks of advanced training, after which they receive their wings and a commission in the Army Air Corps. Flying Cadets Have Terms Similar to Aggie "Slanguage” Although the Corps of Flying Cadets does not have the back ground of A. & M.’s generations of students, a true espirit d’corps has been built up and is continuing to grow daily. The language of the Flying Ca dets is dotted with highly colorful expressions, new ones being added as the occasion arises. “It’s the slang of today that’s accepted to- Patronize Our Agent In Your Outfit. DYERS" FUR STORAGE HATTERS jTYo:r>xcarL r 2-1585 CASH & CARRY D. M. DANSBY, NORTH GATE ’37 IT’S GRADUATION TIMES AT CALDWELL’S JEWELRY STORE Diamonds, Watches, Gifts Of All Kinds . . . Aggie Jewelry —If It’s New We Have It— ♦ Caldwell’s Jewelry Store j Bryan Come In Today To Have Us Make YOUR PHOTOGRAPH Your Mother Will Appreciate It On MOTHER’S BAY ' Aggieland Studio —Photographs of Distinction— HOMING DEVICE ... A fur lough or leave of absence. BLACK WEDNESDAY . . . Calesthenics with rifles on that day. COUNTRY CLUB . . . Ran dolph Field. BIRD DOGGING . . . When a lower classman dances with an upper classman’s date. GET EAGER . . . To strive to , the utmost. RAT . . . Balls of lint that sud denly appear on the floor; most noticeable when a cadet is standing at attention during an inspection of his room. MICE . . . Little “Rats.” SPIN IN ... Go to bed, take a nap. TAKE OFF ... To 1 leave at a high rate of speed. RAUNCHY ... A name applied > to anything that is dirty or in bad shape. WASH OUT ... To be eliminat ed from flight training. WASHING MACHINE . . . The Flight Commander’s air plane. THE “GREY GHOST” ... The Stage Commander’s airplane, so named because it’s the last plane one rides in before be ing washed out. PUSH BUTTON PILOTS . . . Those cadets who are assign ed to Flights using the BT- 14’s, differentiating from those cadets who train on the more elderly BT-9’s. ROLL UP YOUR FLAPS . . . Stop talking. SUGAR REPORT ... A letter from a Cadet’s girl friend. TAXI UP . . . Come here. MISTER . . . The name every Cadet is known by from the day he arrives at Randolph Field. CADET WIDOW ... A young lady who has known Flying Cadets for several classes. BUNK FLYING . . . Talking aviation while in the barracks. “DRIVE IT IN THE HANGAR” . . . “Let’s stop bunk flying.” STORM . . . Excited Cadet’s condition: when he doesn’t know what he is doing he is in a storm. DAWN PATROLLING . . . Arising before reveille. DODO TOM . . . Janitor of B Company, whose service dates back to 1922 at Brooks Field but has never been in an air plane. DODO . . . Name given to Fly ing Cadet until he has soloed. GIG . . . Demerit. RIDING THE BEAM . . . Gaz ing at the ceiling after violat ing a custom in the Mess Hall. World’s First Military Flight Was ByGCACTCHead Wright Brothers Taught General Dahn How to Fly, Sold Initial Ship to Govt RANDOLPH FIELD, April 29. —On a crisp October morning in 1909 Wilbur Wright, smiling broadly, stepped out of the bam- boo-and-wire biplane he and Or ville had sold to the United States Army. He motioned to the young lieutenant, who slid into the pilot’s seat. “Go ahead and take it up,” Wil bur Wright said. Six words had founded Air Corps flight training and set the pattern for three decades of flying instructors. The young lieutenant who heed ed Wilbur Wright and made the world’s first military solo flight 32 years ago, is now the new Com manding General of the Gulf Coast Air Corps Training Center —Major General Frank P. Lahm. “A man never forgets his first solo,” General Lahm recalls. “Mine lasted for 13 minutes and consist ed of slow circles 100 feet above an open field—at a top speed of 42 miles per hour. But I was as alone as a man can be.” Wilbur Wright taught the entire course, under a contract between the Signal Corps and the Wright brothers. Lt. Frederick E. Hum phreys was the other young stu dent-officer. After both had solo ed, the flying lieutenants gave each other an “advanced course.” General Lahm even found the spot near College Park, Md., that was to become an Air Corps shrine. “During a balloon flight,” he said, “I sighted an open field which looked big enough for a start. We hauled the Army’s first airplane by horse and wagon from Fort Myer, Virginia, skipping the automobile age entirely.” The Wrights smoothed out the worst ground bumps, put up a shed that served as hangar and set to work. By 1941 standards, the plane resembled a skeleton that quiver ed. It had wings, tail, propeller and a framework fuselage. Pilot and passenger sat facing the tail- surface with the propeller behind them. Unless the weather was per fect, they didn’t fly at all. To start the plane, a gasoline- soaked rag was held over the air intake. Two men cranked the pro peller. The pilot adjusted the spark —his only control over the engine in flight. ■ Pilot and passenger sat side by side. Each had an elevator control, and between them was one rudder control. This stick also' was used in “warping” the flexible wings to keep the ship level. Ailerons didn’t, exist. When Wilbur Wright told Gen eral Lahpo to “Go ahead and take it up,” the GCACTC’s future Com mander had had but three hours of dqal instruction—probably an other record. “I needed no urging,” General Lahm said. “Sliding into the pilot’s seat, I tried to remember last- minute instructions. I advanced the spark, and the plane quivered and took off. Not on wheels, of course. The plane slid along a 60- foot monorail, tilted upward to give a ‘lift’ at take-off. “Then I was flying alone, won dering whethei; the 35-horsepower engine would behave.” It did. The fledgling pilot circled the field several times, shut off the engine, glided bumpily home—on skids. The Air Corps was born. Precisioned Pursuiters to Be iilii 111 III III III ■ I 111 iilii IP : .1 ill! ill ii ......... M liiltl liilllp: i iisii I 1 - i |-Ii--. 8 ' ';p % ~ ^ , (ypip iifi, - m Ik / SiflK ; lill lllli! V i mamsm - ' 'V Wheels tucked up, props in high pitch, cadet-piloted advanced single-motored training planes form “a stairway to the stars” at 200 miles per! Lead-spitting interceptors will be the next planes these Kelly Field cadets will step into after winning their wings today. Cadet Life at "West Point Of the Air'” Moves Rapidly Every five weeks heat little ar row signs, reading “Cadets” blos som forth for a couple of days at Randolph Field street intersec tions, guiding a convoy of taxi cabs, convertibles and busses to cadet headquarters. Pours forth some 400 fledgling pilots, some in khaki uniforms, some in civvies, carrying duffle bags and golf clubs. A new class of aviation cadets is reporting at the “West Point of the Air.” Ex-sailors and mid-western farmers, oil field workers and law yers, former Army enlisted men and college graduates, they’ve heard the call of the aviation ca dets and are en route to their “wings” and Air Corps commis sions. They’ve completed their ten- week primary trailing at one of the 16 primary schools in the Gulf Coast Air Corps Training Center and are ready for the second third of their march toward “wings.” Newly appointed cadet officers, resplendent with shining sabres, chosen from the class which re ported five weeks previously, are on hand, ready to assign new ar rivals to their quarters in the four cadet barracks. In rapid succession come a trip to the barber shop for the hair cut, in cadet phrase ology, “a Randolph rip,” inocula tions, and then the issue of under wear, garrison caps, helmets and goggles, shirts, shoes and cover alls. In the cadet tailor shop, the stu dent pilots are measured for tail or-made trousers, but the distin guishing dress of underclassmen for the first week or so is khaki coveralls. For dress, this is aug mented with the blue garrison cap, adorned with Air Corps insignia and white dress gloves. A cadet first captain, chosen for military appearance and alertness, becomes the regimental command er. Two other captains head the first and second battalions. Each company, A, B, C, D, E, F, G and H, has a cadet captain in com mand, who is assisted by four lieutenants. Cadet captains are named as regimental adjutant and regi mental supply officer, and cadet lieutenants serve as adjutant and supply officer in each of the two battalions. Non-commissioned ca det officers include a cadet ser geant major for each battalion, a first sergenat and supply sergeant fox each company and corporals for each of the six squads com prising a company. Two upperclassmen are named as color sergeants, one to carry the national colors and the other the standard of the regiment of aviation cadets of the “West Point of the Air.” These two men, plus two color corporals armed with rifles, comprise the color guard, present at all ceremonies and re views. In the ten weeks, the aviation cadets spend over 100 hours in the classroom, 30 hours in code, three hours in radio communication, 30 hours in weather, eight hours in navigation, 10 hours in military law and 20 hours- in airplane and engine operation. A sergeant drum major directs the drum and bugle corps, with a sergeant assistant, a sergeant bugler and sergeant drummer, HEIGHTEN THE ENJOYMENT OF YOUR WEEK-END by letting us serve you the best food in town. DE LUXE CAFE Bryan SENIORS... WE WILL BUY YOUR SECOND HAND SPURS AND CHAINS Holick’s Boot Shop Be The Best Dressed Man At the Cotton Ball and Pageant BY BRINGING YOUR CLOTHES TO US FOR A GOOD JOB OF CLEANING AND PRESS ING! CAMPUS GLEANERS Over Exchange Store New “Y” Summer Formals Be comfortable and well-groomed in a white double- breasted Tux Jacket and midnight blue Slacks. Come in and try one on and see what style and quality you can get in these smart summer formals. $20.00 Arrow Tux Shirts Arrow Tux Ties Hickok Tux Button Sets Interwoven Tux Socks Bostonian Tux Oxfords QLmtLism College and Bryan V