Wings Over Hanver
Civilian Pilot Training at Dartmouth Completes Its Notable First Year of Popular Activity
DOWN AT THE WHITE RIVER JUNCTION airport two hangars squat beside the unpainted administration building. Each afternoon cars begin to line up and choke the driveway. There is a quickness and a laugh where commercial routine previously held sway. Now boys with green sweaters and an occasional white D swing parachutes to their backs and with seriousness put their books aside for the uncertainty of ailerons and the dials of airplane engines. Over Hanover the motors hum and the dark shadow of wings falls across the trees. Seven miles away in the training area small yellow planes poke at the sun in tailspin preludes.
Civil Pilot Training has come to Dartmouth.
Textbooks were given out in ground school classrooms. Before these classes stood Professor Dick Goddard '2O to push a thoroughness of understanding to the embryonic flyers, and doing such a good job that in government finals almost all of his pupils scored in the go brackets. Matching his thoroughness with the same pupils, was flight instructor "Doc" Lane, backed with many years of experience and imparting his knowledge through long afternoons at dual controls.
Coordinating the plan growing steadily from its birth was the cool and efficient Dean Frank Garran of Thayer Engineering School, appointed, when the idea first crossed Dartmouth's thought, as flight coordinator.
Most-looked-forward-to experience was found to be the thrill of first solo when the earphones swung free, and for the first time the dashboard was clear of an instructor's shoulders, and for the first time a boy was alone in the skies. Final highlight of the course was three hours of solo cross country flight to Keene and Springfield, Vt., and climax, rigid flight test with instructor.
The beginning was not long ago for Dartmouth. When the plans of President Roosevelt for national defense began to drift into the black newspaper headlines, among the less publicized of his efforts was the birth in December, 1938, of the Civil Pilot Training Program, which has already trained almost 40,000 private pilots.
Previous to the vigorous interest of Dean Garran, the only earmark of undergraduate recognition of aviation at Dartmouth was a small flying club headed by the wellliked, modest Vivian Bruce '4O. He was recently killed in an automobile accident while on furlough from the U. S. Army Corps. These two linking their energy drew 20 pioneers into the initial fall course a year ago—2o Dartmouth students, uncertain, eager, bold. The weather-beaten hangars at the little White River Junction airport were patched and then filled with four trim Piper Cubs, four cylinder training planes, and staffed with two extremely competent instructors, Earl Blanchard and Lane. Then into the cooling days of the autumn, faithful flying hours were kept until the required 35 of precise maneuvers, rectangular courses, stalls, tailspins, forced landings, glides, and all the rest were mastered, while at night desk lights were lit a little longer until the hieroglyphics of meteorology and navigation ground school became simplicity.
The gold wings signifying Second Lieutenant, U. S. Army Air Corps, were a short while ago pinned to the uniform of Phil Thornton '42 who was one of the first of Dartmouth's CPT trainees. Through consideration, and with a respect for morale, the higher staffs of the Air Corps have allowed universities to gather their men into a single training unit; which nicety of personnel handling has allowed Trumbull Huntington '42, Bert Mauro '4l, and Phil Moore '4l to join the same air unit and later be joined by further volunteers from the Hanover campus.
Still in effect are the requirements set up for this original CPT: applicants must be able to pass rigorous physical qualifications and must have at least a 2.0 scholastic average. The age span is between 19 and 26 and if under 21 he must have the consent of his parents, one year of college is necessary. The eye tests are particularly painstaking, because the air corps insist on 20-20 vision and no defects whatsoever.
At the end of the fall experiment TheDartmouth, aroused by the keenness of the College and the questioning of students, opened its channels of publicity so that many were turned away from the spring session, the quota of 20 quickly filled, and the softness of spring fields were soon patterned by the landing wheels of the four planes. Only three, Bob Conway '4l, Fred Lynch '4l, and David Carroll '42 went during the summer to the stepped-up power of fighting wings, to the far more rigorous instruction for P-40S and Flying Fortresses. It was during this same spring that Dean Garran urging more preparedness sent to every undergraduate a blue and red printed pamphlet with the lure of summer courses in defense engineering, mathematics, and mechanical drawing, and best of all the tentative plan for a summer's use of the yellow Cubs at White River. Ten students left Hanover in June for a few days' vacation and then returned to jockey the training planes through the hot convection "bumps" of a summer's flying. One of the grotip, Harold Hillman, Olympic skier, and son of a Dartmouth's track coach anticipated the call o£ his draft board and entered the army at the East St. Louis ground school.
This fall the increased momentum of the opportunity raised the list to 60 applicants for the ao openings. Dartmouth defense is booming.
The indications of the value of this training are noteworthy: (1) the army washes out far fewer CPT men than other candidates; (2) the decreasing insurance rates indicate the extraordinary safety of the program; (3) a private pilot license is awarded each student upon successful completion of the course.
An indication of Dartmouth satisfaction is the hope of Dean Garran, Professor Goddard, and students that the secondary course—given in a 235 horsepower biplane offering advanced aerobatics of loops, immelmans, snap and slow rolls, and others, and a much more advanced ground school —will get under way the second semester of this year.
C. P. T. GRADUATION At the close of summer session, left to right, Dean Frank W. Garran, Thayer School; Maurice L. Bugbee (airport owner and instructor); "Doc" Lane, instructor; Prof. Richard H. Goddard'2o, ground school instructor; Guy C. Mallett Jr. '43, Garden City, N. Y.;David R. Sargent '42, Dobbs Ferry, N. Y.; Edward M. Traylor Jr. '4 4, Wellesley Hills, Mass.; Rowland B. French, M 2, Hanover, N. H.;Carl F. Koenig Jr. '44, Philadelphia, Penn.; Bradley C. Bowman '42, Minneapolis, Minn.; Archibald H. Rowan Jr. '44, Rye, N. Y.;Robert H. Wells '42, Hanover, N. H.; Assistant Professor Harry L. Hillman (for son, Harold Hillman '4O). Not in picture, Harold L.Lanyon (N. H. University), White River Jet., Vt.
