AERONAUTICAL CLUB BUYS NAVY SEAPLANE

In a telegram received last night from Paymaster General Samuel McGowan United States Navy, by W. V. Dougherty Occ., the University Aeronautical Society was informed that its bid for a sea plane had been accepted and that it is ready for immediate delivery. The plane is an Aeromarine 39B sea plane equipped with a Curtiss OXX 8-cylinder motor. The Society will have it in operation by the beginning of the spring recess. The plane will be kept at a hangar at Marblehead which has been loaned to the Society by the Burgess Airplane Company. The club also is planning to have a small club house at Marblehead for the use of its members.

Safest Plane in Naval Service.

The Aeromarine sea plane is a plane designed primarily for training purposes. It has dual control, wings pitched upward to prevent skidding and other features which have won for it the reputation of being the safest plane that the Navy ever flew. A speed of 65 knots can be attained in it. The Aeromarine has the pontoon beneath the lower plane which distinguishes it from the flying boat in which the cockpit is in the hull, and the motor above the pilots head. In the Aeromarine the engine is in front of the pilot.

The acquisition of this plane will make it possible for the Aeronautical Society to begin within a few weeks its plan of training undergraduates to qualify as pilots. Two undergraduates, to be named later, will receive fifteen hours of dual flying (much more than is required in the Army or Navy) and then ten hours solo. This will qualify them for certificates as pilots in the International Aeronautical Federation.