FLYING LOW

The Civil Aeronautics Authority's flying course at Harvard was a fine idea, and everybody realized, it, including the one hundred and forty students who sought the original fifty vacancies this fall. But thus, far there has been so much red tape and so many delays while the local authorities champ at the bit waiting for marching orders from Washington, that the course has been stumbling along very jerkily indeed. It would be too bad if the excessive centralization of the C. A. A. snarled up the course and made it too disorganized to be worthwhile.

It is not merely a case of first year growing pains that will be gone next year; the root of the trouble lies in Washington where there are overwhelming burdens placed on the C. A. A. from all over the country. The delay encountered in ferreting out the fifty successful aspirants was unfortunate but excusable, considering the exacting requirements necessary for such a course. But subsequent snags have not been so pardonable. The worst instance has been the delay of six whole weeks in actual fight instruction that occurred while the list of chosen men, sent to Washington for approval, lay buried in the offices of the C. A. A.

Add to that situation the discovery that there was room for thirty more students from Harvard, coupled with the information that these men must wait several months before they can start their training, and it becomes plain that the course is pretty well bogged up. The instruction will have to be telescoped during the second half of they year, which may put considerable strain on the students regular curriculum.

The course will obviously run more smoothly next year, but the only way to get rid of all the red tape and arbitrary regulations which thrive at present, is to have the C. A. A. establish offices in their most important districts throughout the country, instead of trying to run the whole business from Washington. The University and the Aeronautics instructors will do justice to the course at Harvard only when they are freed from the shackles of a distant and inefficient organization.