Questionnaire Seeks Flight Training Here

The College's 4,000 undergraduates will receive questionnaires from the Flying Club today, the answers to which may start a program of military flight training here.

Primarily, the questionnaires will attempt to discover how many students would consider service aviation if the present three-to-four year term of duty were reduced.

If enough students indicate that they are interested in aviation but do not want to spend so much time in the service, the Harvard Aviation Foundation will start work on a program of undergraduate flight training financed by the government, according to the questionnaire.

Cuts Year Off Duty

The program would probably consist of 40 hours of actual flight training and 60 hours of ground work, cutting as much at a year off student's active duty. The Flying Club president, Edward P. Williams '56, said yesterday that the amount of training his organization would do depends on how much control the Armed Services assume.

At present, the Congressional Armed Services Committee is considering a bill that would make such a program possible. The bill has fairly good chances of passing Congress, since Secretary of Defense Charles E. Wilson suggested legislation of this type at the end of the last Congressional session.

Crocker Snow '26, a trustee of the Aviation Foundation, remarked yesterday that the civil secretariat of the Defense Department is enthused about the prospects of such a program. Undergraduate training would provide better prospective flyers at a lower cost to the government and would weed out the incompetents early, Snow said. "The regular admirals and generals, however, probably won't think too much of the idea," he added.

The Aviation Foundation consists of past members of the Flying Club who are still active and interested in aviation.