London, Jan. 16.
IHE Civil Air Guard, formed a few months ago to enable men and women to learn to fly at low cost, has now enrolled 5,605 members in London. alone, all of whom will be available at Royal Air Force stations for emergency duty in war time.
Seven clubs were training 551 Guards in November and an eighth club was being formed. Over the whole country there were 33,896 applications before the end of October and the list had to be closed temporarily because it was impossible to train them all at once.
There are 59 subsidized clubs hard at work and more are being formed. Of course not all the applicants will qualify out there will be more than enough to provide valuable reserve.
This work has greatly stimulated ihe output of strong, simple, light aeroplanes, carrying two people and easy to fly. One new type has just been built for a well-known designer by the students of the College of Aeronautical Engineering, and will be flying soon, The De Havilland Moth Minor, a l-w-wing monoplane with the new Gipsy Minor 90 h.p. engine, is another admirable machine. Another interesting new comer is the Tipsy, two-seater, with 60 lip. high aerodynamical efficiency. There are several others nearing completion. New engines, too, are being produced for the Air Guard—the Blackburn Co.'s Cirrus Minor, of 00/90 h.p. and the tiny 50 h.p. Cirrus Midget; Aero Engines Ltd.'s 45/50 h.p. Pixie; and a 60 h.p. engine of which great things are foretold by a new concern Chris-lea Aircraft.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.