New University Flying Club To Take Off Next September

If you look heavenward in September, you may catch a glimpse of a drifting cloud, a soaring bird, or a Harvard pilot. "Up in the air, Harvard Birdmen" is the clarion call of the newly accredited Flying Club.

Pending final permission from College officials, the Flying Club will take off this fall, acquainting interested Harvardians with the thrills of air travel.

"We love flying; we're doing this because we want to share the joys of aviation with other people," says club co-organizer Clifford T. Russell '85.

Club President Javier Arango '85, also responsible for the club's inception, oversees "ground activities." Meetings, movies, speakers and informal gatherings to familiarize members of the Harvard community with the joys of flying are planned, Arango said.

Taking Off

Both Arango and Russell saw a need for a flying club when they arrived in Cambridge last year, but the club has really taken off with the aid of their faculty advisor, Edmund N. Goodhue, instructor in business administration.

While Arango controls the ground life, above the campus Russell serves as the club's chief pilot. Russell, a certified flight instructor for both commercial and instrument instruction, says he intends to provide a wide range of flight training for private commercial and instructor licenses.

The club can offer many air activities because of the large number and quality of experienced pilots at Harvard, Russell explains.

But he encourages amateurs, too. Ann M. Rozanski, an employee in the Development Office, joined "just for the fun of it."

These pilots are a mere fraction of the number of people who have responded to club announcements. "Sixty members is more than we ever dreamed of," says Arango. "We were shooting for 20-25, advertising mostly by word of mouth, and 60 people responded in the first two weeks.

In the process of forming the club, Arango says, the organizers made a surprising discovery. In 1929, the Harvard Flying Club had been one of the original members of the National Intercollegiate Flying Association. And in an impressive display of consistency and excellence, Harvard's club won the association's Loening Trophy for its first three consecutive years.

The flying club then disappeared, says Russell.

Today, Harvard's club has rejoined the national group, which currently boasts 126 collegiate members. Harvard is the only member of the Ivy League included on the roster.

Ian McArthur, a fourth-year graduate student in physics, has been flying for 10 years and upon arriving, was surprised that Harvard had no flying club. "I just expected a school like Harvard to have one," he comments.

The charm of being air bone may not be clear to those who scan the sky only for unidentified flying objects. Why fly? Por Russell, "it's an obsession--more addicting than any drag I know."