Everybody who talks about the postwar air age isn’t going there, but the University of Southern California is. U.S.C. announced last week that it had just bought twelve battle-weary warplanes, including a Flying Fortress and a Mitchell 6-25 from the RFC (total cost: $1,900 for the planes, $2,000 to ship them). U.S.C. also rented cheap the $2 million Hancock Foundation College of Aeronautics at Santa Maria, Calif. (175 miles from the U.S.C. campus in Los Angeles), complete with instructors, 50 training planes, 15 hangars, and a 200-acre airport.
U.S.C. got its interest in aeronautics, and most of the money to go into it, from its chief trustee, millionaire oilman G. Allan Hancock, 70. Hancock has 2,000 hours’ flying time himself, backed Kings-ford-Smith’s transpacific flight (1928), founded Hancock College, which U.S.C. will take over.
By coming under the wing of U.S.C. Hancock College becomes eligible to buy used planes from the Government at a cut-rate, practically give-away price. U.S.C. will open its new school Nov. 1, offering a full, four-year course in aeronautical engineering. Director of the college: G. Allan Hancock.
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