but this level may be raised if recruiting efforts continue successful.

The officer in charge of flight training at the school has purposely scheduled a difficult primary phase that weeds out approximately 50 percent of the original class. These students are then transferred at their own option to specialist courses in radio, navigation, operations, or meteorology. Basic and advanced flight-training phases for the remainder of the class are then covered through another sixmonth period. Students log in about 300 flight hours during the course, which includes 25 hours blind flying "under the hood." Night flying is also emphasized, as the government is rapidly installing airway beacons and lighting facilities at major airports.

The school also completed recently a new cadet building that is outstanding in design and utility. Large enough to care

Photograph by Lt. H. Uribe Prada

for all students, its facilities include classrooms, sleeping quarters, a library, recreational rooms, dining rooms and an auditorium. All classrooms are equipped with the latest visual training aids, including sound movie projectors, and students spend many an extra hour studying the new working models of engines, propellers, and other hydraulic and electrical equipment. The Link trainer room is another popular place with students. Here the boys can ride in miniature aircraft and maneuver them in any type of simulated blind-flying condition without ever leaving the ground.

Cadets actually spend the greater part of their time in the classroom, studying the technical subjects so increasingly necessary in the aviation profession. Yet students also receive an excellent background in social science, government, history, Spanish grammar, and English.

In addition, all students are urged to participate in some competitive sport, of which football, baseball, and swimming are most popular.

Pilots are not released directly to the airlines upon graduation, but are assigned to active air-force units for a year or more to gain practical experience and build up. more air hours. Maneuvers and routine flights are scheduled to all major fields in the country so that a thorough knowledge of local conditions is acquired. As the Colombian Navy has no air arm of its own, air-force officers also receive training in seaplanes and large flying boats. In addition, ten graduates are chosen each year to attend the United States Navy's cooperative training school at Corpus Christi, Texas.

With regard to the commercial aviation picture, it is interesting to note that former air-force pilots have shown a healthy inclination to branch out for themselves in independent commercial airline com

panies. One of Colombia's fastest growing airlines, the Vías Aéreas Colombianas (VIARCO), was started in 1945 when five air-force veterans pooled their slender resources and purchased a pair of warweary airplanes. Since then, their fleet ! has grown to 17 Douglas transports plus two large amphibians. The pay roll now lists 21 pilots and 32 mechanics, all Colombian air-force veterans. The company has a scheduled cargo run to Quito, Ecuador, in addition to over 1,000 miles of domestic routes, and plans are being made for an extension to Miami. Hangars and shops are also being constructed for the company at Cali.

Still another group is planning a cooperative airline enterprise with cattle ranchers in the isolated highlands. At the present time, animals are laboriously driven down to market with a 10 to 20 percent loss in weight on the way. The company calculates that it will be profitable to establish a number of slaughter

ON November 10, 1947 Dr. Juan Bautista de Lavalle of Peru was elected to succeed Dr. Antonio Rocha as Chairman of the Governing Board of the Pan American Union.

Dr. de Lavalle, who holds the rank of ambassador, has been capably serving as his country's representative on the Governing Board since May 23, 1946. In addition, during the intervening months he has been Peruvian delegate to the InterAmerican Conference of Experts on Copyright held at Washington in June 1946; Peruvian delegate to the 1946 and 1947 sessions of the General Assembly of the United Nations; and Chairman of the Peruvian delegation to the special session of the United Nations Assembly on the Palestine question.

The new Chairman's experience and training have equipped him well for his ever-growing international responsibilities. As early as 1910 he was a delegate to the Second Inter-American Student Congress in Buenos Aires, and in 1913, at the age of 24, he was appointed organizing secretary in Peru of the American Association for International Conciliation of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Later, after graduating in philosophy, letters, law, and political science from the University of San Marcos, he taught the Introduction to Juridical and

Political Science, Private International Law, and Comparative Law at that University.

In 1941 and 1943 Dr. de Lavalle was named a member of the committees set up by the Law School of San Marcos to coordinate and unify American law and to study international postwar problems. He was elected a member of the first Executive Committee of the Inter-American Bar Association in 1941 and re-elected to this post in 1943.

Dr. de Lavalle has written extensively on law, education, and general subjects. He is a member of the following learned societies: the Peruvian Academy affiliated with the Spanish Academy of Letters; the Peruvian Academy of Law and Political Science; the Historical Institute of Peru; charter member of the Peruvian Society of International Law and at present its vice president; the Institute of Comparative Law of the University of Paris; the International Law Society; honorary member of the Brazilian Bar Association; honorary member of the Peruvian Institute of Criminal Law; corresponding member of the Argentine Institute of Juridical and Social Philosophy and of the Rome Institute of Legislative Studies.

Dr. de Lavalle will act as Chairman of the Governing Board until November of this year.

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