Officer Aeronautic School

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OFFICER AERONAUTIC SCHOOL, a military school providing training for aeronautic officers and aviators. It was established in September 1910 on the basis of the Training Aviation Field with Major General A. M. Kovanko at the head. The school had an aeronautical battalion, experimental station, testing station, central storage of aeronautical materials, and provisional aviation department, as well as Gatchina Aerodrome and Corps Aerodrome. The school was stationed in Gatchina from May 1911. A soldiers' class was opened in 1912 allowing soldiers to obtain the rank of an aviator but not permitting to pass examinations of a military aviator. There were 30 students plus eight people admitted for a special charge. Ninety officers and over a hundred soldiers had graduated from the school by 1914. The provisional aviation department was transformed into Gatchina Air Force School on 19 July 1914 with 175 officers, 57 soldiers, and 20 volunteer officers studying in 1914-15. The school had its own workshops, physics laboratories, meteorological room, photographic room, and sheds in Volkovo Pole, Petrograd, and two aerodromes in Gatchina. It was renamed as the Soviet Flying School of the Workers and Peasants' Red Air Fleet on 1 April 1918 and the Military Theory School of the Air Forces of the Workers and Peasants' Red Army stationed in Leningrad in 1924.

References: Король В. В. Крылья Петербурга. СПб., 2000.

A. N. Lukirsky. Kovanko Alexander Matveevich
Король В. В. Крылья Петербурга. СПб., 2000 1910