Classroom clipper, Vol. XVII, No. 1, October 1960

              CLASSROOM
CLIPPER
October 1960	Published by Pan American World Airways	Vo/. XV//, No. 7
WATCAP
1960
By George Gardner
At Honolulu's International Airport, the WATCAP group was welcomed by a committee from the Hawaii Wing of Civil Air Patrol, and started immediately upon a memorable aviation education experience.
An aviation education workshop on the move . . . around the world in six weeks . . . indoctrination in flying matters in the Pacific, Orient, Middle East and Europe ...
That was WATCAP, the letters of which stand for World Air Tour, Civil Air Patrol.
Fifteen members, with Tour Director Harry Meyering in command, and with Pan Am’s Educational Director participating over about half the distance, made up the WATCAP group. Departure was from San Francisco on July 1.
With the arrival, on August 11, of the Jet Clipper which brought WATCAP to International Airport, New York City, the tour itinerary was completed. At this point sixteen airplane flights had been completed. The group had visited twenty-two cities and towns. Mileage for the WATCAP route, San Francisco to San Francisco, was 22,616.
Aviation Indocrination
Numbers of persons of other nationalities met, customs and courtesies of other countries learned, foods sampled, and souvenirs collected, are not available in statistics but they were considerable. What is more important is that an acquaintanceship was afforded with aviation accomplishments in the 50th State and in ten foreign countries including Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, India, Pakistan, Turkey, Italy, Germany, France and England.
WATCAP was planned for and offered to educators and Civil Air Patrol Senior Members with background in aviation education derived from participation in Aviation Education Workshops, or the equivalent. Participants were accepted only on the basis of registration for academic credit. However, there was the option of working for graduate credit, under-graduate credit, or with less of a work load, auditor credit only. Academic sponsor was Mankato State College, Mankato, Minnesota. Tour Leader Harry Meyering is Director of the college department of Special Education at Mankato.
Six quarter hours of academic credit were awarded to those who fulfilled the requirements for credit. All tour members paid the package price of $2,378 plus tuition to Mankato of $45.
Of the fifteen tour members, five were members of Civil Air Patrol, thirteen were teachers, twelve had participated in aviation education workshops (the other three had equivalent experience acquired in other ways).
The proposal that an Aviation Education World Air Tour be organized came originally from Dr. Mervin K. Strickler, Jr., former Director of Aviation Education in the headquarters staff of the Civil Air Patrol. Project officer for the 1960 project was Everett Collin, then Aviation Educationist for C.A.P. in the North Central Region, now Assistant Director of Aviation Education at C.A.P. headquarters.
Dr. Strickler, as one of his last contributions to the work of Civil Air Patrol’s Avia-
tion Education Division, just prior to his transfer from C.A.P. to the Federal Aviation Agency, assisted in setting up an aviation education program for WATCAP by enlisting the support and cooperation of State Department’s Aviation Division, Department of Defense, the U.S Air Force, and the Federal Aviation Agency. Word went out to the field on behalf of all of these agencies, channeled through State Department lines of communications to Embassies with the result that when the WATCAPPERS group arrived at a city on their itinerary they found that a program of briefings and visits to aviation facilities had been set up and was ready for action.
The group’s visit in Hawaii may be taken as typical in many ways.
In one sense it was unique instead of typical, Hawaii, being part of the U. S., obviously does not have a U. S. Embassy. It
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