Odessa Aero Club

The Aero Club of Odessa or Odessa Aero Club was founded 10 Mar. 1908. The club published a journal "Sport and Science" (Russian name needed) which was devoted primarily to aeronautical matters, but also covered auto racing, bicycling, and other sports on a regular basis. By 1912, the Moscow Society of Aeronautics, IVAK, and the Aero Club of Odessa had each established a flying school and the military had agreed to pay a 500 ruble subsidy for each pilot graduated. The privately trained aviators fell short of military standards, however, and the military was forced to retrain all of the officers it had enrolled in the aero-club schools.

Gen. A. V. Kaul'bars was the club's first president, apparently elected on 10 or 11 Mar. 1908. M.N. Efimov was a glider pilot in the Odessa Aero Club when he was sent to France in 1909 to learn to fly under Farman's tutelage. Efimov was awarded his aeroplane pilot's license there in early 1910 and returned to Odessa with a Farman IV machine. The timing of Efimov's training in Paris and his return with a Farman suggests that he was there as the representative of the All-Russia Aero Club to purchase an aeroplane.) In 1910, the Odessa Aero Club sponsored a Southern [Russia] Aeronautical Congress and in August 1911, it became a flying school under the director of the pilot and constructor, V. N. Khoni. The club disbanded in 1917.

At its meeting on 28 Dec. 1908, the Bureau of the Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI) reserved judgment on the admission of the Odessa Aero Club to the FAI until it could investigate the club's claim that it alone represented all of Russia. The FAI conference, meeting on 11 Jan. 1909, agreed that the Bureau should investigate the sport of aviation in Russia before the FAI's next proceedings. Apparently as a result of that investigation, the Imperatorskii Vserossiiskii Aero-Klub (IVAK) or Imperial All-Russia Aero Club in St. Petersburg was admitted to the FAI at the FAI's meeting 30 Sept. 1909.

Sources

• FAI Reunion Extraordinaire du Bureau, 28 Dec, 1908 (Process-Verbaux); FAI Coference Extraordinaire, 11-12 Jan. 1909, Proces-Verbaux; 1909 FAI Conference Statutaire Proces-Verbaux 12 (1910); 5 Aeronautics (NYC) 198 (1909); 1909 Jane's All the World's Aircraft 225; 1910 Annuario dell' Aeronautica Primo 381 (Sept. 1910); 1911-1912 Annuario dell' Aeronautica 423 (Sept. 1911); Ackerman and Blume, "Early Russian Aviation, Aero Clubs and Exhibitions," in 52 Yamshcik, The Post Rider (Toronto, June 2003) 46-47; 1909 The Times (London), 4 Oct.;
• Palmer, 2006, Dictatorship of the Air 20, 47-48; personal email from Scott Palmer to Ceceile, 28 Aug. 1911.

Organization names	Aero Club of Odessa : Odessa Aero Club
Entity type
Country	Russia
City	Odessa
Affiliated with
Scope	Local
Started aero	1908
Ended aero	1917
Keywords
Key people	Mikhail Efimov
Wikidata id