On September 16, 1929, the officers of Boeing Air Transport (BAT) established a new division known as the Boeing School of Aeronautics (BSA) to be based at Oakland, Calif., Municipal Airport. The school was open to the public, its primary function to provide specialized commercial aviation trained employees for airlines.

BAT transferred its operating properties to United Air Lines (UAL) on July 20, 1934, and this included the BSA. BSA was a division of UAL until its termination on August 31, 1942. The UAL Board of Directors on January 8, 1943, changed BSA name to United Air Lines Training Center.

One of the divisions of BSA was the Tracy, Calif., school for training new UAL first officer pilots. The other division was the U.S. Army Air Corps Mechanics Training Center at Oakland, California.

UAL TRACY, CALIF., PILOT SCHOOL

In October 1940, UAL leased the Tracy Municipal Airport and established the Tracy school as an expansion of the BSA based at Oakland. R.T. Freng, UAL Director of Flight Operations, established the school using BSA equipment and instructors. The school was a solution to the industry problem of obtaining skilled flight personnel to carry on air commerce due to the national defense emergency, and also lack of prospective airline pilots from the military services. This was the only school set up by an airline for controlled and supervised training of future pilots by veterans of the business. The intent is to offer training that will approximate operations of a major airline.

LOCATION

Tracy (population 5,500) is about 50 miles east of Oakland, with the airport founded in 1929 and is two and half miles south of the city. UAL leased the airport for a five-year period with
renewal options. UAL would pay one dollar a year rent and in turn would improve the gravel runways, repair hangers, . . .