Central Air Club -- 1938

[Chuck In Oregon]

I brought this badge home with me from my most recent trip to Tbilisi. It is a Central Air Club badge, 1938. Three colors of enamel, six pieces (plus the screw post), silver. An aerodynamically accurate propeller sitting above a radial engine.

I'm not sure what the prop is made of. After looking pretty closely with a 10x glass, my guess is thin gold pressed or beaten around a base metal. Not solid gold or plated, though, as I originally thought. It is a remarkably accurate miniature, with thick and thin edges and the right curves in all directions. It must have been hard to make.

I posted in this sub-forum even though my understanding of the Central Air Club is that it was an off-budget quasi-military training organization. I learned that the Tbilisi club was principally a bomber pilot school. I thought about putting this in the military badges forum and I don't mind if it gets moved there. I think they would have said "Military? No, this is civilian training only." Yeah, right. What kind of club trains civilian bomber pilots?

This badge sure fits well into my collection of very early aviation badges.