Hamble College of Air Training was a flight training centre in Hampshire, England. During the late 1950s it became apparent that there was going to be a shortage of ex military pilots who would be available to crew British civil aircraft. The two (then) state owned airline corporations, British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) and British European Airways (BEA), in collaboration with the Ministry of Aviation, proposed a flying school based loosely on the Royal Air Force's officer training college at Cranwell. The site chosen was a small airfield at Hamble, Hampshire in the Southern United Kingdom, used at the time by Air Service Training and Southampton University Air Squadron. The first course of cadets began training in 1960.