The students came from No.4 Apprentices Wing and one of their lecturers, Flt-Lt Nicholas Comper became chief designer of the three aircraft produced by the club as well as one, the CLA.1 that was not completed.

There is a small aerodynamic penalty for this arrangement, but the advantages for a club machine are good vision, and ease of escape, from both cockpits.

Two pairs of centre section struts held the upper wing well clear of the fuselage; the absence of stagger made wing-folding easy.

[4] The flat twin Bristol Cherub III was mounted on a steel plate and smoothly partially cowled to a neatly pointed nose, but with the cylinder heads exposed for cooling.

[4] At the rear of the fuselage the fin and tailplane were fabric covered metal structures, though the generous control surfaces were wood framed.

The main undercarriage was built from a pair of steel V-shaped tubes bearing a single axle and rubber cord shock absorbers.

[6] On the following day no.12, flown by Nick Comper[3] suffered an undercarriage failure and was refused permission to replace it, forcing retirement.

[citation needed] Dates are uncertain, but it seems to have flown from 1931 or 1932 until a crash due to icing near what is now the City Centre Airport in February 1934,[7] making it the last CLA.4 to fly.

During this period it was re-engined with a more powerful 55 hp Viele M-5 engine to improve its performance, perhaps to cope with the higher operating altitude of Edmonton.