The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-01-30
HOW AMERICA'
 AERIAL STUDENT ARE TAUGHT ART
Our Pliers Made to Locate Batteries By Using
 Relief Map

It is not an easy thing to loop the loop in an airplane with one hand and | flash wireless messages to earth with | the other. Yet this is what Uncle Sam's aviators have to be able to do | i'll an emergency. Every student Of aviation has to learn wireless in or i der to send down word where the shells are hitting and thus enable the | batteries to correct their guns.
 In one of the halls of the Ohio Stato | University is a miniature range for preliminary work in artillery spotting, which Burton J. Hendrick in Worlds | Work says is the most useful service rendered by the airplane. The map shows section of Belgium with the city of Ypres and all the surrounding country, including every farmhouse, barn, country road, open field, river and pond.
 In a gallery about 10 feet above this map sit several of our future aviators. They are supposed to be in airplanes 5000 feet in the air.
 The scale of the map is so gradu- Iated that as they gaze down upon it the terrain appears precisely as 1t we u1d look were these men actually flying in the air at that height. TheIr business is to locate exploding shells and wireless back to their own bat teries the accuracies or inaccuracies of the aim. And shells are actually exploding all the time on this minia- tCre sketca of Belgian territory below them; not real shells. perhaps. but representations that convey a com plete illusion.
 Under the map which is of paper and therefore transparent to light, are located hundreds of little electric light
 bulbs. The professor by touching the
 appropriate button on a lamp control
 switchboard can light his selected
 bulb, the little flash appearing on the
 map giving a complete representation
 O: an exploding shell. The appren-
 tice airman in the gallery selects the
 German battery which his own men are atHmpting to destroy. The profes- sor touchs off his imitation shells in close proximity to this battery-these
 are supposed to represent Americtan
 attempts to reach the mark. As soon as each shell explodes a tapping is ! heard up in the little gallery; the stu dent is wirelessing to his friends, tell ing them how far they have come from hitting the object ; The wireless message may take such cryptic form as telling the American @ battery that it is ''10 o'clock and 300 = yards" This may puzzle most peo- [ ple, but it locates precisely the spot e where the shell has fallen. For pur- ! poses of signalling the German bat I tery is taken as the centre of g. clock, n with 12 o'clock pointed perhaps due 4Ioo oi1-J0o sic 1c s o'clock" this means that the shell has l exploded cn an imaginary line which would represent the clock pointer in [ this direction. The "300 yards gives | the distance between the exploding t shell and the German battery.
 y The business of the student is to To-
 cate these exploding shells almost in- y simultaneously. Unless he gains grea1 l proficiency in a short time he has nc z future in the American air service. IT e no department of the service can mis- e takes become so costly and cause the | ITss of so many lives. The fate of bat d ties may easily depend upon the re- 5 liability of the information wirelessed = back by these aerial scouts. Clearly $ this is no business for boy who does
 not have sharp eyes, a percefv1ne Dram, a Qu1ck W1L dIlu dUSOAule1G s bcundless courage.
 0 The young men at the Ohio State T University, perched in their gallery above this map of Belgium, can exer-
 else all their gifts of observation anc
 all the quick mental reactions neces'
 sary to fulfil their duty, but they can
 not, after all, reproduce all the atmo' isthere of the aerial battlefield. In the
 calm of this university hall they worf
 iii peace, while when in action they
 Will pe threatened with attack by N German airmen constantly seeking tt n interrupt their little game. The schoo = experience can train the future air
 mems skill, but it cannot train theil
 nerves The rapidity with which tho I, students are learning this art, how ,- ever, and the eagerness which they V manifest in the entrancing game ar , que well for their actual work in the le field.
 if Eight weeks they spend in tht if ground school. Those who survive ,s this experience are passed on to th' m flying field, such as that at Dayton
 Here they continue their school worl l. and also learn the real work of fly .d ing a plane, and after eight week m here they are transported silently t ;I an American port and shipped t ,g France, Here an American aviation
 school receives them, and thence the.
 advance by slow stages to the front