The Nome daily nugget., 1918-01-05
Cadet Squadron, Kelly Field, South San Antonio, Texas,
 Sept. IS, 1917,

Sept. IS, 1917, Dear MT Weld
 I nm now well started on the second phase of my training as q military av- iator The aviation student must take three courses of training at as many schools: First, ground school: second. flying school; third. foreign school. At the ground school such as attend cd at the University of Texas for eight weeks we did no actual flying Here we studied all the actual phases of the theory of aviation, motors, ma chine guns, and the work of the avIa- tor over the battlefield in It's various forms-such as scouting. bombing fighting In the air, cooperation with the artillery, map making of the ene- my's territory. photography. wireless. heliograph, night raiding. contact pa trol, and miniature range.
 One Of the most interesting courses that we took at the ground school was miniature range. This consisted of the observation of some section of the en. cmy's territory Gin Belgiun) In minia- ture and sending by heliograph the re- suits of the observation to some bat tery commander. Code messages were used. Both observer and officer in charge of battery, which may bo ten or fifteen miles from observer have maps of the same territory. E,ery- thing is carried out as It would be in actual battle except in miniature. The student Is seated about sixteen feet above the miniature battlefield. Below him Is an exact reproduction in minia- ture of some section of Belgium. Trees, villages. windinills. trenches, roads, everything is shown evacuy as 1t would appear to an aviator flying at m alti- tude of COCO feet; The instructor who acts as a battery commander flashes a light for only an instant In some sec tion of the field. The aviator must instantly not the taticai situation, 0. s. column of infantry 1000. 50 trans- ports, 90 mounted guns moving west. He imediately sends by heliograpf to the battery commander the above anfor- nation and gives him a pin point lo- cation of the troops observed. He next directs the battery commander the pro- per kind of gunfire to be used.
 The battery then opens fire and tho 6rst hit is Indicated by another snnsh in the vicinity of the target (troopa). The observer then signals the results of the shot. He must locate with re- ference to the target exactly where the shot strikes. This Is done by the clock method. By using this method of io- eating the result of the fire the bat tery can soon train it's guns exactly on the target, even at distance of from I2 to 16 miles. It Is essential that the stgnals sent by the observer be nb- solutely accurate and sent without loss of time.
 Many other objects were just es in- teresting as miniature range. The course in machine guns was perhaps the most technical of all. It seemed that more students failed in that course than in any 1othor. and wcre consequently dismissed from tho school We were given weekly examinations ip every subject. If student failed in one subject in these weekly sxam- inations he was dropped back week in his course. If he failed again in the same subject or any other subject ho was dismissed from tho school and his hope of becoming an aviator :shat1 tered. There was no recourse. Tho administration of tho school was in che fsands of board of mAmbsra ,ot tbs