The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1919-02-21

The student first went up in an aer-
omarine hydroaeroplane with an officer
instructor. The plane is equipped with
dual controls. At first, the student sim
ply follows through the movements made
by the instructor. Gradually, he takes
over more and more of the flying of
the machine until finally he is operat-
ing it all alone. When the time comes
when the instructor thinks the student
is good enough, he is sent off on his
first, memorable solo. Probably this is
the most nervous and eventful time of
his career. The student then continues
his solo flights each day. After flying
solo for five hours the student goes up
with the instructor again for a check
up flight and any bad habits are recti-
fed. These checkup flights occur every
five hours until the student has COM
pleted twenty-five solo hours. He is
| then supposed to be ready for the test
called shooting the boat" This con
sists of climbing to an altitude of 6,00G
feet, shutting off the motor and spiral
ling down to 5000, putting on the
motor and flying level long enough to
/ get one S bearings, then shutting off the
motor again, spiralling down and land
| ing within 200 feet of boat in which
the judging officer is sitting. Due ac-
count is taken of the way in which the
spirafs are made and the way the plane
is handled A big, red flag is raised
on this boat. From 5000 feet it looks
| like drop of red on the water One
| student came so close that he Knocked
the flagstaff clean out of the boat and
the judging officer was on the point of
!
near shooting the boat in reality.
The next step was formation flying
| Each student flew so many hours in
company with from two to four other
| planes. One pilot acted as leader ana
/ the others had to maintain their re-
spective positions by opening up or
| throttling down the motor. 1t Is in
| this formation work that the student
first begins really to get a good idea
of flying, because he is so busy watch
ing the other machines that he forgets
all about his own and begins to fly I'M
consciously.
You are next taught to fly the Curtiss
flying boats, known as the .|F'' boats.
| Instead of being an aeroplane with. q
pontoon suspended underneath, the I
beat is really a boat with wings. The
motor is located over your head and
the propeller is in the rear instead of
in front. This makes the machine a
'pusher" instead of "tractor.
This machine handles entirely different
" from the one on which the student
egins. You sit way out in front and
, cannot see the wings As one fellow ex-
pressed it, So You feel as if you were
sitting on 2x4 on the top of the
Woolworth building" At Bay Shore
the F-boats were popularity known as
the flying coffins,' and as such they
nearly proved in the eases of some OF
he men in my company.
We did nA lack for excitement al
Bay Shore, for a crash was by no means
uncommon. 1t was the business of The
tower to watch the course and report
and erratic flying or accidents The
course was divided into six sectors an6
a student was assigned to watch eacl
sector with the glasses. On seeing al
accident, a button was pressed in thu
tower, which rang a warning at thu
wharf. The sea-sled, with its two 200
horsepower motors, Immediately rushed
| with the hospital officers to the seem
of the accident. The work of these Sc:
sleds was remarkable. In some eases
they were on their way before the fall
ing plane hit the water. They went a
a rate of forty miles am hour, whicl
meant that they only skipped over tn
tops of the waves.
A certain Monday, one poor felloy
crashed in q straight nose dive from
height of 500 feet and was crushe
INTO an unrecognizable mass. We al
went to his military funeral on Wed
nesdsy morning Wednesday afternoo
there were four more crashes and befor
the next ten days were over tots
OF nineteen crashes had taken place |
IS peculiar fact but these accident
seem to come i'll lunches
We were next sent to Hampton Road
for intensive training in the operatio
of the big flying boats equipped wit
one Liberty motor. The air station a
Hampton Roads is located ON the site G
the old jamestown Exposition. We ha
{; very valuable training there and Ina
Imany hours in the air. We were r
CURED to take further work on Libert
motors
When we We're there, the Roads W.
full of shipping and it was lot of fu
to fly over the camoufaged battleship
cruisers and hospital ships at ancho
1t was also good fun to fly over IL
big Chamberlin hotel at Old Point Con
fort While at this hotel one night y
. had the pleasure of meeting the famol
swimmers, Duke Kahanamoku, Claren,
Lane and Harold Kruger.
Our next move was to Pensacola f,
the final training in bombing, gunner
radio and navigation.
When We left Tech, We thought '