Evening star., 1937-04-04

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~ senger airliner do you ever
Wv wonder what sort Of man
is flying the plane before
you settle back with your magazine?
Or have you ever conjectured by
what yardstick pilots OF the Army Air
Corps, entrusted with part Of the Job
Of protecting all Of us against invad-
ers, are measured?
The answer comes from the Army,
where flight surgeons" youngest OF
medical specialists, have been using
student pilots as guinea pigs since the
World War to establish and perfect
scientific methods Of selecting candi-
dates for flight training.
It's possible, Of course, merely to
give a man flying instruction to find
out whether or not nature has
equipped him for the Job, but since that
method costs a great deal Of money, 1t
Is regarded as imperative that . mans
innate flying ability be estimated while
he stands on the ground and before,
perhaps, he has ever been aloft in
aircraft.
At this point, 20 years after the first
flight surgeons worked as such during
the World War-when airplanes made
. rather self conscious debut as in
struments Of destruction-qualif1ed
members of the flight surgery profess
sion can be persuaded to draw a pic
ture Of the kind OF man who makes
the best aviator.
Only the finest products Of evolution
fly airline and service airplanes, states
Maj. Malcolm @. Grow. chief Of the
medical section Of the U. 8. Army Air
Corps
A eugenist, it seems, would Sigh
With oontentment confronted with =
graduating class Of aviators, new
wings agleam upon their chests.
A V1ATORS, Mai. Grow says, have
the soundest minds In the sound
est Of bodies, plus a nair for the art
Of flying than can be measured to the
millimeter on many Of the machines
used in preliminary examinations.
Pilots today have learned to ny. OF
course, instructed by experts, but they
have been marked as promising ma
terial before being entrusted with val
liable equipment.
Here, then, Is composite picture OF
the pilot who takes you on your trav-
els, or the military ones who may do
chores for you, from scooping you out
of flood areas to bombing battleships:
His brain Is accurate and fast; his
body obeys its dictates without vacil-
lation and argument; his eyes not only
function perfectly, but his brain In
terprets With precision what comes into
their line Of vision; he does not fear
criticism unduly nor deal 1t out with
malice; In a night he boxes rather than
clinches or using . weapon; he Is
never awkward (because his co-ordi-
nation Is SUPERIOR; when he has per-
sonal troubles he survives them with
q minimum of damage; he likes people;
he IS usually married man; he prefers
meat to vegetables; he may take =
drink or so socially, but he stops when
he wants to; he Is not given to excess
sive introspection; his features are
asymmetrical (reallyD, and he has
strong likes and dtslikes.
The air traveller is directly concerned
with the selection Of flying candidates
by the AIR Corps, because more than
so per cent Of the airline pilots oper-
ating today are service trained, Maj.
Grow explains. Army oncers casually
just graduated from West Point) and
flying cadets both attend the flying
school at the Air Corps Training Gen.
ter at Randolph Field, San Antonio,
Tex, the young officers proceeding to
duty with the Air Corps, if training
is successfully completed, while cadets
receive year or 80 Of active duty with
the same units. to be released with
Reserve commissions making them
eligible for duty in case Of national
emergency.
THESE cadets are the No. choice
Of the airlines in hiring co-pilots
TO have won wings at the training
center means far more In the flying
world than . degree from the Harvard
School Of Law, for example, to the
legal profession. When aerial trans
, port companies became bored with
a their mail sacks . decade ago and
decided to compete with rail-
roads and buses In the btA-
ness Of taking people places,
nearly all pilots were Army
or Navy trained, but in the
last few years a few
~ commercial t lining
schools one or two
~ operated in conjunc-
';' ton with major