Army practice has shown that a pupil should have about sixty practice landings dual, that is to say, coached and helped by his instructor. By this time he has a total flying time of six to twelve hours. At this point, before he goes solo, the Gosport system provides that he shall be taken to a reasonably safe height for the practice of high maneuvers. At a height of say two thousand five hundred feet the instructor shows him how a stalled machine falls into a spin. The question of teaching higher maneuvers to civilian pilots is open to argument. As soon as the instructor shuts off the engine the machine rapidly loses flying speed. It reaches a point where there is not enough air passing over the wing surfaces to support the plane in the air. Her nose begins to drop, and he pulls the stick back. The stick is full back, she stalls, topples over on her side, and plunges nose first. The instructor kicks on full rudder, and the world whirls below like a top, and the air whistles, swish, swish, swish, in the wires at every turn. Stick forward, opposite rudder, and she comes out so fast that your head swims. That is the spin. "Now you try it," says the instructor. For there is nothing to a spin unless a machine does not come out of it--a rare thing if the plane is properly handled. The pupil is now ready to go solo, and for the first couple of hours' solo flying he does nothing but make circuits around the field, landing and taking off. Then his instructor takes him dual for forced-landing practice, business of getting down into a field within gliding range by gliding turns. Then the pupil tries it solo, throttling down for the practice, a most valuable experience which increases the confidence of the pilot. He learns to use his own judgment and to gauge height and ground distance as it appears from the air. After three or four hours of solo time the pupil is scheduled for another demonstration of higher maneuvers, spinning and the stall turn. For the stall turn the pilot noses the machine down to get an air speed of seventy-five miles an hour. A little bank, stick back, she rears into the air with her nose to the sky and propeller roaring. Full rudder and throttle off. In silence she drops over on her side into the empty air; blue sky and green fields flash by in a whirl. She hangs on her back while the passengers strain against the safety belts, and then her nose plunges. The air shrieks in the wires as the ground comes up at terrific speed.