During his first hour's solo a swift stream of hundreds of impulses is
borne along the nerve centers to the brain of a pupil. It is like the
pounding of heavy seas against a light sea-wall. His brain reels under
the repeated shocks and the pupil falls into a detached stupor. He
waits while his engine throbs ahead, and lets the machine fly itself.
He seems to take no active participation in the operation, and unless
he recovers control of his brain and his machine it is a crash.
Physicians then have the problem of learning from a dazed and perhaps
badly injured man how it happened. He can recall nothing, and seldom
knows when he lost control.
These are the things that happened when this country was hastening
fliers overseas. As a matter of national necessity it was essential
that as many men as possible be put through their dual and solo flying
and sent across to the other side. It was better for the country at
large to turn out five hundred pilots a month, say, with 5 per cent.
of casualties, than one hundred a month with one-half of 1 per cent.
or less of accidents. These figures do not represent the actual
conditions, but they picture the problem.
Now the civilian who would take up flying has just as much time as he
wants to spend in learning to fly. He is paying for his instruction,
and he should continue it for perhaps fifteen to twenty hours of dual
instruction. He should fly the machine with an instructor in it, and
really get accustomed to the feel of the air. He should become
sensitive enough so that he can differentiate between the tight, firm
touch to a machine flying under complete control and the slack
movement of stick and rudder of a plane very nearly out of control. He
should recognize these danger signs and know how to correct his flying
position.
Dual flying should be continued up to the point where the pupil flies
without thinking, when it becomes the natural thing for him to use
both stick and rudder to correct a bump, and when he thinks no more of
it than riding over a rut in a road. He should be able to tell by ear,
when volplaning, whether or not he is maintaining sufficient speed to
hold it in the air. He should be acquainted with the principle of
spinning, and should have had some experience in taking a machine out
of a spin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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