Back there, student pilots had taken off at the crack of dawn in their powered box kites to get in their flight time before the gentle southwesterlies could interfere with their training. And if, perchance, a student like my classmate “Spig” Herbster, of the Wright camp, were forced down on the harbor by a failure of the tricky engine of his seaplane, another student like Jack Towers, of the Curtiss camp, waiting for just such an opportunity, would literally fly to his rescue—for the benefit of thrilling headlines in that enterprising newspaper, _The San Diego Union_. To us salts of the Destroyer Flotilla, moored alongside the ferry slip or the “Spreckles Dock,” accustomed to night torpedo tactics on the high seas off Coronado Island, the whole thing had looked a bit silly. But to the aviators, news headlines had been the breath of life ever since that day at Kittyhawk when the wise money in the public press had refused to print the news of the first flight because it was too smart to fall for such a hoax. Now that same Jack Towers was serving as captain of the first flattop, the _Langley_, a vessel named for the professor who had failed to fly, and I recalled the _Langley_ when she had been commissioned as the collier _Jupiter_ at the Mare Island Navy Yard, under command of Comdr. Joseph M. Reeves. The _Langley_ had a revolutionary power plant, the electric drive, and had been equipped with a forest of masts and booms designed to fuel battleships at the rate of 500 tons of coal per hour. Today, fuel oil had replaced coal in all naval vessels and the _Langley_ masts had been leveled to make room for a flat landing area for aircraft. And I, who had set out to become a gunnery officer but had been converted into a mechanical engineer, was now a naval aviator. Well, the new job seemed to have possibilities, but just how far-reaching they would prove to be, I didn’t even dream. CHAPTER THIRTEEN A Salt’s Solution When, next morning, I buckled on my dress sword and reported at the Naval Air Station, I found Admiral Reeves had gone to Denver to make a speech at the Navy Day celebration there. Then, since Captain Towers was senior officer present afloat, I walked down the _Langley_ dock to pay my respects to him. The moment I stepped over the rail onto the steel-decked passageway leading aft under the landing platform, I recognized the unmistakable signs of a “smart ship.” Freshly scrubbed paint and gleaming brightwork told its own story. And before the winter had passed, I would learn just how smart the _Langley_ really was. For Jack Towers, the naval aviator, was one of the best ship handlers in the whole service. He greeted me outside his cabin and promptly asked me to stay for lunch.