One astonishing fact, however, was soon proved by such mishaps; it was that one could fall in an aeroplane, and wreck perhaps both planes and landing gear, and yet in no way damage one’s own person. When many men came to learn to fly, in fact, and some proved careless or foolhardy, there were smashes so violent that the novice in the machine was--at any rate by those who saw what had happened--reckoned to be a dead man. Yet when the rescuers reached the wreckage, expecting the worst, they found the pilot crawling from beneath it--looking a little dazed perhaps and worried, but quite unhurt. What saves a man so often in an aeroplane fall, is the fact that struts and spars break all around him; and each, as it rips or splits, absorbs some fraction of the shock. Before the blow reaches him, therefore, it has lost its force; the breaking of the woodwork has had a cushioning effect; and if he is well placed in his machine, and is wearing a safety belt, he may survive without injury such a smash as may reduce his craft to fragments. In the first of the flying schools, before a regular fee was charged to cover all a pupil’s expenses, the breakages he incurred were charged upon a separate bill; and in some instances, when a man proved clumsy, these items reached a surprising total. There was one pupil, humorously inclined, who went to a famous French school in the very early days of aviation. He was impetuous in handling his machine, and broke landing gear and propellers with disconcerting frequency. And for all these breakages bills were sent in to him--long, formidable bills, very carefully totalled, and with each mishap represented upon them by so many hundreds of francs. Before long, indeed, regarding these bills with a rueful smile, the novice had papered the walls of his shed with them; and there they hung in long festoons, almost in every direction that one looked. How much it cost that unlucky pupil to learn to fly, none of his friends could say; but he himself, perhaps humorously, put it at a figure of several thousand pounds. He declared, in fact, that what he paid for breakages amounted to a sum sufficient to buy two or three aeroplanes, all brand new.