I may still "fall down" and be "radiated" to an observation or bombing plane (which is of course no disgrace); but on the whole I have good hopes of making a fighting pilot. Flying (on a Blériot monoplane) is by no means as easy as I had supposed. It took us four weeks to learn to run one at full speed, _in a straight line_, on the ground. The steering and handling of the elevators (which regulate height of tail) are extremely tricky, and many men are thrown out or sent to other schools (Caudron, Farman, or Voisin) for inaptitude or "crashes" at this stage. Then comes the stage of low straightaway flights, when you leave the ground fast and in correct line of flight, and have to land smoothly. Make no mistake--landing any kind of an aeroplane is hard, and to land the fast fighting machines is a very great art, which forty per cent of picked young men never acquire. They are so heavy for their supporting area, that the moment they slow down to less than seventy-five or eighty miles an hour they simply fall off on a wing (or "pancake"). Even a Blériot requires a good eye and a steady delicate touch and judgment to land in decent style. You are flying, say, three hundred feet up, and wish to land. Forward goes your stick, the machine noses down as you cut the motor. The ground comes rushing up at you until the moment comes when you think you should "redress"--precisely as a plunging duck levels before settling among the decoys. If you have gauged it to a nicety, you skim over the ground a few yards up, gradually losing speed, and settling at last without a jar or break in the forward motion. If you redress too late, you turn over (capoter), or else bounce and fall off on a wing. (I have seen men bounce fifty feet!) If you redress too high, you lose speed too far above the ground, and either pique into the ground and turn over, fall flat, or crash on one wing. The secret of the whole game of learning to fly is, I believe, never to get excited. I have seen beginner after beginner smash when he was first sent up to fly. They run along the ground, pull back the stick, as told, and a moment later are so astounded to find themselves twenty or thirty feet off the ground that they can think of nothing but shutting off the throttle. Many crash down tail first, with controls in climbing position to the last. If they would simply think,-- "Ha, old boy, you're in the air at last--some thrill, but the main thing now is to stay here a bit and then ease down without a crash. Ease the stick forward--now we have stopped climbing. Feel that puff--she's tipping, but a little stick or rudder will stop that. Now pique her down, and reduce the gas a notch or two. Here comes the ground--straighten her out; too much, she's climbing again; there, cut the gas--a little more--there--not a bad landing for the first try."