Our actual flying training was to begin on the first of April. Two weeks were required to become organized and learn the preliminary duties of a cadet. During these two weeks we were inoculated against typhoid and small-pox at the hospital, taught the rudiments of cadet etiquette, given fatigue duty, required to police the grounds surrounding our barracks, inspected daily, and instructed and given examinations in five subjects. In our spare time we were allowed to look around the post or take the bus to San Antonio, provided, however, that we were back in bed not later than ten o’clock on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights. At all other times we could stay out as late as we desired. When we did have a few spare moments in the afternoon, they were usually spent in trying to “chizzle” a hop from one of the instructors on the line. Early one morning we were allowed to take the training ships out and push them to the line for the old cadets to fly. But when one of the planes nosed over after eight husky rookies heaved up on the hundred and fifty pound tail, it was decided to put us to work moving hydrogen cylinders for a balloon ascension. As the first of April approached we were looking forward to the start of actual flying with great anticipation. Coupled with this was the anxiety of waiting for the returns from our examination papers, the failure of any two of which would be sufficient cause for their owner to be washed out from the courses. The flying instruction was carried on from two stages or different sections of the field. I was assigned to B stage which was about a half mile out in the field from the cadet barracks. Each instructor had about six cadets assigned to him, and early in the morning on the first day of April, our instruction commenced. I was assigned to Sergeant Winston, together with five other cadets. We pushed his instruction plane out from the hangar to the line. Sergeant Winston picked out one of us, told him to get into the rear cockpit and was off. The rest of us walked over to B stage, watching for tarantulas along the road on the way. In 1924, the Curtiss Jenny was still used by the Army for a training plane, although the 90 H.P. Curtiss OX-5 engines had been replaced by 150 H.P. Hispano-Suizas. The more modern types of planes for training were still in the experimental stage. The Jennies had been designed during the war and they were becoming obsolete, but it is doubtful whether a better training ship will ever be built, although undoubtedly the newest type is much safer. Jennies were underpowered; they were somewhat tricky and they splintered badly when they crashed hard; but when a cadet learned to fly one of them, well, he was just about capable of flying anything on wings with a reasonable degree of safety.