It was eleven-forty when I left the ground and eleven-fifty seven when the last flare had burned out. Our contract had been fulfilled with three minutes to spare. I located the field by the flashing of the spotlight and levelled off and landed by its beam. [Illustration: © _Wide World Photos_ BRUSSELS, BELGIUM--WITH CROWN PRINCE LEOPOLD DURING THE OFFICIAL RECEPTION] [Illustration: © _Wide World Photos_ LONDON, ENGLAND--WITH H. R. H. THE PRINCE OF WALES AND LORD LONSDALE (LEFT) IN THE ROYAL BOX AT THE DERBY BALL] If the position of a light is known and the field is fairly level, it is not necessary to see the ground, but a plane can be stalled in and landed on the darkest night. Pilots often bring their ships down when only the outline of a field is visible. For this reason it is imperative that no obstructions such as farm machinery, or live stock, be allowed to remain on a landing field at night. Locating a strange flying field by its position in relation to an equally strange golf course, is just one of the many instances in a pilot’s life where comedy goes hand in hand with the most serious situations. In one instance, the story is told of a young pilot who had just learned to fly. He was taking the owner of his plane for a short flight and was demonstrating the various maneuvers he had learned. Finally he put the machine into a spin, but after several turns, discovered that he was not able to come out, and after trying vainly in every way he could remember hearing of from his instructor, he leaned forward in the cockpit and tensely informed his passenger that they were about to crash. Not realizing the seriousness of the situation, the owner replied, “What the ---- do you care, it’s not your ship!” It was usually the case that a person inexperienced in the art of flying became quite disturbed over some trivial thing that was of little importance, yet was perfectly at home and enjoying life tremendously at a time when the pilot was straining every effort to avoid disaster. People would argue indefinitely, trying to persuade one of us to overload the plane past its danger point by carrying more than two passengers at a time from a small field, and it was of no consequence to them whether the plane cleared the nearest trees by a safe margin, or stalled over the uppermost branches by inches. Explanations on our part were next to useless. If we refused to overload the ship someone cited an example where a plane had carried several passengers at one time and it made no difference what kind of a machine it was, or how large an airport it was operating from. The fact that it carried more passengers than we did indicated that it was operated by a better pilot, and that our plane was not as safe to ride in.