There were several other pilots whose turns to pass to the "Grande Piste" came before mine. I had, therefore, to wait for several days, which I used to advantage in taking up the old "double-control" machine alone. In this way I was able to make several ascensions and landings every morning and every night. This was to be of the greatest service to me later, for during these practice flights I acquired perfect confidence in myself. At other times, both before and after working hours, my "moniteur" would take me up with him as a passenger for a newly discovered sport. We would rush along the ground, barely two feet above it, and put up partridges, which abounded in the greatest numbers. Our speed would enable us to overtake and hit them with the wires of the machine and kill them. Running along the ground in this way is always attended with danger, but it was real sport. One morning in twenty minutes we killed six partridges in this novel manner. Finally my turn came. I graduated from the beginners’ class at "La Mare de Grenouille" to the company of the more finished pilots of the "Grande Piste." The beginners’ field is called the "frog’s meadow," because the landings are so hoppy. On the "Grande Piste" we had newer and faster machines, and we could fly alone and go practically anywhere we wished. Six pilots were assigned to one aeroplane. We had to divide up the time equally between each pilot, so as to give every one an opportunity of making at least two flights both morning and afternoon. A maximum height was imposed upon each "équipe," and this was gradually increased from five hundred feet to a thousand, and then to one thousand five hundred, as we became more and more adept. Most of our time was given to making landings and to accustoming ourselves to volplaning. The motor had to be reduced at a predetermined distance from the field, and the rest of the descent made by volplaning to a given spot. Spirals were also made during each flight. We would select our landing-places and prepare ourselves for the "atterrissage" by reducing our motor, making due allowance for the drive of the wind. At about two hundred feet from the ground we would suddenly turn on the motor again, tilt up the tail, and resume our flights. This was excellent practice and gave us more and more confidence in our own ability to come down wherever we wished. The average layman cannot understand why aviators spend so much time turning in spirals as they approach the ground. It is because they are manoeuvring for position to hold their headway and land against the wind, as does a sailing ship when beating up a harbor against wind and tide.