February 28, 1943

Dear Ma,

We're flying anywhere from three to four and five periods a day compared to the one short period a day we got for this first month.

I passed my twenty hour check yesterday. I had a little more then twenty hours in, Up to date I have thirty hours in. We fly again this Saturday, They tell is we're a couple of hours behind time. Nobody likes to fly on the weekends. Everybody is willing to take the weekend in town after flying all week. I don't mind it myself. I was up doing loop flying all week. Baby that's some fun. We also do lazy eights, elementary eights,  chandelles, slow rolls, loops and a number of other maneuvers.

Flying is unlike anything I've ever done.  It doesn't even come close to what I thought it was going to be like. You have to be on the ball every second of the time and at the same time you have to be relaxed. If you get tense they throw you out. If you can be completely alert and at the same time be relaxed you have the secret to flying.

Our new underclassmen came in the week. There are 235 of them. That is exactly what out class started with. You should see us now. There aren't enough of us left to make a good looking formation. O'Connor, Tony Paskvan and myself all got by the twenty hour check. It is certainly disheartening to see all the boys wash out. Al least I can say I was better than 60% of them if I ever wash out.

You hear a lot about tail-spins, well I do at least four or five of them a day. We have to know how to do them just in case we go into one accidentally, we'll be able to get out of them. It's quite a sensation to spin, loop and then stall in the same operation. The hardest thing of all to do is believe it or not is to fly along straight and then roll over on your back and fly upside down.

Love and kisses As ever,

Al

P.S. I took my twenty hour check with parachute number 13. Ahem. I also got 100% in my aircraft engines and propellers.