May 9, 1943

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Well Bill, it won't be long now before I'll be buzzing the old home town with a brand new P-47.

This flying business you wanted to know about is really the berries as far as I'm concerned. I've been flying for two weeks now, It seems as if I only started yesterday. Let me tell you the hours FLY by when you're up there. Don't ask me what the country look like from the air because I haven't had time to look. The guy that said you can't do two things at once is a damn liar. As things stand now, I'm already doing at least twelve difference ones. How well I'm performing these is a different story. Here's an example of an instructor talking to his student. The student can't talk. It's a one sided conversation. Here goes.

You climbing too steep. Keep that right wing up. Loosen up on those controls. Watch your altitude. Not that right wing is down again. If you don't keep that up, I'll make you put your right arm in a sling. Where are you going now? We just spent a half hour getting way up here now you're loosing your altitude in your turns? More right rudder. You'll pull the motor off it's mountings, then what will you do? Don't pull back on that stick. That's how we stall. You pulled out of that last spin too fast. Was that a 90 degree turn? That right wing is down again. The torque is pulling you left. Take a look at your air speed, doesn't mean you can let the plane go into a dive. Did you look before you made that last turn? If you did you would have seen that plane coming up on the right. Take your foot off that rudder when you get the plane in a bank.

I could go on for six pages like this. It's hard work up there an like I said I don't have time to loot that the countryside.

I'll start with my first day. The instructors call it the dollar ride. You go up for about thirty or forty minutes and he lets you hold the controls and tells you what to do. He has even let me land it. That was something the rest of the boys didn't do. He evidently thoughI was a natural because the next day Mr. Hinston, our flight commander took me up. He, by the way, determines whether we stay or not. I took it off and gave him a swell ride and brought it back down.

This is the sad part. For the last three days I can't make a nice three point landing. Mr Martin, my instructor, said I could do better my second day here. Oh well. I still have time to learn.

The whole secret to landing is in a glide with your power off and have it figured that you lose all your flying speed about three inches off the ground and you simply drop down to good old terra firma.

They make us go into spins and stall so that if it ever happens accidentally we'll know just what to do. This is really fun. To stall a plane, you simply make a climb as such an angle that the wings lose all their lift. As soon as that happens, the nose, which is of course the heaviest part drops straight down toward earth. It feels as if the earth lost it's whole bottom. To recover from a stall, you hold the plane in a dive, open your throttle wide, regain flying speed and pull out of your dive. All this takes place in the course of three seconds time and you drop into stalling position and just the instant before she stalls, pull the stick way back and kick either left or right rudder, whichever way you want to spin. Your next 1600 feet will be spent twisting earthward in a tailspin. To recover, kick opposite rudder, wait until you stop spinning, push your stick forward then back into neutral and then pull out of your dive when you gain sufficient speed.

If you don't think this is fun, you're crazy. I eat it up.

There was a test pilot here last Sunday in an advanced trainer. You should have seen that son of a so and so make that plane talk. He buzzed out barracks and it was a good thing he had retractable landing gear because he missed the two of the rood by 6 inches at about 250 miles per hour. He'd snap roll that ship 100 ft off the ground. I would love to ride with him. I'm sure I can fly. It's not that so much I worry about. It's the little thing they wash out for. One guy forgot to change the setting of his altimeter going from one field to another and today he is no more.

The washing machine has already started it's deadly  toll in our class. Some of the boys get sick every time that go up and consequent;y they quit on their own accord. You'd be surprised at some that are scared after their first ride and quit.

Let me tell you about Texas troposphere (Air). In the morning there is a slight breeze blowing and the air is smooth as grass. At noon, the wind is about twenty miles per hour and the air is so rough one can hardly believe it's possible. The only thing that could tie up with is a small block of wood in a choppy sea. That plane just bounces up and down and from one side to the other continuously. When you  hit a down draft, you drop a couple hundred feet. When you hit a thermal, the plane raises a couple hundred feet. The other day after completing three tailspins, we were higher when we finished than when we started. You figure it out. In the meantime, the instructor is beating his gums about not keeping the plane at the same altitude. At times you can point that nose toward the ground and you'll still be going up.

Love to you and Emily, As ever

Al