July 24, 1943

Switch On!!

Boy oh boy, you certainly are a couple of good hearted people, overflowing with money people. I could kiss you both (especially Emily). Thanks for the do re me, I haven't as yet decided what I'll get with it. When I do, I'll let you know.

These letters I write get farther and fewer as time marches on. I wouldn't be writing this letter now only our upperclassmen who leave next week, which in turn makes us upperclassmen, put on an airshow this morning and they made us parade for all the civilians before the show after which we were free to do what we liked.

This is what I have been doing. After leaning to land that darn thing, 60 landings in five days. They gave me my twenty hour check. I was very worried because my flight commander, who gave me my check knew I was having trouble with my landings and all the time I was learning to fly it in the air. I had an idea he was sort of gunning for me because two boys washed out this week the flew in civilian life. They got them for lack of progress. Anyway, I decided to give him a good ride. Everything went along fine until he gave me a forced landing and I overshot the field. He didn't say much. All that he said was tighten your safety belt. He took it then and practiced doing immelmanns, that like a loop only you roll out right side up on top of the loop. After that, he brought it into traffic pattern and said "OK you land it". By the way, you should have heard his the he stalled out three immelmanns in a row. Before we got on the ground he told be to be prepared for a running take-off and go on around and make a half flap landing. Flaps by the way increase your angle of glide toward the earth. One turn on the handle gives you 2 degrees of flaps. With full flaps, you come practically straight down at 90 MPH. At least it seems that way. Just before you hit the ground, you haul back on the stick, level out and hit three points. I had never used full flaps so I was having my doubts. Nobody ever uses them all but he knew if I could land with full flaps I had overcome my landing difficulties. Boy, I sat that baby down like it was on velvet. After I got out, he asked me if there were any questions. Imagine that, he didn't holler about my flying. He said I passes. Amen!!

As ever,

Al