The plane rose quickly over some nearby oil derricks which are part of the flora in Southern California. I was surprised to be able to see the sea after a few moments of climbing. At 2,000 feet the pilot idled the motor and called out the altitude for me. The sensation of speed is of course absent, and I had no idea of the duration of the hop. When descent was made I know the field looked totally unfamiliar. I could not have picked it out from among the hundreds of little squares into which populated areas are divided. One of the senses which must be developed in flying is an acuteness in recognizing characteristics of the terrain, a sense seldom possessed by a novice.
Lessons in flying cost twice as much in 1920 as they do now. Five hundred dollars was the price for ten or twelve hours instruction, and that was just half what had been charged a few years before.
When I came down I was ready to sign up at any price to have a try at the air myself. Two things deterred me at that moment. One was the tuition fee to be wrung from my father, and the other the determination to look up a woman flyer who, I had heard, had just come to another field. I felt I should be less self-conscious taking lessons with her, than with the men who overwhelmed me with their capabilities. Neta Snook, the first woman to be graduated from the Curtiss School of Aviation, had a Canuck—an easier plane to fly than a Jenny, whose Canadian sister it was. Neta was good enough to take payments for time in the air, when I could make them, so in a few days I began hopping about on credit with her. I had failed to convince my father of the necessity of my flying, so my economic status itself remained a bit in the air.
I had opportunity to get a fair amount of information about details of flying despite my erratic finances. In Northampton, where I had stayed a while after the war, I had taken a course in automobile repair with a group of girls from Smith College. To me the motor was as interesting as flying itself, and I welcomed a chance to help in the frequent pulling down and putting together which it required.
MY FIRST TRAINING SHIP, 1920
A. E., 1928
New students were instructed in planes with dual controls; the rudder and stick in the front cockpit are connected with those in the rear so that any false move the student makes can be corrected by the instructor. Every move is duplicated and can be felt by both flyers. One lands, takes off, turns, all with an experienced companion in command. When passengers are carried these controls are removed for safety’s sake with little trouble. If there is telephone connection, communication and explanation are much easier than by any methods of signs or shouting. This telephone equipment, by the way, seems to be more usual in England than here.
I am glad I didn’t start flying in the days of the “grass cutters,” which exemplified an earlier method of flying instruction. One of the amusing sights of the war training period was that of the novices hopping about the countryside in these penguin planes. They could fly only a few feet from the ground and had to be forced off to do that. The theory had been that such activity offered maximum practice in taking off and landing. In addition it was a sort of Roman holiday for the instructors—they had nothing much to do but, so to speak, wind up their play-things and start them off. And nothing very serious could happen one way or the other.